Poetry, Rome, and L’eletto

Noir is not just a literary or a film genre; it’s also a visual art. So say Fulvio Risuleo, screenwriter and director, and Antonio Pronostico, illustrator and graphic artist, when they sit down for a conversation with Francesco Cappellotto to present their new graphic novel, L’eletto, published by Coconino Press.

The result of a prolific two-year partnership between the authors that was a meeting of two minds and two imaginations, L’eletto is the story of a poet who suddenly finds himself up against grey figures in suits. So he starts working in a large office, little knowing he is the man who has been designated to do something, but what?

Besides the nameless protagonist wearing sunglasses, poetry itself takes equal billing in this story. “It was very important, yet also risky, for the book to reflect the thought mechanisms behind written poetry,” Risuleo explains, in order to justify the virtual absence of the classic comic book speech balloon, in favor of captions designed to be poetic components. Hence, words and illustrations are intertwined to create a work akin to a “film montage”, colorful and compelling. “My drawings are composed almost entirely of color,” says Pronostico, who, together with his co-author and long-time friend as well, chose a gaudy and eye-catching visual style for the book.

As mysterious as its protagonist, the graphic novel L’eletto is set in the Rome everyone knows and will easily recognize: the perfect city for the telling of this “completely new story” in a noir vein.