Giove Toppi

Giove Toppi (2 August 1888 – 21 July 1942) was an Italian cartoonist and the first to draw Mickey Mouse comics in Italy.

Biography Toppi was born in Ancona, Italy and moved to Florence in the 1920s. There, he began what would become a long collaboration with the publisher Nerbini, initially as a cartoonist for the satirical weekly Il 420 and as an illustrator for their novels. and creating characters such as Sorci Jazz (first appearing in No. 9) and Sorcettino (a renamed Topo Lino).

Toppi also contributed to other Nerbini magazines such as L'Avventuroso, in which he published adventure comic series. Toppi learned from major American series published in L'Avventuroso, absorbing the novelty of their graphical language and giving it his own spin. As one of the principal Italian contributors to the magazine, he became published on the last page, one of the reserved spaces of the magazine alongside the first page, with his main series alternating with, for example, Flash Gordon comic strips. His series La regina dei pirati (The Queen of the Pirates) features a vaguely feminist anti-hero as protagonist, while Una donna a bordo (A Woman on Board) had more comedic elements. In 1936, he published series such as I naufragatori misteriosi (The Mysterious Ship-Wreckers) and La regina d'Atalanta (The Queen of Atalanta). He created the first Italian detective series, Renato Gallo, which appeared in La Sfida del Bandito in the 1930s. He illustrated most of the book covers dedicated to American comics characters such as Mandrake the Magician, Phantom or Tim Tyler's Luck.