I’m not surprised that comics are cheap in Italy for so many pages. Here in Japan, comics like Weekly Shonen Jump come out every week and have more than 300 pages for less than ¥300 (about $3.00). Comics books are severely overpriced in America. That’s why I stopped reading them once the cover price for a 20 page story costs more than $2.00. It’s outrageous.

Finally some English KZfaqr speaking about one of the best Italian Comic books

Dylan Dog is very popular in Serbia ( and in other ex-yugoslavia countries )...Besides marvel/dc comics he's one of my favorite characters...grucho's jokes are something that make this comic specific and enjoyable because without him stories would be pretty dark...dylan is one of the most realistic heroes ( or antiheroes ) because he gave up drink, he dont smoke, he is affraid of heights, claustrophobic, vegetarian, he always fall in love deeply and honest with almost every female client...and he is always broke :D

I was an owner of a comic book store in northern Italy at the time Dylan Dog come out. There are some funny fact related to those years. Comic book in Italy were dead since 80s because the biggest editor Editoriale Corno that had the rights to publish almost everything from Spiderman to Superman to even italian comics went bankrupt, for almost 10 years in Italy no one had the balls to publish comics, almost any comic book. Even Asterix was impossible to find, no Marvel, no DC, nothing. Only Bonelli editore kept publishing Tex with modest success and Alan Ford (another italian comic). Then Bonelli started some new comics, Martin Mystere that was influenced or influenced Indiana Jones and then Dylan Dog that was sold in a few copies. Dylan Dog was a failure at the beginning, at number 8 they were stopping the publishing, then, without any reason at all, it started selling, I was a teenager and everyone at my age started to talking about that comics because there was BLOOD, it was almost seen as a dirty thing and it was "RAD". Dylan Dog started to sell and a strange fact started, people started collecting because it became a real investment. Number 8 was considered the most rare (with absolutely no source, today has no premium price...) it was sold to something like 100 or more dollars a copy (maybe way more, it's difficult to make the count since there were no euro at the time but italian currency, Lire), and the comic book conventions that were empty until then started to being more visited, BY A LOT. So a lot of old readers discovered the imported comics and in a few years the market went crazy, everyone wanted to read comics again, some editors started to publish marvel then DC and the market come back to normal (with lows and highs like in USA). So in a way Dylan Dog saved italian comics market and everyone in Italy around 30/40 years has a good memory of that comic even if I don't read it anymore.

Real shame DD stories are not as popular in the west... Here in Serbia it is really popular. If you want cool DD stories check those written by Roberto Rechioni or Paola Barbato. Cheers!

Dylan Dog , Martin Mystery,Zagor Te -Nay. Alan Ford etc... Excellent Italian comics !

I picked up the Dylan Dog Case Files a few years ago at Barnes and Noble. It has become one of my favorite comic books as well. The series is a wonderful mixture of horror, mystery, and urban fantasy.

A few years ago a friend of mine went to Italy and brought me a one of Dylan Dog's books. I have no idea what's going on in it, but remember being struck by the gorgeous art as well as being confused by Groucho Marx.

As in Italy, Dylan Dog was was popular in Yugoslavia and after the breakeup of it-you can still find it in Croatia and Serbia most on kiosk in various types

Dylan Dog is being put out in English by Epicenter Comics. Look them up.

I have never read any Dylan Dog (though that does sound interesting), but I've been following DD's artist Gigi Cavenago on Deviant art. The guy is freaking amazing.

there was this one Dylan dog story that traumatized me as a kid, "il mosaico della morte" where a streak of deadly accidents was found to be caused by the restle soul of an old man that died alone in his home without no one to mourn, or even acknowledge his death, his loneliness trapped his soul in his body, unable to "pass over" and in a desperate attmt to gain attention he caused the killings. It remind me of those elderly people in real life that die alone, abandoned by their own families.

Thanks a lot for this video man, i'm studying to become a cartoonist here in Italy and I wish to become one of the many artists working for Dylan Dog one day. As for many Italians who love comics Dylan Dog is one of our starting point and our first love in comic, so thanks again for this video and I hope the viewers will start reading it (and forget that horrible 2014 film, it never really happened, right?). But I want to add some details to your video. There are 3 major cover artists for DyD: Claudio Villa, Angelo Stano and the actual cover artist (since 2016) Gigi Cavenago which is doing a masterpiece in every number. Tiziano Sclavi actually wrote constantly only the first 100 numbers (with few exceptions) then the writers changed every single number and that's why the quality gradually fell until 2014 when the publisher changed editor for the series employing Recchioni (former writer of some really good stories for Dyd). This new editor changed a lot of things in dyd world (like Bloch retiring and even a sci-fi story based on the movie Alien). This changes got new life to the series, but made a lot of older readers leave. So, to overcome this loss of selling, DyD got a bunch of new series: one called Dylan Dog Old Boy (literally, i'm not translating it) nothing is changed and everything is like before, another where Xabaras succeded and the zombie apocalypse arrived but Dylan is the only one not being infected called "il pianeta dei morti" (world of the dead), and Dylan Dog Color Fest which as new shorter but colored stories made by emerging artists.

Amazing video as always, as an Italian comic book fanatic I've read A LOT of Dylan Dog comics and I love to hear more about it from America. In the past few years Dylan Dog is going through a new youth: the editor-in-chief has changed, and with him new roads are being explored, the cover artist is no longer Angelo Stano but young digital artist Gigi Cavenago, new experimental editorial teams are tested in a full color series separated from the regular one and apparently even a Dylan Dog TV Show is going to be produced. Hopefully even more English publication are going to follow! As a last note, Chris if you want to explore more Italian comics I suggest to take a look at the first English edition of Andrea Pazienza's "Zanardi", published last year by Fantagraphics. Pazienza has been described as the Italian Robert Crumb but is much more than that: he had an interesting dark and cynical style, and a tragically short life: he was a wunderkind with a passion for every kind of visual art and many references to both French and American comics. In Italy he's a legend yet his works alway failed to grab international audiences, you might want to give it a go.

Italians always had great comic books. Due to their proximity to Croatia, they were very popular here too. They are kinda divided by genre. Some of the best ones (other than Dylan Dog) are Tex Willer and Zagor for westerns, Nathan Never for sfi, Martin Mysterie and Mister NO for adventures, The Great Blek and Commander Mark for pre-western era, Alan Ford for comedy etc. They are really worth the read if you can get them in English or if anyone speaks Italian or Croatian or any other language where these comics had a huge following.

I'm italian too and am glad to hear more about Dylan Dog, a really good horro comic who deserved more knwledge outside a terrible movie

Cemetery Man is messed up! I highly recommend it.

Old issues of Diabolik (accent on the o) are amazing. "Colpi di scena" = "plot twists" galore! Old issues (70s and 80s) drawn by Sergio Zaniboni are fantastic.

Bonnelli's comics have a quite different production cycle compared to those in the USA. In fact is incredibly rare to have a fixed writer for a lot of stories, even if said writer is the creator of the character. In fact only Sclavi and Castelli are prolific enough to do that. Due to the number of pages a number of teams works at the same time on a title and, with the exception of multi parts stories, there is almost no concept of author run. The result are a lot of different takes on the same character from multiple authors month by month. By the way you should really do a video on Nathan Never.

growing up in former yugoslavia we had terrific comic books, mostly Italian, Dylan Dog is my favorite, but there's also Alan Ford. Alan Ford greatly flourished because brilliant translation and was I think far more popular in yugoslavia because translators.

1.58 a italian comic with the Dutch title de wreker (the avenger) on a american KZfaq channel, now that's cosmopolitan !

Although I appreciate Hellboy, I've never followed the series, and thus was not aware of Mignola's influences. Hence, Dylan Dog looks very entertaining. And it is immensely refreshing to actually hear some substantial comics crit on typically innocuous and shallow KZfaq. When's the last time anyone related to comics on KZfaq even mentioned Klimt, Egon Schiele, Hugo Pratt (whose work I love!), or Milton Caniff. That's great work. (and funny intro as well).

Fantastic work as always! It's great to see American exposure for such deeply beloved Italian comics. Here in Italy practically every one grows up reading the Italian Topolino/Mickey Mouse comic book magazine (for which we have a huge tradition over here, and now the stories are even being published in the US by IDW) and something published by Bonelli. I wish Bonelli comics were as popular in America as they are here, since there is an astonishing amount of awesome characters and I'm sure they would find and audience, even if a niche one.

Dug your show, it brought me back to 1986 when I started reading Dylan Dog. And just as you suggested, I have a much deeper appreciation for the first 100 episodes, some of which I must have read a hundred times. Real good times

You COMPLETELY sold me when you made the Cemetery Man Dylan Dog connection... this explains why I looooove both of these movies. Kudos!!!

Love that I've been reading all sorts of comics for over thirty years, and Chris can still expose me to something I'm not familiar with.

Dylan Dog is such a great comic series. If you are American and want to pick up a good issue of the comic, check out "Mater Morbi", it has been recently printed in the US and it's the best Dylan Dog story out there!

I only found out about your channel about a week ago and binged through it. You, my friend, are amazing - and this episode (along with many others) shows the incredible passion you have for this medium and its multiple declinations. Grazie di cuore, amico mio!

I'm so happy you mentioned Corto Maltese in there! As an Italian /French, Hugo Pratt is very close to my heart. But Dylan Dog remains one of the best comic book characters out there!

Italian Comics are brilliant. I wish there would be more translations. Diabolik is a classic as well as Satanik and Kriminal.

The first DyD issue I red when I was a child was "Canale 666" (channel 666). I remember seeing a guy cut his own throat, and I couldn't sleep for days. But I was hooked. Later, I used to hide the DyD comics from my mom, cause she didn't want me to read them, as they were full of sex and gory violence. I started collecting it, I got number 1 too. Some of them are incredibly sad, like "Il lungo Addio", "Johnny Freak", or "Gor" (a special issue).Dyd was able to move me like no other comic. It' s really something to be proud of, being italian. Thanks for taking the time to review this. Too bad they give Dylan name to an horrible movie. Giuda Ballerino!!!!

My mom had this huge collection of DD comics. I remember first picking them up ten years ago when I was 17. They just kinda sat there in my room, but I never bothered to read them, I barely even noticed them. Never was the comic book type. One day out of boredom I decided to go ahead and read one, and I got HOOKED. All the issues 1-100 were there (notoriously the better ones). I spent the next several months burning through them one after the other. To this day its the only comic book series I've ever read, and I have very fond memories of it. Good times

I heard they're going to make a tv series on it in 2019 I've read a lot of comics, since I live in italy, and I really enjoyed the old classic stories, but as time goes on I find that the newer ones are more intrigueing: since number 323 (i believe, the issue is called Spazio Profondo, if you look up for Dylan Dog reboot it will show up on google) the sotries have taken a more modern turn, but still keep the character identities, adding up more and more. For example, one huge change was inspector's Bloch retirement, a sort of running theme/gag in the previous comics, that turned to reality and brought many changes. One last thing, if you really enjoy Dylan Dog, you should read Caccia alle Streghe (Witch Hunt) It's a really dark and deep issue, with a story so amazing you won't forget it I think it's the best one of the classics, amongst Gli Ucciori (The Killers), but that's just my opinion

Hello from Italy! Well I’ve been following you for a while now and I was really surprised to see you talk with such amazing knowledge about one of my favourite Italian comics! Keep it going, your work is excellent, I love every single Comics Tropes episode!

Bonelli comic series, Europe's version of USA's Marvel or DC. I recommend Martin Mystere and Zagor. Have grown up on Dylan Dog and the latter.

I find myself here after watching the 2011 movie on a whim the other night. That's amazing hearing the backstory behind this universe. The comics sound quite different from the movie, but it still sounds like an amazing concept that, like you - mashes together alot of my favorite genres. Awesome!

I also love Dylan Dog and all the Bonelli books that Dark Horse reprinted. (Martin Mystery is my fav.) But, Epicenter Comics is currently reprinting a number of Dylan Dog books in English. They have 3 or 4 out so far.

WOW cant believe you name dropped Egon Schiele, such an underrated channel! Keep up the wonderful work!

Damn Mr.Tropes! This show is so comfy and wholesome! You do so much research-- finding references and influences, facts about the creators, film adaptations-- it's great! The fanart section is really cool, and on top of that you give prizes. Not to mention that your comment section is always real positive! Keep up the great work!

I'm so happy to see someone talk about Dylan Dog. It's criminally obscure, even with the movie. Thanks, man. You rock the party that rocks the body!

I believe Inspector Bloch (if indeed that's how it's spelled) is a reference to Robert Bloch, the horror writer most famous for Psycho, who was also a protege of HP Lovecraft.

My favorite Italian comic and not only! So great to hear you liked it as well, it's not very famous in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Can i hope in a Nathan Never review sometimes in the future? It's another Bonelli italian comic about a future cop/agent, with elements of cyberpunk, classic sci-fi, psychology and hard-boiled police stories.

Dylan Dog and Zagor are my favourite. No joke, been reading them since I was 8. That's ten years now.

wonderful video, as usual. About Hugo Pratt influences with Milton Caniff you're right! I had the privilege to talk with him several times in his visits to Argentina (in fact, his first steps in the comics were done here, specially with the writing of Hector Oesterheld, the major comic writer in our long comic history), and yes, Caniff and Noel Sickles were some of his first style influences. He wasn't afraid to use the brush heavily charged with ink! A common joke among the old professionals was that, while most used ink pots, Hugo used ink barrels! One fantastic series he did with Oesterheld, Ernie Pike (based in the real war journalist Ernie Pyle) is a little masterpiece, where they showed, in the fifties, both sides at war from the human side of the characters instead of the usual "good americans-british-resistance vs. bad germans-japanese-italians" or Sgt Kirk, about a renegade soldier who lives adventures between colones and indians... Corto Maltese was his signature work, but those pre- Corto shows how this legend created a great adventure universe in the comics!

Another great Bonelli series is "Nathan Never". Unlike most italian bonelli series , at least ones i'm familiar with, has a continuity

bought a few copies of Dylan Dog when I lived in Italy, partly as a way to pick up the language, but mostly out of pure curiosity. There is a series called Nathan Never which I also really love, and have only really seen over there.

Been here since the "skunkape" days been recommending you to my friends since then I hope you continue to grow! I'm studying the Italian language so it's neat to see an Italian comic. Happy Halloween!

You done your homework as always, I'm waiting on some Corto Maltese sooner or later. Thanks and keep the good stuff coming :)

Thanks for schooling me about Italian comics. It is something about comics that I actually didn't know about.

DUDE.. you have NO IDEA how much I love ur intro!! Also GREAT VIDEO as usual!!

Wow! Thank you for talking about Dylan Dog! I became a fan probably in the beginning of the comic book.

As an Italian and an artist myself I'm really happy that someone outside Italy enjoys Dylan Dog. Please, please, please do another video about some other Italian comics. E.g. Diabolik by Angela Giussani, or Ratman by Leo Ortolani.

Love cemetary man ..watching that movie back in the early 2000s got me into dylan dog..

I've never heard of Dylan Dog before but it sounds right up my alley! I'm definitely going to keep my eye out for it.

Great video mate, Dylan Dog seems like a cool character and I can't say I've ever heard of it before. Cheers!

Excellent video Chris. Again you make a aweson job.

i was waiting for someone to talk about him thank you man

A similarity to "Dylan Dog" would be "John Constantine: Hellblazer", so if you like that you'll like "Dylan Dog". I found a couple "Dylan Dog" issues at a goodwill/second hand store here in Sweden and got hooked immediately even with my limited Italian. Cover price for the monthly is €3.20 and the maxi - which has three stories - is €6.90. The first issues have been reprinted in the "Il Dylan Dog di Tiziano Sclavi" series available on the publisher's website. December 2019 also marks the publishing of issue #500 which promises to be quite special. Unfortunately they don't ship outside the EU.

Hope you'll do a video about Diabolik too someday, that comic was ground breaking in italy, created by two sisters it was one of the very first clearly aimed at a mature audience

This was spot on! One can see the appreciation for the topic on the thoroughness of the "dive in".

Your channel is the best, thank you for teaching me about comics

Great video! There are lots of good european comics that deserve to be more spoken about. Said it once and I´ll say it again, you should do a video on Corto Maltese.

Wow. Great episode. I have never actually heard of this before, but I am a huge fan of Cemetery Man. Had the VHS tape way back in the day with I was trying to collect as many zombie movies as I could.

I read a lot of Dylan Dog as a child. Im happy you made a video about him.

Been diving deep into your channel lately. Great stuff! Thanks for covering Dylan Dog. I have all but one of the American editions and I imported a few Italian issues just for fun. (I don't speak Italian.) What a great character. I also love Cemetery Man and even enjoy the American Dylan Dog movie despite my better judgement.

great! I'm an italian fan of yours and I'm very happy to finaly see you talk about one of Italy's best comics! (we have some great stuff here, racomendations: adrea pazzienza, Jacovitti, Zerocalcare)

There is a company reprinting Dylan Dog in English, check out Epicenter Comics if you want to read any they've done 4 books so far!

In Italy stuff like Tales from the Crypt and those pulpy horror comics with graphic violence and deaths aren't really a thing, so Dylan Dog is the answer for that. The comics are also littered with movie references and Dylan's takes on plots of various films (there's one that is heavily inspired by Silence of the Lambs, and in 2014 they made a color special comic set in space that is basically Alien meets Event Horizon) so this comic is everything my teen self in 2012 subscribed to Cinemassacre wanted. I collected a lot of great issues and they give me high school nostalgia. They're not as great as those made in the glory days, but very solid stories still come out. I really hope in the future they translate and publish in English all the most popular numbers, I think many Americans (and Brits since the story is mainly set in England and London) would REALLY dig it. Rat-Man is also another phenomenal Italian comic, so meta, satirical and deconstructive about superheroes (Deadpool does it in an exploitative way, Rat-Man is satirical but the comedy is intercut with real characters and a well written storyline with deep themes, it's not all shits and giggles, the storyline keeps readers coming back), but a lot of jokes would be hard to translate in English.

Your videos are great. You talk about a lot of stuff that you don't see in other places and it's all very informative. Thanks for the videos. I thought I was subscribed to your channel, but I noticed I was not. Time to correct that. Thanks for the videos.

The absurdity of the intros is what I most look forward to. This one is a top pick

Wow, great episode! Thanks for all the great information here. =)

This channel deserves tons of money!

You should do a Hugo Pratt/Corto Maltese video one day...

Never thought I see Tex mentioned in your channel, lol (I absolutely love it). Bonelli is pretty consistent, you don't often see some story of theirs that sucks.

I bought Dylan Dog 6 when it came out in the stores in the late 80s and was an unknown novelty. I continued reading them till after issue 100, but like you said it became more formulaic and predictable after that. However in the first 100 there are several great stories, the earlier ones especially. Great video, by the way. You made really good research.

Please do a retrospective of the Phantom. He is more popular in Australia and Scandinavia than in his home country and the possible reasons for that are what is interesting.

Good stuff! Now do Martin Mystère or Martin Mystery, that also got a Dark Horse reprint at the same time as Dylan Dog

Dylan Dog is probably the best horror comic running. Wish there were more translations out there.

I'm so glad you're talking about Dylan Dog. Some of the stories can be a bit hit or miss, again like every comic or series(especially after all these years) but the art is always top notch. Many famous Italian artists started their careers in a comic by Bonelli. When the story is good or great, then you have some incredible graphic novels. Some of them made me weep like a small child, some of them haunted me for years. Another great thing about the comic is the "banality" of horror and evil. Very rarely the stories are about world changing events, most of the times life goes on without even noticing that something happened. Yeah, a serial killer killed a dozen people, that happens in our world too and people just forget about it after a week. What the average person doesn't know is the killer was actually an athlete in a "sporting" event organised by the underworld, to see who is the better killer. Why is that? Because the afterlife is incredibly boring and they needed a distraction. That's it. Brilliant in its macabre irony. Btw Groucho knows he looks like Groucho Marx, his job used to be a Groucho Marx lookalike, there even is a story where we see there's a Society of Groucho Marx impersonators, that all look and talk like him. Surreal and hilarious.

Wonderful video, as always, and thank you!

seems like trying to find the "dylan dog case files" at a reasonable price is almost impossible. out of print sucks. damn you for making want to read hard to find books ;-)

Thank you for this. You captured perfectly what makes DD great and why an American wouldn't feel "lost". Btw, in Italy too the opinion was that post-100 DD is in a... zombie simpsons state so to speak. Some later jewel exists, like Ghost Hotel (#146) and the essential #121. Now they rebooted it, I don't even dare to take a look.

Thank you for showing us something we wouldn’t usually be exposed to. Keep doing what you’re doing Chris!

Very rich review!!! Thank you Chris!!!

Once again very very cool! Ty Chris!

As of late I've been going back to collecting Jamie Delano's Hellblazer, as well as 2020Visions. How does Dylan Dog compare to those and are you planning on dedicating them an episode? What about another Sergio Bonelli Editore's comic, Nathan Never, this one a kind of cyberpunk which repurposes many of the mechanical designs of artists such as Masamune Shirow? I like that one.

Great video (as usual) about the best comic book series of all time probably. I'm so glad I can read Italian :) Are you familiar with Nathan Never ?

Dylan Dog - Number 48 - Horror Paradise - by Claudio Castellini Some insane drawing skills by the artist

"Julia" is another great comic by Bonelli. Highly recommended!

Great, informative video! (And a quick shout-out to Epicenter Comics who have done a great job reprinting 4 newer Dylan Dog comics!)

I remember Amiga game based on this from looong time ago.

Oh man, your channel is making me spend a lot of money... not complaining!

DD was the first comic I ever read, I picked up a big compilation because I was super into horror when I was in elementary school, haven't heard about it in awhile, gonna have to revisit it now!

Dylan dog is dope ! maybe do a episode of the manga Berserk? it has a lot of tropes - peace

I especially love horror movies, but horror comics aren't bad either. I also liked the mention of Corto Maltese a true master of the world comic scene so much, that every comic fan regardless of nationality should read it. Congratulations for the video, you made it very well.

Love the channel!

Great Video! Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the background, was curious why Dylan Dog was after reading his crossover with Batman.

i like the fan art you post, fun video