Giorgio Trevisan - Comic artist.

I arrived in Milan in 1956 as an aspiring comic artist, and stayed with a friend who lived above an artist. This artist was given a glimpse of my work and the day after he asked to see me, this was Rinaldo D' Ami, who just then was beginning to organise the D'Ami Studio, which was to become a center for many Italian artists.

Rinaldo was an exceptional master: he was a dictator, an absolutely impossible person, but he taught a great deal to lots of people, because he was tough with you. He asked me who was my favourite artist, to which I replied Mario Uggeri because he is one of the best horse artists, and then he handed me a package full of Uggeri's work to copy: in every panel I had to reproduce all the figures from Uggeri, because in order to learn, one has to be able to copy. [Note: This is similar to the story told about Fleetway editor Leonard Matthews.]

The Amalgamated Press/Fleetway had 50 magazines of various kinds, from the sentimental to the adventurous, to the western, and we were to draw as many boards as we could because Fleetway paid the quadruple of what we were paid in Italy. The Italian magazine Il Vittorioso had to close because of that: there were no more artists! Before it closed, I had finished one story by Gino D' Antonio on Alexander the Great. For us young artists D'Antonio has been a master: we have copied all his tricks, especially in the aspects of war, the uniforms, the helmets etc.

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