Updated: October 14, 2007

Alberto Giolitti - Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea #4

For those that don't know about Alberto Giolitti... he was an important and instrumental artist. Giolitti was born in Rome on 14 November 1923 and his first work in comics was published in 1943. In 1946, he emigrated to Argentina where he worked for Editorial Lainez and Columba of Buenos Aires. During this period he drew police stories and adapted the novel Quo Vadis into strip format.

In 1949 he emigrated to the New York City. Speaking very little English, Giolitti approached several comic companies, and was quickly hired by Western/Dell Publishing. Just as quickly, he became a mainstay of their line drawing many genres and characters, including The Challenge of Zorro (1956), Indian Chief, Cisko Kid, Tonto, Tarzan, Sergeant Preston, and The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1958).

Most people became aware of Giolitti's work through his many adaptations of popular TV series and movies including The Lone Ranger's Famous Horse Hi-Yo Silver (1956 to 1960), Gunsmoke, Tom Bell and Tales of Wells Fargo (1959), Have Gun Will Travel (1960-62), Aexander the Great (1956), Aladdin and the Marvelous Lamp, and Gulliver's Travels.

Giolitti became an American citizen in 1960, and immediately returned to Italy. There, he created the Giolitti Studio which brought together more than 50 artists of the likes of Nevio Zeccara, Giovannini, Diso, Caprioli, Salinas, Polese, Ticci, etc. that produced hundreds of pages a month for national and international publishers. For the US market, he continued his collaboration with Dell-Gold Key working on such strips as Turok Son of Stone, which he drew until 1984 as well as Freedom Agent (1963), Twilight Zone (1963 to 1970), Lord Jim (1965), various accounts in Ripley's Believe It or Not (1965-66 and 1978), Laredo (1966), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1966 to 1970), Tarzan (1967), Star Trek (1967 to 1979), King Kong (1968), Cowboy in Africa (1968), The Planet of the Apes (1970),. The Giolitti Studio also provided art for the Italian popular press including Super Black, The Phantom, Mandrake and Flash Gordon. Giolitti continued to work in comics until his death in 1993, at the age of 70.

This art from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea #4, cover dated May 1966 and the art is attributed solely to Giolitti. The story was entitled, "Robinson Crusoe of the Depths" and told the adventure of the crew of the Seaview as they came across a giant that lived at the bottom of the ocean. The story includes several splash pages, many shots of the submarine and crew in and out of a bizarre diving suit.

The originals are rendered with pen, brush and ink, Each page has an image area of 10 x 15" on a larger piece of 11 x 17" 2-ply Bristol paper.

Value: $400-Up.