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Fuochi

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Italian

70 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

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184 people want to read

About the author

Lorenzo Mattotti

116 books90 followers
Lorenzo Mattotti is an Italian comics and graphic artist living in Paris. A frequent contributor of covers for The New Yorker, he's recognized as one of the most outstanding international exponents of comics art. Mattotti won an Eisner Award for his graphic novel Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. He collaborated with Lou Reed in re-imaging Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.

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5 stars
81 (33%)
4 stars
105 (43%)
3 stars
41 (17%)
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13 (5%)
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
Profile Image for Roberto.
627 reviews1 follower
August 7, 2017

Sperimentazione d'autore

Parole e immagini.

Come in un'opera lirica le parole hanno il compito di raccontare e la musica di trasmettere emozioni e pensieri, allo stesso modo in quest'opera del 1984 il racconto è lasciato alle poche parole, che tra l'altro si riducono progressivamente al procedere della storia; la trasmissione di sensazioni ed emozioni è lasciata alle immagini, ai colori, alle forme, alle sfumature.

Tavole bellissime, quasi impressionistiche in certi momenti, espressionistiche in altri, che si apprezzano ancora di più per il grande formato. Colori meravigliosi, una tecnica sopraffina.

La bellezza dei disegni, quasi pittura oserei dire, mi è parsa perfino esagerata per il soggetto.

Una storia ermetica, non facile da seguire, ossessiva e ossessionante, raccontata in modo assolutamente non convenzionale.

Nel suo genere sicuramente quest'opera di Lorenzo Mattotti è un capolavoro.
Profile Image for John Pistelli.
Author 9 books363 followers
December 3, 2015
This short, classic Italian graphic novel of 1986 is more like a poem than anything else. It takes a fairly familiar topic—the colonial encounter between a mechanized imperial civilization and a civilization without a state and without complex technological development—and performs a colorful fantasia, less narrative than lyric.

It concerns a Colonel Absinthe who serves on the ship Anselm II. This warship is on a mission to assess and possibly to destroy the natives of the island of Saint Agatha, which is about to be annexed by the “new state of Sillantoe.”

Already, these names suggest some allegory: according to the Internet, Saint Agatha is the patron saint of fire and is renowned for her resistance to the Roman Empire; Anselm II was a medieval pope who defended the rights of the church, as against the state, to appoint figures who combined temporal and spiritual authority, such as bishops and abbots (thus, unlike Agatha, he represents a commingling of spiritual power with political power); and Absinthe conjures up bohemia and the lives of garret-bound artists, or, to put it another, that part of the middle and upper classes in modernity that rejects their class position to pursue spiritual ends, what the sociologist of art Pierre Bourdieu calls “the dominated fraction of the dominant class”. (I have no idea what “Sillantoe” is supposed to evoke, however.)

The story in Fires is simple: Colonel Absinthe defects from his mission and follows a pair of mysterious twins into the fiery island, where he, in the old colonial phrase, “goes native.” He fights to “preserve the mystery of Saint Agatha…this island which has set his mind on fire.” This leads to his imprisonment by his shipmates and a final battle between the naval force and the natives of the island. Mattotti’s poetic narration tells us that the colonizers “would soon vomit out a torrent of fire to defend themselves against other fires they couldn’t manage to understand.” In other words, machine civilization is based on a rationalization of fire, which word we can take to signify passion, desire, and the unconscious, as well as the literal flames of industry and weaponry. For this reason, it must put out the rival and unrationalized fires of other places and ways of life.

For most of my reading of this comic, I found it a bit too pat, if pleasingly lyrical. But the ending, which reveals the entire text to be the work of a painter who lives in “a suburban apartment…full of totems and ritual objects” redeems the narrative. This is not a neat denunciation of colonialism, but an allegory for the various fires—rationalized and unnationalized—that war in the soul of the artist, the figure in modernity who is least cut off from the knowledge of those other fires that modernity has put out. “Absinthe” turns out to be the key word—it names the artist’s passport to the psychedelia that would interfere with any attempt to “civilize” the world. But the story ends with the painter renouncing the fires: “I’ve had enough of that fire illuminating the night. In my head I want the daylight.” Relocating the conflict, and its cessation, from history to the inner life of the artist allows this work to be more honest about its own place in the history it evokes; it would be too simple for the modern western artist to denounce imperialism and technology, since he is in so many ways their beneficiary if not their product, even as his subjectivity both resists and adorns them. This is scrupulous writing.

Fires is justly celebrated for its art, which combines various currents of modernism (Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and more) with an almost Disney-like expressivity and simplification of character. And Mattotti’s use of color—gray and blue for the battleship; black and red for the fiery island, until they swirl together in their conflict—creates an atmosphere that communicates the themes almost through visuals alone. And the modulation to a soft yellowish Impressionist’s palette at the end is a welcome shock. His storytelling—simple in its use of a six-panel grid—mostly gets out of the way to let the prose-poetry of the narration and the vigor of the color and design set the reader’s own mind on fire.
Profile Image for StrictlySequential.
3,987 reviews20 followers
July 17, 2023
This gem is my favorite Catalan so far- and Mattotti in general is so expressively dynamic!

I could praise at length but for now:
It's an emotionally ravishing story about the evils of humanity and one man who's had enough. It's BRILLIANT in story and the art is a wonderful example of Mattotti's awe-inspiring singular style!
Profile Image for Bob Fish.
514 reviews71 followers
March 22, 2025
Mattotti

A grandmaster of art comics, every frame is a painting, his colors are popping, his black and white pen lines are amazing, all of this full of emotion & honesty!
Fires is probably my favorite!

I tried to showcase Mattotti's work in 1 minute :
https://youtu.be/Gdq0TgRcf9M
32 reviews
February 15, 2025
In “fuochi” i colori urlano, le parole pesano, le immagini sono vive, squarciano la pagina bucando la bidimensionalità.
Mattotti ha creato un capolavoro, dove la poesia si unisce all’arte pittorica, dove l’onirico si fonde col reale, dove l’intangibile diventa tangibile.
Profile Image for Altair.
13 reviews3 followers
October 6, 2011
This is a very important comic book for me.
While I can feel why it touches me so much, it is not easy to describe. Mattotti is a master in using colors and pastels to its highest level, and I think the combination of this story AND his incredibly masterful use of colors, achieve to be a gem of a comic book.
The story and artwork are playing with the perception of the reality of the main protagonist. The way nature vs. human reality is presented through the main character’s "folly" or "hallucination" is full of poetic imagery that speaks to me as subliminal messages.
If you are for a poetic ride, this comic book is for you!!!
Profile Image for Brent.
2,248 reviews195 followers
August 19, 2012
Way better the second time read, 25 years later... whoa! What a cool book.
You may know Mattotti from his wonderful New Yorker covers.
This is a piece of magical, colorful comics I neglected upon its translation in late 1980s.
wondering what happened to the publisher, Catalan Communications: here are a few clues, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_...
Highly recommended!
Profile Image for Silvia.
39 reviews2 followers
September 6, 2025
Rapisce
Il volume ripubblica una storia uscita per la prima volta a puntate su Alter Alter nel 1984. In quegli anni Mattotti faceva parte, con Igort, Carpinteri, Brolli e Jori, del gruppo Valvoline: tutti vicini alla lezione del fumetto argentino di José Muñoz e Carlos Sampayo, come riporta la preziosa introduzione di Daniele Barbieri.
Introduzione che è un ottimo aiuto perché il lettore possa comprendere l'allegoria della storia raccontata in Fuochi: un percorso interiore che si snoda tra i due poli rappresentati dalla nave Anselmo II e dall'isola di Sant'Agata e che porta il protagonista, il tenente Assenzio, a seguire un destino che si fa ineluttabile via via che la vicenda procede.
Le sensazioni e la consapevolezza delle proprie emozioni da parte di Assenzio si intensificano col procedere della narrazione, così da un lato l'uso espressionistico del colore si fa più evidente e catalizza le emozioni, dall'altro i tratti dei personaggi mutano e rivelano ispirazioni mutuate da Picasso o Francis Bacon.
Nulla è lasciato al caso.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Alten.
64 reviews3 followers
October 16, 2017
Für "Feuer" wurde Mattotti mit etlichen Preisen überhäuft. Sein expressionistischer Zeichenstil wurde gelobt, wie auch seine Ölpastel-und-Buntstift-Technik und sein Spiel mit Dunkelheit und grellen Farben. 1985 erschien "Fuocchi" bereits, wurde aber erst sechs Jahre später in Deutschland veröffentlicht. Im Kern geht es um die Erkundung einer mysteriösen Insel durch italienische Soldaten.

Wie sind diese Menschen dargestellt? Selbst schon wie seelenlose Ausgeburten des technischen Monstrums aus dem sie strömen (dem Panzerkreuzer Anselm II), wie Figuren, die Schatten statt Augen oder Masken statt Gesichtern besitzen. Häufig greift Mattotti auf eine Gegenüberstellung des geometrisch-geradlinigen Panzerkreuzers und der wilden und bunten Vegetation der Insel Sankt Agatha zurück. Auf der Insel wird der Expeditionsleiter Absinth und seine Truppe von den schaurigen, flammenden Geistern (oder was der Autor hier darstellen wollte) abgefangen, die sich gegen das Eindringen zur Wehr setzen und den Kreuzer in einer apokalyptischen Feuersbrunst untergehen lassen. Ein fiebriges Delirium von einem Comic, der für meinen Geschmack zu sehr Kritker-Comic ist. Anstrengend und gleichzeitig langweilig mit seinem expressionistischen Kunst-Gehabe. Viele Panels sind von einer bestechenden Schönheit, andere fand ich vor allem wegen ihrer Farbigkeit hässlich. Das Schwarz der Zeichnungen fand ich sehr schwach, was aber auch am Druck meiner Ausgabe aus dem Jahre 1990 liegen könnte. Die harten, dicken Rahmen der Panels und die Schrift empfand ich als sehr einzäunend für die Illustrationen bzw. unpassend und auf eine Art "fremdkörperig". Ich habe Mattotti nicht abgeschrieben, aber ich habe jetzt schon den Eindruck, dass sein großes Talent eher in Einzelzeichnungen und -illustrationen statt in Comics liegt. Ob ich mit dieser Einschätzung komplett daneben liege, wird sich für mich noch zeigen.
Profile Image for Alessandro.
1,535 reviews
August 28, 2025
"Fires" is a stunning, dreamlike graphic novel that feels more like wandering through a fevered vision than following a straightforward story. Mattotti’s painted artwork is nothing short of extraordinary—lush, hallucinatory, and atmospheric, with every page radiating color and intensity. The images alone carry immense emotional weight, often blurring the line between beauty and dread.
The narrative itself is deliberately opaque, somewhere between myth, allegory, and psychological journey. It’s not always easy to grasp what’s happening in a conventional sense, but that ambiguity is part of its power: it invites reflection rather than handing you answers.
This isn’t a book to “understand” so much as to experience. If you let the imagery wash over you, Fires becomes unforgettable—an exploration of destruction, transformation, and the strange pull of the unknown.
Highly recommended for readers who enjoy graphic novels as visual poetry, even if the story sometimes resists clarity.
Profile Image for Nazım.
168 reviews16 followers
March 13, 2024
Mattotti gerçekten aşırı ilginç bir çizer. Çok kendine has bir çizgisi var. Biraz kübist, az biraz suprematist bir çizgi. 80lerin ortasında bu çizgi ile İtalya'da kendini kabullendirebilmek müthiş.
Çizimlerini gören farklı bir çizer arkadaşım kitabın yapay zeka ile yapıldığını düşündü. O derece döneminin ilerisinde ve garip çizimler.

Hikaye, en az çizimler kadar sürreal. Garip olayların yaşandığı bir adaya giden ve o adayı "ıslah etmek" derdinde olan bir gemi dolusu askerin hikayesi. Ya da ada tarafından ele geçirilen askerlerden birinin hikayesi diyeyim. Paranormal bir anlatı.

Büyük bir okuyucu kitlesine sahip olacağını düşünmüyorum ama hikayeden bağımsız olarak sadece çizgi roman sanatının varabildiği noktaları görme adına bile okunmaya değer bir iş.
Profile Image for Titus.
429 reviews57 followers
December 4, 2024
This is a compelling, surreal and poetic comic about a warship that comes to investigate a mysterious island, only to find that the island is defended by strange forces, which take a particularly strong hold over one of the ship's officers, Lieutenant Absinthe. I especially liked the comic’s first third, which follows Absinthe losing his mind and becoming increasingly obsessed with the island. After that it's still very good, but not quite as viscerally gripping, as it slides more into ineffable “fever dream” territory. The art is very cool throughout: murky and expressionistic, with hints of cubism, and reminding me a lot of early Igort.
Profile Image for Gabriel.
151 reviews1 follower
December 27, 2024
Full Star for the wild art. The rest is pretty inscrutable.
Profile Image for Millie D.
36 reviews
March 30, 2025
wooooow this is crazy and the oil pastels are beautiful and it's so weird and the colours are insane I am mad about how cool this looks.
Profile Image for Rick Ray.
3,545 reviews38 followers
November 5, 2024
Lorenzo Mattotti's Fires is graphic poetry and symbolism done right. There are rich themes about discovery, imperialism, and colonialism laced into a story that is almost a psychological fever dream. The story follows Lieutenant Absinthe, a high ranking officer aboard the battleship Anselm II, who is tasked with leading an exploratory mission on an uncivilized island that has been given the name Saint Agatha. Absinthe ends up defecting from his mission when he meets some locals and decides that it's more important to preserve the mystery of Saint Agatha than allow it fall into the hands of his imperialistic superiors. Conflict breaks out between the crew of the Anselm II and the locals of Saint Agatha, leading Absinthe to choose a side.

Fires is rich in allegory. The names Saint Agatha (the patron saint of fire services) and Anselm II (a pope who advocated for increasing the political power of the Church) being the most significant indicators of what the story is really about. Colonialism is really under the microscope here, as is most evident by Absinthe's recounting of the final fire barrage unleashed by the crew of Anselm II: "they would soon vomit out a torrent of fire to defend themselves against other fires they couldn't manage to understand". The lyrical beauty of Fires is so stunning and it gripped me from start to finish.

The artwork by Mattotti is also worth acknowledging as well. The mural-esque artwork takes from expressionism and modernism freely, and handily incorporates some moody colors to great effect. Outside of the bright oranges for the various fires shown, everything else looks dark and decrepit fitting the rather melancholic narrative voice. It's simply hypnotic to look at and balances the poetic brilliance of the prose so well.
Profile Image for Meem.
218 reviews67 followers
May 9, 2016
I first came across Lorenzo Mattotti on Pinterest a few days ago and what I saw compelled me to explore more. Fortunately, I found Fires soon after. I had no idea what a surprisingly wrenching experience this would prove to be. Fires is as obsessed with nature as the Romantic poets were. Clouds like clumps of light move through the sky while rose petals rain down on the island during the day but tongues of fire and their shadows dance in it through the night. Awe and terror are never far from each other when it comes to how Mattotti's characters feel about nature. Eddies of emotions swirl around in its pages, fleeting, surreal, inexpressible but all too human. It speaks with colours, with shapes, with feelings, telling a story that words couldn't have half as well. The story itself is simple enough (but none the less haunting for it) with a few token twists in it but it is the art that has been manipulated to tell it that feels so evocative and deeply personal and is what ultimately makes Fires memorable.
Profile Image for Nighteye.
1,005 reviews54 followers
November 21, 2013
The story is strange but okey with supernatural elements coming and going but whats most unice is the books teriffic drawing style and colouring that i like... it's nothing normal, strange colours and shapes thst don't look right, surealistic and its hard to say which of the story whos a dream and which isnt, and he seams to be possesed by evil spirits/powers and I'm against the head protagonists is called Absint but its nothing to do about.
Profile Image for matt.
713 reviews14 followers
January 2, 2008
There are some great images in this book - some very evocative and powerful scenes....BUT .... the story just isn't told well. I may be missing something -- but it just doesn't really make any sense. I wanted to like it - and I appreciate what was attempted -- but it just didn't come together for me.
If anyone else out there can make sense of this thing - I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Profile Image for Микола.
Author 5 books31 followers
September 4, 2012
Оскільки у мене перед очима була, здається, іспанська версія, можу чесно сказати, що без тексту нічого не зрозуміло. Але зображення! Експресіонізм, яким він має бути у коміксах.
Profile Image for Erik.
2,190 reviews12 followers
April 7, 2017
Beautifully painted tale of a soldier's struggle on a magical island. The use of colors is incredible. This is why I read comics.
Profile Image for James Kilometer.
4 reviews
May 27, 2015
Gorgeous and haunting thriller about a warship encountering a hostile island and the effects they have on each other.
Profile Image for Onur Yz.
342 reviews19 followers
April 7, 2017
Valla ben çoğunluktan yana değilim, çoğunluktan yana olmadım çoğunlukla. Yine bir çoğunluktan yana olmama anıdır bu: Ben kendi adıma Lorenzo Mattotti'nin Murmur'unu daha çok sevmiştim. Fires bana neredeyse hiç hitap etmedi diyebilirim. Sevenine sözüm olmaz tabii.
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