Comic Art of Enrico ET Trentin

At the recently concluded Schio Cosplay festival, Breganze Comics had organised some tables for artists involved in making comic-art, to showcase their art and some of their published books. During the festival, I was able to speak to two of those writer-artists: Enrico Trentin and Marco Rosestolato.

This blogpost is about Enrico ET Trentin and our discussions. I will write another post about Marco Rosestolato. The image below presents some examples of Enrico ET Trentin's art (click on the pics for a bigger view).

Let me start with an introduction to Breganze Comics, the local group in Alto Vicentino area, which brings together the different artists involved in making illustrated books.

Breganze Comics

This is the 50th anniversary year of the Breganze Comics, which brings together and promotes the so called, "ninth art", the art of creating comics. They organise exhibitions, meetings with the authors, comic-art courses in the schools, etc. and support the growth of new artists-authors.

Comic Art or Graphic Art

I feel that there is no right word which defines the work of the persons making comic-art - their work is not limited to making "comics" targeted at teenagers, some of the books are adult fiction. Perhaps that's why some of them prefer calling themselves Graphic artists.

However, many of them are not only artists, they are also the writers of their stories and some of them also publish their books. So a better description for them can be writer-artist-publisher.

Writer-Artist Enrico ET Trentin 

Enrico has an art diploma from the Art Institute of Nove (VI) and has been engaged in making comics since 2001. He prefers making comics on humorous themes.

Important works: He started as an author for a magazine called "Prezzemolo" distributed by the well-known Italian theme-park called Gardaland.

Usually, author-artists of comics remain hidden and people only see their work. However, in May 2004, Enrico started an experimental blog-strip called NestoRe, in which he became visible, as he interacted with the character of his strip, making comments and having a dialogue. This experiment became a big success as the NestoRe comic-strip was reproduced in a large number of magazines, books and anthologies, and his name became familiar. NestoRe has a Facebook page, where you can take a look at some of its illustrations. (image below, the cover of a NestoRe book)

The fame achieved through NestoRe, brought Enrico in contact with a well-known Italian rock-band music group called Elio e Le Storie Tese. He asked the members of the rock-group to design the NestoRe comic strip number one thousand. Later, he also wrote and illustrated a series of books titled, "Storie Tese Illustrate", an authorised biography of the rock-band in 4 volumes between 2013 to 2016. This major creative work of Enrico is spread over 1400 pages and took almost 10 years to do research, write and illustrate. These volumes were sold at the concerts of the rock-band. (Below: the covers of the 4 volumes of Storie Tese Illustrate)

Since, 2021, he is engaged in another series of comics called "Gli Erquloidi" (the title can be loosely translated as the The Herculoids) about a group of tired heroes. He had first started making this comic while he was studying at the art institute in Nove 38 years ago. For this work, he does everything, from writing and designing to page-layouts and publication design. So far 17 comics of this series have been published, with about 650 illustration-panels. He says that he still feels the same enthusiasm for these comics that he used to feel as a sixteen years old in the school. (Left - Enrico with some volumes of Erquloidi)

Becoming a Comic Writer-Artist:  Enrico says that before becoming a writer and artist, he was and continues to be an avid reader, reading different genres of books. From his childhood, he had a special passion for illustrated story books, which stimulated his fantasies and allowed him to explore the imaginary universes. From a passionate reader, it was a natural evolution, in trying to understand how such stories were constructed, designing them and slowly improving his skills.

He Reads:  Enrico started with humorous comics because he loves most reading them, though he reads all the different genres. Among the other comics he likes to read are the super-heroes of Marvel universe, the Japanese Manga comics, the heroes of Bonelli and different French-Belgian authors.

His Evolution As a Comic Writer-Artist: In all these years, he has continued to work with the humorous comics but instead of working on characters created by others (for example, Prezzemolo for Gardaland) to his own comic-strip (NestoRe), to illustration (Storie Tese Illustrate) and now the comic books (Gli Erqucloidi), bringing together the experience from the last 25 years.

Use of Technology in the Comic Art: Enrico says that computers, graphic tablets and programmes can be useful if one does not wish to design and colour on paper. He feels that those who are used to designing on paper with pencils and colours, can easily use the technology, but it does not work the other way round.

He is not hostile to use of technology, after years of designing on paper with the China ink, he started designing NestoRe strips almost entirely in digital format. He mixes his use of traditional artwork with technology, using sometimes paper and pen and sometimes computers. For example, he designs on paper, then scans and uses a graphic programme for page layout and inserting the text.

The Future with AI: Enrico feels that AI and comics are not a good combination. Comics, both for stories and illustrations, should remain with "natural intelligence". The text of the comics should reflect the ideas and personality of the author and not the ideas copied from others. He feels afraid that someone who has been trained on models of work of others, can copy and come out with something similar instead of expressing original ideas.

His ideas about the design are also similar. He would prefer an error in the anatomy or an unbalanced perspective, instead of creating by taking or copying pieces of works and styles of different artists. The comic should continue to be a personal message of its author, and not something prepared by a machine - then what would be the use of us humans and anyway, AI does not have a sense of humour.

You can check Enrico's work on his Instagram page, and Facebook page. 

In The End

I grew up reading the Phantom comics and occasionally, Archies. At that time, I was not aware of serious fiction in the form of graphic novels. While growing up, the general attitude was that comics are not "books", they are only timepass and somehow inferior.

I was introduced to the Manga comics by my son in Italy and I could understand its attraction for young readers. However, it was not until I met some writer-artists and saw the kind of creative work that goes into creating a comic and a graphic novel, that I understood its importance as an art-form.

I feel that persons engaged in writing and illustrating stories need to bring together the different sensibilities and skills of narrative writing, designing, illustrating, directing and shooting films, and to do all this requires a different kind of creativity.

It was a pleasure to meet Enrico ET Trentin and to learn about his experiences as a writer-artist. 

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