Giuseppe Bergman is the Candide

Candide

Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...

-like protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

 of the works of Italian cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

 Milo Manara

Milo Manara

Maurilio Manara – known professionally as Milo Manara – is an Italian comic book writer and artist, best known for his erotic approach to the medium.-Career:...

. The anti-heroic Italian youth stars in four graphic novel

Graphic novel

A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

s (comic books) which are an ironic deconstruction

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...

 of adventure stories and comic books as a medium.

The first adventure, later collected for publication as HP et Giuseppe Bergman (The Great Adventure in Catalan’s English translation), was originally serialized in the legendary comics magazine À Suivre

À Suivre

or was a Franco-Belgian comics magazine published from February 1978 to December 1997 by the Casterman publishing house....

beginning in 1978. Giuseppe Bergman appears as a dissatisfied 20-something longing for adventure. Seeking it, he responds to the advertisement of a mysterious company which sends him to HP, "the adventure master”: a caricature of and homage to famed Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt

Hugo Pratt

Hugo Eugenio Pratt was an Italian comic book creator who was known for combining strong storytelling with extensive historical research on works such as Corto Maltese...

. Bergman finds himself confronted by hoodlums, rioters, white slavers, drug addicts, revolutionaries, and natives, but his adventures are bumbling disasters as he is consistently unprepared for the situations he encounters. In later adventures, collected in the graphic novels An Author in Search of Six Characters, Dies Irae, Perchance to Dream, and To See the Stars, Bergman’s frustrating adventures take him through Africa, India, and the world of European art. Themes of art and illusion

Illusion

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people....

, fantasy and frustration, responsibility

Moral responsibility

Moral responsibility usually refers to the idea that a person has moral obligations in certain situations. Disobeying moral obligations, then, becomes grounds for justified punishment. Deciding what justifies punishment, if anything, is a principle concern of ethics.People who have moral...

 and human nature

Human nature

Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....

run through the stories.

Milo Manara is best known for his erotic work. This is an aspect of the Bergman stories which, while originally making an intellectual point, gradually comes to take over the series as a whole.