Guido Crepax's Private Life

Private Life is the fourth volume in the superb Complete Crepax series from Fantagraphics. The series aims to collect all of Guido Crepax’s comics. The comics in this volume were written between the mid-60s and the mid-80s.

Guido Crepax was the name used by Milan-Born Guido Crepas (1933-2003). Exciting things were happening in the world of European comics by the 1960s, beginning with the first appearance of Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella in the French V Magazine in 1962. European comics of the 60s bore no resemblance to American comics. European comics were aimed at grown-ups. They were sexy and sophisticated, they were witty and wildly imaginative and they were stylistically adventurous.

Crepax would push all of these elements very far indeed. He would attract immediate attention when his first comic adventure, The Lesmo Curve, appeared in Linus magazine in 1965. This was also the first appearance of his most famous creation, the fashion photographer Valentina. Valentina would appear in countless Crepax comics. Her adventures often involved elements of science fiction and fantasy, plentiful hallucinogenic dream sequences, espionage, crime and general weirdness. Plus a great deal of eroticism.

Private Life focuses, as the title suggests, on comics that tell us about Valentina’s emotional life and her relationship with her lover, art critic Phil Rembrandt. As a result there’s not quite as much of the outrageousness, bizarre inventiveness and stylistic flamboyance that you’ll find in Valentina’s other adventures. Crepax however still manages to give us some trippy dream sequences and these comics are by no means totally lacking in delirious weirdness.

Unlike almost every other comic book heroine Valentina ages over the course of her many adventures. At the beginning she is a carefree 22-year-old. She will find a stable emotional relationship with Phil Rembrandt and they will have a child. By the time you get to her final adventures she’s rapidly closing in on middle age.

Another unusual feature is that, in between their extraordinary surreal adventures, she and Phil have a normal family life. The baby has to have his bath. The dishes have to be washed. The laundry has to be done. And while Valentina and Phil both have glamorous jobs they do have to work for a living. This contrast between perfectly normal domesticity and bizarre adventures gives these comics a distinctive flavour.

Crepax’s original intention was to write a comic about an art critic named Phil Rembrandt who has a double life. He is also a superhero named Neutron. He has only one superpower but it’s pretty impressive. He can temporarily paralyse people with his eyes. Crepax soon realised that he wasn’t all that interested in doing a conventional superhero comic and that aspect started to fade into the background. At the same time Crepax’s focus shifted more towards Phil’s fashion photographer girlfriend Valentina.

Crepax’s comics became gradually more surreal and experimental. Reality and dream become hopelessly intertwined. It is never possible to be sure how many of Valentina’s adventures are real, and it could be argued that Valentina’s real life takes place in her dreams.

The Comics

The Lesmo Curve introduces us to Valentina. And it introduces Valentina to Phil Rembrandt, who will become her husband and the great love of her life. Phil is also the superhero Neutron. Valentina and Phil will go on to share all kinds of bizarre adventures.

In The Lesmo Curve beautiful girls are marrying rich men, and the rich men keep meeting with fatal accidents. The latest intended victim is a racing car driver. At this stage Crepax was still finding his feet and this story isn’t as outrageous or bizarre as many of the subsequent stories. But it’s an entertaining story.

Ciao, Valentina involves a photograph taken by Valentina. People are prepared to go to drastic lengths to get their hands on it even though it seems like a remarkably innocent photo. There has to be some key in that photograph, and of course there is.

This is obviously another early story and it still has an at least vaguely conventional thriller plot. The plot is an intriguing anticipation of Antonioni’s Blow-Up. It's fun.

That all changes and things take a turn for the weird with the next stories in this collection. Funny Valentine, Filippo and Valentina, Fearless Paper Doll Valentina and Valentina the Fearless are odd little snippets and also offer glimpses of Valentina’s childhood.

Valentina’s Baby is a series of strange dreams that Valentina has while in labour with her son Mattia. And Valentina’s dreams are very strange indeed.

Manuscript Found in a Stroller is a whimsical little throwaway story about a very strange discovery our heroine makes when she checks her washing machine.

In Fallen Angels Valentina seems to be contemplating having an affair, with a man named Arno. There’s definitely something between these two but Valentina is hanging back. There’s also some cool falling statuary.

In The Empress’s New Clothes Valentina finds herself all alone on a blank page, patiently waiting for Crepax to turn up to create a story for her. Not wildly original (Chuck Jones had been playing with such ideas in Daffy Duck cartoons for years) but it’s a whimsical little throwaway story. It’s also a bit disturbing since, no matter how bizarre and unlikely her adventures, we’ve never before been confronted so starkly with the idea that Valentina is just a comic-book character. It’s Crepax being playful, but it is disturbing.

Le Zattere, Venice is just Crepax reminiscing about his own childhood and it’s a bit dull.

Peitro Giacomo Rogeri is much more interesting. A girl leaves a ’cello in Valentina’s studio and then disappears. She claims the instrument is 250 years old. In fact it was owned at one time by Paganini. Several groups and individuals want to get their hands on that ’cello. There are apparently secret documents concealed in the instrument.

With Anthropology we move into authentically weird Crepax territory. How much of the story is a dream is uncertain. Valentina encounters the Subterraneans, strange human-like but non-human creatures which figure in many of Valentina’s adventures. And Louise Brooks makes an appearance, although maybe it’s not Louise Brooks or maybe it’s Louise Brooks getting mixed up with other women in Valentina’s dream.

Private Life is a slightly older Valentina reminiscing about her past adventures (and wondering how many of them were real). It’s Crepax saying farewell to Valentina, and perhaps Valentina saying farewell to herself. Although the ending didn’t necessarily entirely close off the possibility of further Valentina adventures it’s obvious that Crepax felt that he’d gone as far with the character as he could.

Final Thoughts

Although this volume includes the earliest Valentina comics my personal view is that if you have never encountered Valentina before you’re better off starting with the third of the Fantagraphics Complete Crepax volumes, Evil Spells. I think it’s a better introduction to Valentina’s world and a better illustration of the reasons she became such an important pop culture icon. And on the whole Evil Spells is a stronger collection.

Once you become obsessed with Valentina then you’ll certainly want to pick up Private Life to find out more about what makes her tick. So Private Life is highly recommended, but grab Evil Spells first.