For the Spirit-with-the-Hatchet, 2014 will be the year of his return to Darkwood. Zagor left his forest in 2011, during the celebrations for the series 50th anniversary, and he’s since been travelling North-South through the American continent, from the New Jersey coast to Patagonia. His long journey is finally nearing its conclusion, after the turmoil of a string of connected adventures, that end up intertwining several past events and laying bridges for unpredictable future developments.
The mystery of the green abyss turned out to be connected with Shyer the shaman, voodoo priestess Marie Laveau proved to be linked to the Amazons, who in turn were revealed to be of Atlantis descent. Atlantis, and its long-forgotten war against Mu, had been a recurring subject during Zagor’s saga, and a long string of adventures showed the research by several figures (Richter, Dexter Green, Andrew Cain) of mysterious artifacts from the era of those remote civilizations: objects that, joint together, could form the “Key of Knowledge”: something that’d guarantee access to information and weapons which you could rule the world with.
 Drawing by Giuseppe Prisco (Click on the image to enlarge it) |
This intricate unfolding of events happened in time, obviously, taking turns with several other narrative threads— and, above all, without veering from the course of Zagor tradition, that has always been about contamination between different genres and a constant changing of scenery. Things are about to come to an end, now.
Zagor finally reached Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) in a story with art by the great Giuseppe Prisco, written by Moreno Burattini: in Punta Arenas, on the Strait of Magellan, the last port before an almost unexplored archipelago where the Feugin savages live, the Darkwood hero will face the man he’s been chasing ever since he left home: the archaeologist Dexter Green, who betrayed him and left him sinking in the quicksands. After a series of surprising events, though, the reckoning day has to wait until the next adventure, where Mauro Boselli and Raffaele Della Monica will tell us the grand finale, taking the Spirit-with-the-Hatchet to the South Pole. There, the “Key of Knowledge” will be reassembled and… we won’t disclose anything more, as for now.
Gallieno Ferri will have the task of illustrating Zagor’s journey back to the USA, in a story written by Maurizio Colombo (who already penned some interesting Zagorian scripts in the past) and newcomer Giorgio Giusfredi.
 Drawing by Gallieno Ferri (Click on the image to enlarge it) |
When the North American scenery will be back on the series, the torch will pass to an artist called to to prove (and even better) himself with his second piece of work: Joevito Nuccio, on an episode also by Moreno Burattini. This time, Nuccio won’t be working with werewolves (like in “Plenilunio”), but he will have to deal with sharp-toothed maws… those of real animals, that the artist had to study in depth…
Only in Fall, after the return of Marco Verni’s art, the Spirit-with-the-Hatchet will set foot again on the islet of his swampland, and there he’ll find an unpleasant surprise… An event will change something in his life forever: we will talk about this again, in this section, with some other preview.
While in the monthly series our hero faced his long South American trip, in the “extra” issues (annual and sixmonthly) he stayed put in Darkwood. No wonder, then, if the first Maxi of the year, coming on next January 17, will begin with Zagor in his hut, where he’ll receive a letter brought by the Indian mailman Drunky Duck. The album, “Spedizione di soccorso”, will see the return of the two German naturalists Kruger & Mayer, the unforgotten scientist of the classic “Acque misteriose”, who are now determined to explore the “Land-of-no-coming-back”, one of the most threatening places Zagor entered in his life. We will find out what happens next, thanks to the writer, Jacopo Rauch and the artist, Gianni Sedioli. In July we will read a story by Moreno Burattini, most of which will show us the prehistorian Darkwood Forest, as it was in year 10.000 b.C.: all this in an unusual tale with drawings by the Esposito Bros.
 Drawing by Esposito Bros (Click on the image to enlarge it) |
In March, the Speciale will be realized by a new acquisition in Zagor’s art team: Emanuele Barison, who has many books in France as well as a lot of Italian comics for Disney and “Diabolik” on his résumé. Barison is the visual creator of a zombie tale by Burattini: working with great gusto, he managed to recreate very dark atmospheres, thanks to his razor-sharp style, but he was also able to do justice to the funny aspect of the story gags.
August will be the time for our second Zagor Color: after Captain Fishleg, the hero of last year’s book, in 2014 Rauch & Sedioli will take another character of Nolitta’s world to the forefront: Guthrum, the Viking king!
In short, lots of stories that will keep you company for the next 12 months, while other surprising events are under preparation and will be revealed to you, but only in due time.
Click on the opening picture to leaf through a gallery of images from Zagor albums in 2014.
