Other adventurers: women in Hugo Pratt’s book circuit

Abstract

The aim of this study is to look at the editorial career of comics artist Hugo Pratt and analyze it from a gender perspective. However, this approach does not focus on the female representation in the characters created by the author, but rather on the traces of the real women who made up a workforce, often invisible, in the author's comics. Using methodologies from the History of Books and Reading, analyzing Pratt’s “reading circuit”, we seek to identify female agents with direct participation in the construction of the author’s bibliography. Understanding this process allows us to understand that women have historically occupied positions in the editorial field, but the inequality and asymmetry of power in the field becomes evident.