Massimo Fenati

Massimo Fenati (born: Genoa, Italy, 1969), is an Italian comic book artist, illustrator and director of animated films. He lives in London, UK, and is a dual citizen of Italy and the UK. He's mostly known as the creator of the Gus & Waldo books, and the TV series Piripenguins.

After obtaining an MA in architecture at the University of Genoa, Fenati moved to London in 1995 to work as a product designer in the studio of Jasper Morrison. He then moved to two more design practices (Pentagram and David Chipperfield Architects) before setting up his own studio in 2003. After a few years of work in the furniture and product design industry, his career as a cartoonist started in 2006 in when his first '' Gus & Waldo'' book (''Gus & Waldo's Book Of Love'') was published by Orion Books in the United Kingdom.

This was followed by three more volumes in the '' Gus & Waldo'' series (''Gus & Waldo's Book Of Fame'', 2007 and ''Gus & Waldo's Book Of Sex'', 2008; ''Arte Pinguina'', 2015). With the animated short films based on these books he won the audience awards at the IRIS Animation Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro, the Queersicht Film Festival in Berne and the Sub-Ti competition for short films at the 2009 Venice Film Festival.

In 2011 Fenati published ''101 Uses For A Dead Meerkat'' ( Boxtree Ltd.), a book of cartoons, which was later translated and published also in Italy with Arnoldo Mondadori Editore in 2013.

Fenati collaborated with British TV production companies such as Tiger Aspect Productions, Endemol and Maverick, and produced motion graphics for programmes for BBC, Channel 4, and Sky, such as ''Embarrassing Bodies'', ''Stephen Fry'' ''Gadget Man'', '' Dispatches'' and ''Ripper Street''.

In 2012 and 2013 he collaborated with Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper and published a comic for children titled ''Cico & Toto'' on the Monday edition of the paper.

He created the image for the 2011 edition of the TGLFF (Torino Gay and Lesbian Film Festival), and in 2013 he was appointed as curator of the new animation section at the same festival. Between 2014 and 2019 he collaborated with Corriere della Sera newspaper, regularly posting a comic strip about food on the paper's website, titled ''La Cucina A Fumetti'' (The Cartoon Kitchen).

His latest book is the graphic novel ''La Mennulara'' (The Almond Picker), published by Feltrinelli Comics in 2018 and based on the eponymous best-seller by Simonetta Agnello Hornby.

In 2020 he started his work as director in the field of children animation with Eagle Eye Drama, a British production company. His first foray in that field was ''Clown'', the adaptation of the eponymous book by the British iconic illustrator Sir Quentin Blake, which was narrated by Helena Bonham Carter and shown on Channel 4 on Christmas Day 2020. That first Christmas special lead to the commission of a second one in 2021, this time the adaptation of a short story by Terry Pratchett: ''The Abominable Snow Baby'', which Fenati wrote, directed and for which he designed all characters and overall style. Julie Walters, David Harewood and Hugh Dancy gave voice to the main characters in the show. The good success of the first collaboration with Quentin Blake also resulted in a new commission for the BBC: ''Quentin Blake's Box of Treasures'', an anthology series of 6 half-hour animated films, each based on a Quentin Blake book. Fenati is the co-writer and series director of this series, whose episodes aired on BBC One at various times between 2023 and 2025. Voices for the protagonists of these short films were provided by Adrian Lester, Simon Pegg, Alison Steadman and Nina Sosanya. The series has had multiple nominations and won a number of international awards, amongst which the Royal Television Society award for Best Children's Programme in 2025. Fenati's animation company Eaglet has been awarded Studio of the Year at the Cartoons on the Bay festival in 2025.

Bibliography

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

References

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Warren, Martyn (15 May 2025)
"Piripenguins. Interview with Series Creator Massimo Fenati"
Skwigly - Online Animation Magazine

References

Websites

Main website:
* http://www.massimofenati.com

Character-specific websites:
* https://piripenguins.com/

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fenati, Massimo
1969 births
Living people
British comics artists
Italian comics artists
Italian comic strip cartoonists
British editorial cartoonists
Italian editorial cartoonists
Italian comics writers
British comics writers
British comic strip cartoonists
Artists from Genoa
University of Genoa alumni
21st-century Italian male artists
21st-century Italian male writers
21st-century British male writers
21st-century British male artists
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom