Artist Profile | Cartoon & Caricature

Milko Dalla Battista

“In short, I was born in Turin on April 12, 1963 and it was a “Good Friday”. Well, there are those who come and those who come... In any case, my mother affirms that "I entered the world with the pencil in my hand" and had to be moderated taking into account the considerable number of points it corrected. My first experience of hard life was in first grade, during one of the few times when I wasn't working as an aspiring cartoonist. I ran into the back of a nun while I was being chased by a schoolmate who knew what prank she had played: fractured nasal septum. You have to be careful where you put your nose. I sold my first drawings to an art history professor who supplemented his salary by selling encyclopedias. I doubt there was a reason. However, I was four years old and devoured Disney comics and Warner cartoons, Hanna and Barbera; in fact he was visibly gaining weight. The school years, from primary to secondary school, passed between sports and "zibaldoni", that is, tons of inked paper with caricatures, comics, caricatures of classmates and teachers, (I must say that some of the latter did not appreciate my talent). In the gym I played the organ in the school chapel and one day I proposed the sword dance. This did not please the Dominican priest. It was the end of my career as a church organist but also the beginning of that of a rebellious musician: long hair and microphone in hand as the leader of some well-known Italian Heavy Metal bands. The year 1986 arrived, I was already dedicating some time to graphics, when my Civil Service period began. One of the fathers of all the pathological caricatures, the great Giorgio Cavallo, given my scribblings, had been pushing for years to try it with humor and so I tried and, in fact, with my cousin Lella I had gotten it right. But you know, not every day is Sunday. Some cartoons for the magazine of the Youth Department of my city and then, in 1989, "Black Humor" in Turin: my first contest. I obtained recognition and met a great Roland Topor, president of the jury and if I couldn't believe it, much less everyone else. The previous year I had infiltrated the editorial office of a journalism school in Turin. The director was Bruno Geraci, for us from the editorial team of "Buongiorno Tristezza". Tons and learnings, the "heroic" and naive years of "literary image", the first collaborations with local weeklies and two years of kind rejection of my material by "Tango" and "Satyricon", satirical insertions respectively of "l' Unità" and "la Repubblica". I thank both editors for their infinite patience and grace in expressing their opinion on what was sent (I would have been much less kind). The Italian post office, on the other hand, thanks me for the enormous amount of "useless stock" Then, suddenly, as only a mocking karma can explain, a fundamental character in the world of humor came into my life, the teacher Dino Aloi. And from that moment with Dino I began to collaborate and share a deep friendship. Over time, collaboration opportunities arose with local magazines such as "Il Risveglio", "Il Canavese", "La Gazzetta d'Alba" and "La Riviera" and later with magazines such as "Nuova Società", "Energeo" and " Essecome", humor newspapers such as "Yawn" and the recent "Buduàr", published online. In 2006 I left my hometown to move to Liguria, where I alternate the pencil with the hoe, with little satisfaction for my back vertebrae, but with greater quality in the gastronomic aspect. I continue to deal with visual communication both in the traditional and multimedia sectors, as an illustrator in the advertising field and obviously with drawn humor. Teaching is a big word, but according to some it is what I have been doing for years in the vocational training sector and in a specialized institute in Turin. I hope someone has benefited from it, before it's too soon.”