Italian comic book writer and illustrator Davide Reviati was born in Ravenna in 1966. After studying electrical engineering, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in his hometown. He founded the artist group Vaca (Vari Cervelli Associati) together with fellow students in 1989. After graduating from university, he received a teaching position for comic and illustration techniques at the Albe Steiner vocational school, which he held until 1997. His first comic strips appeared in the magazine »Vaca Fujeton« in the early 1990s. Beginning in 1997, he worked with the magazine »Blue«, for which he created illustrations and short stories. His works have also appeared in numerous publications including »Lo Straniero«, »Linus«, »Internazionale«, »Il Mucchio Selvaggio«, and »La Nuova Ecologia«. He illustrated several books such as »Il manual del calcio« (2012), by Agostino Di Bartolomei, and »Chickamauga« (2019), by Ambrose Bierce. He was the co-author of three feature films produced by the Vaca group and directed by Massimiliano Valli and Luisa Pretolani. Together with actress and director Elena Bucci, the artist Claudio Ballestracci, and the Rrose Sélavy association, he created the theatrical project »Bambini«. The piece was performed at the 33rd Santarcangelo Festival in 2003.
Reviati has published a series of graphic novels. »Drug Lion. I sogni e le stelle» (2002; tr: Drug Lion: Dreams and Stars) is a collection of comic strips that were created between 1996 and 2002. The stories follow the subtle communication between a daydreaming lion and a disillusioned, cruel eagle set against the backdrop of the Romagna countryside. Reviati has received numerous international awards for his graphic novel »Morti di sonno« (2009; tr: Dead of Sleep), which has also appeared in translation in France, Spain, and Korea. The work is about six children who grow up in Ravenna in the shadow of the petroleum refinery built in 1958. Not only are difficult issues such as drug addiction and AIDS addressed, readers also share in the everyday joys of adolescents, such as Italy’s Football World Cup victory. In that same year, he published »Dimenticare Tiananmen«, which is dedicated to the memory of those killed in the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square. His coming-of-age graphic novel »Sputa tre volte« (Eng. »Spit Three Times«, 2020) appeared in 2016. The translation also appeared in the USA, France, and Sweden. In the tradition of Italian neorealism, he shows a group of suburban teenagers and their clashes with members Roma community and tells of the difficulties of survival and integration. »La filosofia del Coccodè« (tr: The Philosophy of Clucking), a collection of drawings on philosophical themes, and »Ho remato per un Lord« (tr: I Rowed for a Lord), the translation into pictures of a text by Stig Dagerman, are both set to be published in 2021.
Reviati has been nominated for numerous awards for his work. Among others, he has received the Premio Micheluzzi at Napoli Comicon 2010 and the Prix Diagonale in Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium in 2011. In 2018, »Sputa tre volte« was part of the Sélection officielle festival d’Angoulême. Reviati lives in Ravenna.
Davide Reviati
