Alfonso Azpiri is a Spanish comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 artist, whose work is mainly of the adult variety.

Azpiri was born in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

. His early work was published in the 1970s and was mainly aimed at the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 market which then welcomed stories containing a mixture of horror, sex and nudity. Azpiri's work, drawn in a comical style, featured amply breasted women getting involved with werewolves, mummies, vampires and the Frankenstein monster.

His work has been translated and published in a number of magazines, including Heavy Metal and Penthouse Comix

Penthouse Comix

Penthouse Comix was initially an American mass-market, magazine-sized comic book, published by Penthouse International from its inception in spring 1994 through July 1998, and thereafter by General Media Communications, parent company of Penthouse magazine. Initially edited by writers George...

. His style is easily recognisable, especially his lavishly elegant and sensual, pouting females.

He has been mainly involved in the science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 and fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 genre, often with a decidedly erotic slant. His fantasy stories range from sword and sorcery

Sword and sorcery

Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...

 to the 1001 Arabian Nights type. He also raises the issue of conflict between peoples, such as in science fiction stories where the inhabitants of soon-to-be colonised planets are massacred so that humans from Earth can move in.

One of his most recurring characters is Lorna, a Barbarella

Barbarella (comic book)

Barbarella is a fictional heroine in the French science fiction comic book created by Jean-Claude Forest. He created the character for serialisation in the French magazine V-Magazine in spring 1962, and in 1964 Eric Losfeld later published these strips as a stand-alone book, under the title...

-like space adventurer who travels the galaxy accompanied by two droids, the R2D2-like ADL and the C3PO-like Arnold. Arnold's main function is to satisfy the ever-passionate Lorna whenever there are no human males, females or suitably endowed aliens available. Also, appropriately enough, Lorna's principal enemy, the crime lord Mouse, bears some resemblance to Jabba the Hutt

Jabba the Hutt

Jabba the Hutt is a fictional character in George Lucas's space opera film saga Star Wars. Designed as a large, slug-like alien, his appearance has been described by film critic Roger Ebert as "Dickensian," a cross between a toad and the Cheshire Cat....

.

Less adult-oriented, and suitable for younger readers, was Mot, the adventures of a boy called Leo who finds himself plagued by a large, friendly but cumbersome and destructive monster. This was turned into a cartoon series and broadcast on France's Canal Plus.

Azpiri's other productions include Chang, telling the adventures of a martial artist and detective.

Both Lorna and Mot were featured in video games, Lorna by Topo Soft

Topo Soft

Topo Soft was one of the Spanish software house for 8-bit home computers that emerged during the eighties. They were part of the Golden Era of Spanish Software. It disappeared due to economic problems in the nineties related with the late arrival of 16-bit computers in Spain...

 and Mot by Opera Soft

Opera Soft

Opera Soft was one the most prolific Spanish computer game developers of the so-called Golden Era of Spanish Software of the 1980s. It released many games for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and similar computers in the mid-1980s, but its games were not as popular on the PC...

.

English bibliography

• Black Hawk (in Tornado, 1979-80)
• Reflections (1993)
• Sensations (2000, art book)
• Wet Dreams (2001)
• Wet Dreams II: The Players (2006)

Lorna

• Lorna and Her Robot (1981)
• The New Adventures of Lorna and Her Robot (1984)
• Mouse Club (1996)
• Leviathan (1998)
• The Ark (1999)
• The Eye of Dart an Gor (2006)

Bethlehem Steele (in Penthouse Comix, 1994–1995)

• Pirate Hearts (by Garry Leach
  Garry Leach
  -Biography:Garry Leach studied Graphic Design at St. Martin's School of Art. He was first noted for his early work for 2000 AD, which was mainly on one-off stories featuring Dan Dare and M.A.C.H. 1. He then became a fan-favourite for his work on the series The VCs.In 1981 he joined Dez Skinn's...
  
  )
• Tanaka
• Slave Wars
• Sweet Torture (gallery)
• Beth Meets Lorna

External links

• Web site
• http://www.balieristudio.es/web/index.php LORNA ANIMATED