One hundred years ago, in March 1923, Benito Jacovitti, one of the most important exponents of Italian comics in the 20th century, was born. Ever since his debut in the pages of “Vittorioso”, Lisca di pesce (this was the pseudonym with which he liked to sign his work) was set apart by his unmistakable style, a pastiche of surrealism, comedy and popular culture. Goffredo Fofi called him “the Fellini of Italian comics” due to the similarities in the way these two artists viewed and narrated postwar Italy. Francesco Memo wrote that “Jacovitti parodied literary and cinematic genres: westerns with the one-of-a-kind Cocco Bill, noirs with Bobby Cianuro, gangster movies with Jak Mandolino, science-fiction with Microciccio Spaccavento, detective stories with the master policeman Cip and pirate films with Gamba di Quaglia. In so doing, he built a fantasy universe for the average, middle-class Italian in the years of the economic boom.”
Il Cinema Ritrovato Kids pays tribute to Jacovitti with a section dedicated to the cowboy Cocco Bill, a gunfighter who only drinks camomile tea, who appeared first in a series of Carosello adverts and subsequently in a series by the master of Italian animation Pierluigi De Mas.

COCCOBILLIPUT (Italia/2001) by Pierluigi De Mas (13’)
COCCO BILL FA COCCODÈ(Italia/2001) by Pierluigi De Mas (13’)
COCCO BILL NELL’ALDIQUA (Italia/2001) by Pierluigi De Mas (13’)