RIP Pierluigi Sangalli

 

Farewell to Pier Luigi Sangalli, the father of Geppo and Popeye

A protagonist of the world of comics in Italy has died at the age of 86: he also signed on Felix, Topo Gigio and Superboy. The funeral on Saturday in Villasanta.

il Cittadino

3/14/2025

 

A life for pencils, which began at school, when he portrayed his classmates. Then he never stopped and became one of the protagonists of Italian comics. The world of comics that has to say goodbye to Pier Luigi Sangalli, father of Popeye and many other characters who have studded the imagination of generations of Italians: he passed away on Thursday 13 March, at the age of 86.

Raised in Villasanta, the municipality where he still lived, he was born in Monza in November 1938. As the Brianza-based Fossati Foundation, which manages the Wow space in Milan (Museum of Comics), recalls, around 1954 he had begun to make caricatures of friends and teachers, on the desks that would have guaranteed him a diploma as a commercial expert. But that was not his path, at least the one he dreamed of: and in fact immediately after the certificate, in 1958, he began to collaborate with the magazine Soldino of the Il Ponte editions founded by Renato Bianconi and began to draw characters such as Blick and Block, Devy Crock, Pignatta, Giannina Calamity and the famous Geppo, for which he also wrote the screenplays: he is the little devil such by misfortune, because he falls from heaven unconscious at the revolt of Satan, whose attempts at "devilry" turn into good deeds. Geppo then became a title in its own right in 1960, with Alberico Motta, and thus were born the snake Salvatore, Beelzebub, the cat Caligula "and characters for complementary stories such as Zurlino, Marinetto, Superboy, Merlotto, prof. Rotella, Al Gallina, Baciccia, Trachea and Dormy West", writes the Foundation chaired by Luigi Bona.

Farewell to Pierluigi Sangalli: the funeral on Saturday in Villasanta

In 1963 the adventure of the production of Popeye's stories began, which would end only in 1998, in which Pier Luigi Sangalli was an essential illustrator: another Bianconi editorial acronym, Gem, i.e. Grafica editoriale Metro, sent them to the newsstands: there the Villasante also designed all the covers. Among the other characters who passed through his pencils, Provolino, Felix, Pinocchio, Chico and Saruzzo. Between 1993 and 1997 he also produced the stories of Topo Gigio for FPM Editore.

"The world of Italian comics loses a great author – wrote the My Comics news page – who contributed copiously to marking a golden age (he was active from the 50s to the 90s of the last century): Felix, Trottolino, Nonna Abelarda, Mago Merlotto and many others mourn his death from their fantastic world". The funeral will be celebrated on Saturday 15 March at 3.30 pm in the parish church of Sant'Anastasia in Villasanta.

"Pier Luigi Sangalli is part, without the slightest doubt, of the Great History of Italian Comics - wrote Antonio Marangi on the online head Sbam! who in 2021 had edited the volume The Best of Popeye for Salani (372 pages, paperback, Nuvole Salani, 16.90 euros) -. With his stories, his tens of thousands of plates, the hundreds of covers for as many comic books that invaded Italian newsstands for decades, he colored the childhood of entire generations, including Geppo, Popeye and many other characters. So far the artist. But today, on the sad day of his death, we want to think back to him, to Pier Luigi, a kind and helpful person, a mine of anecdotes and stories, a man with a perennial enthusiasm in his eyes in talking about his characters, in exchanging jokes with lifelong colleagues, the late Alberico Motta and our dearest Sandro Dossi".

SANGALLI, Pieruluigi

Born: 11/5/1938, Monza, Lombardy, Italy

Died: 3/13/2025, Italy

 

Pierluigi Sangalli’s westerns- comic book artist:

Devy Crock – 1958

Dormy West – 196?