Re di Picche (i.e. "King of Spades") is the title character of an Italian comic series created by

Luciano Bottaro Luciano Bottaro (16 November 1931 – 25 November 2006) was an Italian comic book artist. He was influenced by Otto Messmer's ''Felix the Cat'', Winsor McCay's '' Little Nemo in Slumberland'', Frederick Burr Opper's '' Happy Hooligan'', Rudolp ...

History and profile

''Re di Picche'' debuted in 1969, as the leading character of a short-lived comics magazine with the same name, published in Italy by A.G.I.S. Inspired by the traditional characters of the playing cards, it features the humorous adventures of a quick-tempered tyrant obsessed by his expansionist ambitions towards the bordering reign led by the placid Re di Cuori ("King of Hearts"). The magazine also included other characters by Bottaro,

Carlo Chendi Angelo Carlo Chendi (10 July 1933 – 12 September 2021) was an Italian cartoonist. From 1952, Carlo Chendi wrote hundreds of stories with characters from Disney comics. Biography Having moved at a young age from Province of Ferrara to Rapallo, ...

Giorgio Rebuffi Giorgio Rebuffi (7 November 1928 – 15 October 2014) was an Italian comics artist. Born in Milan, Rebuffi started his career in 1949 when, still being a university student at the Faculty of Medicine, he created the character Sceriffo Fox ("Sher ...

and Franco Aloisi, such as

Pon Pon Pon Pon is the title character of an Italian comic strip created by Luciano Bottaro. Background Pon Pon was created by Bottaro in 1955 as Sor Funghetto and was published until 1970 in the children magazine ''Lo Scolaro''. In 1967 it was rename ...

, Giò Polpetta, Romeo Lancia. The magazine was also published in France with the title ''Roi de Pique''. After the magazine closed, Bottaro continued to create new stories of Re di Picche until mid-1980s for a number of other publications, including the magazines '' Corriere dei Ragazzi'' and ''

Corriere dei Piccoli The ''Corriere dei Piccoli'' (Italian for "Courier of the Little Ones"), later nicknamed ''Corrierino'' ("Little Courier"), was a weekly magazine for children published in Italy from 1908 to 1995. It was the first Italian periodical to make a re ...

'' and the newspaper ''

Il Secolo XIX ( ) is an Italian newspaper published in Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limit ...

''.

References

Italian comics characters Italian comics titles Comics characters introduced in 1969 Fictional kings Male characters in comics 1969 comics debuts Humor comics Defunct comics Comics magazines published in Italy Magazines established in 1969 {{comics-char-stub