2009
Dimensions 21 x 23 cm.
Paperback
Cover with flaps
ISBN 978-88-95642-32-4
pp.160, ill. 139

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Presentation by:
Ermete Realacci
Honorary President of Legambiente
... In a time when there is an overabundance of information and a profusion of debates and reasoning, satire and comic books are able to capture and reduce stories to a manageable size that we might otherwise be unaware of, and to highlight contradictions that habit has made us blind to. I will take the opportunity here in this book to start with the contradictions, but those into which at times even environmentalism falls. Because, if environmentalism wishes to share diagnosis and criticism with satire, and if it wishes to avoid becoming one of those "ideas that wither away and die without even offering a greeting" in the "Italian night" of Ivano Fossati, it must also be able to offer feasible solutions…

MACCHEARIACHEFA
Cartoons and satire in defence of the environment

Edited by Claudio A. Colombo


An incredible army, both picturesque and troubled, featuring several of the best Italian satirists and comic-book writers, reflects on the state of our planet: 150 plates discuss everything related to the environmental protection of our world, with all of the determination of artists "able to tell the true story of the reality around us, who go beyond appearances, even at the cost of slightly forcing the forecasts of a planet in collapse, imagining an imminent future in which air will be a miracle and flowers just a memory of a lost world, sunk in a sea of filth, waste, slag, gas and indifference", as the editor Claudio Colombo writes. The book hits its target in the bull's eye because "satire and comic-books", writes Ermete Realacci in the presentation, "are able to capture and reduce stories to a manageable size that we might otherwise be unaware of, and to highlight contradictions that habit has made us blind to". The hope of the book is that a new form of presentation – one appreciated by the young – can bring the theme of the environment closer to the reader and stimulate new commitment for an ecologically sustainable future. The book is aimed at a broad public, young and adult, those who have a particular penchant for comic books, satire and social commitment.


Claudio A. Colombo, advertising journalist, has worked for years at the Società Umanitaria in Milan. An avid fan of comic books, he has edited Totò modo. Grafica Satira e Fumetto, Alla garibaldina. Vignette, disegni e illustrazioni per l’Eroe dei Due Mondi. He was also the force behind Cielo di piombo. Fumetti e satira contro l’inquinamento and Maldaria, of which Maccheariachefa is the final, revised and corrected compendium. As a researcher, he authorised the series of centenaries of the Società Umanitaria, editing two editions: Spazio ai caratteri. L’Umanitaria e la Scuola del Libro and Una Casa per gli Emigranti. An untiring collector of contemporary declarations and bon mots, he has also published La grande ammucchiata and Deputati a far ridere.