Bruno Marraffa (25 June 1935 – 22 April 2015, Italy)   

Bruno Marraffa was born in Rome in 1935. He began his career in comics in 1961 as the letterer of ‘Kriss’, a publication of the Venetian publishing house Bucintoro. He then moved abroad, and lived in England for several years. During this period, he worked with the Spanish Bardon Art agency, through which he drew for UK comic books. He provided the artwork for the feature ‘What did you do in the war, daddy?’ that ran in the Fleetway’s boys’ comic Lion. His art also appeared in TV Century 21, for which he drew the serial ‘Supercar’ and a comic based on the American comedy show ‘Get Smart’. Other creations for the UK market include ‘Calamity Chayne’ in Hot Spur and ‘Felix’ in Corsair.

Marraffa returned to Italy in 1971, where he began association with Edizioni Bianconi, drawing stories with ‘Geppo’ and ‘Nonna Abelarda’, and Edifumetto/Ediperiodici, for which he drew ‘Zordon’, ‘I Sanguinari’ and ‘Zan della jungla’. He also drew the comic book ‘Maki’ in 1977. Marraffa is however best known the work he did for Cepim, the publishing house that later became Sergio Bonelli Editore. Between 1979 and 1983, he drew ten episodes of ‘Ken Parker’ and two of ‘Mister No’. The artist eventually returned to Ediperiodici, where he focused on illustration work for school books and children’s classics.