Milo Manara was born September 15, 1945 in Luson, Italy. He began drawing comic strips in 1959, his first work appearing as 'fumetti', cheap Italian paperback-sized comic books.

Manara's reputation as an artist/writer was established in 1976 by a story he wrote and illustrated for Pilote, "Le roi des singes". The story was followed by the adventures of the character Giuseppe Bergman, a series based on Manara's experiences during the student unrest of the late '60's. "Jour de colère" appeared in 1979, followed by "Rêver peut-être" the following year.

Manara had used the initials 'H.P.' in the title of one of his Giuseppe Bergman stories as an homage to the Italian comics artist/writer Hugo Pratt. The two became friends and in 1981 Pratt began writing two stories for Manara: "Un été indien", and "El Gaucho", the latter finished just before Pratt's death of cancer in 1983. Manara then created the soft-porn series "Déclic" which established his reputation as THE European erotic artist and has continued through 5 volumes.

In 1987 Manara had created movie posters for films by the famous Italian film director, Federico Fellini. In 1990 the pair collaborated on comic strip versions of two Fellini screenplays: "Voyage à Tulum" and "Le Voyage de G. Mastorna". Manara created "Gullivera", an erotic parody on Jonathan Swift, in 1996 and "Revoir les étoiles", the last adventure of Giuseppe Bergman to date, in 1998.

Milo Manara's most recent work is the series "Aphrodite", an adaptation of the erotic novel by Pierre Louÿs, which began in 1999.

written by Andy Etris