Romics 25th edition 4 to 7 April 2019
Igort has been working since the end of the 70’s as comic-books author, illustrator, essayist and musician. He divides his life between Paris and his Sardinia. At the end of the 70’s some of his first stories appeared on the magazine "Il pinguino", founded by him, which also saw the collaboration of Giorgio Carpinteri, Lorenzo Mattotti, Daniele Brolli, Roberto Baldazzini. In the 80’s his works appeared on the pages of many National and International magazines such as "Linus", "Alter", "Frigidaire", "Metal Hurlant", "L'echo des Savanes", "Vanity", "The Face".
In 1983, together with Brolli, Carpinteri, Jori, Kramsky and Mattotti, he founded Valvoline, a group of authors that, taking direct inspiration from historical avant-guardes, messed up the rules of the traditional adventure comics. His works arrived in America and Japan. In the second half of the 80’s he founded various magazines including "Dolce vita", "Fuego", "Due", "Black". His works are regularly published in France and in several countries.
Since the 90’s he has been publishing in Japan the series "Amore", set in Sicily, and "Yuri", both published by Kodansha.
He moved to Tokyo. He worked in some special editions of the eminent Magazine House Tokyo, Hon Hon Do and others. In 1987 the Oscar-awarded musician Ryuichi Sakamoto called him for a collaboration: a four-handed story released in Japan and Italy.
In 2000 he founded Coconino Press, a publishing house which has made known in Italy the international masterpieces of the graphic novel. In 2002 he published “5 Is the Perfect Number’’ (Coconino Press), a noir set in Naples simultaneously released in 6 countries and awarded as book of the year at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2003. The following “Fats Waller” (Coconino Press), is an imaginative biography of one of the most popular jazz musician of the 30’s, in collaboration with the great argentinian scriptwriter Carlos Sampayo. After moving to Parigi he started the series Baobab simultaneously published in Italy, France, Spain, Holland, Germany and United States. In 2010, after a long stay in Ucraina, Russia and Siberia Igort wrote and illustrated ‘’Ukrainian Notebooks’’ (Strade Blu - Mondadori). In 2011 saw the light "Russian Notebooks"(Strade Blu - Mondadori), an illustrated reportage in the footsteps of the russian journalist Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaja. In 2015 he published “Japanese Notebooks”, a comics memoir of his japanese period, a highly successful in Europe.
His work of documentary and essay writing through the language of graphic novel also came in America. “Ukrainian Notebooks” and “Russian Notebooks” were published by Simon & Schuster, one of the greatest american publishers and have reached – never happened before to an italian author -– theTop Ten of the prestigious New York Times Review of Books.
“Japanese Notebooks”, after the european successful (they are currently in competition also at the Liber Barcelona) will be published in May by Chronicle Books, one of the most prestigious publishers for illustrated books, which is inaugurating with Igort its graphic novel sector.
In 2016 Igort founded Oblomov which publishes graphic novels and literature.
His graphic novel: "5 Is the Perfect Number" is about to become a film. In the mean time he is working on the series Baobab and writing scripts for cinema.