We believe it is quite superfluous to explain the importance of Milo Manara for Italian and world comics. Hordes of enthusiasts recognize his work and his figure as those of a legend and his name is known everywhere even among those who do not read comics or are not interested in this world. We recently told you about one of his most famous works re-edited in two volumes by Feltrinelli Comics, or The Borgias. In this review we return to talk about a new edition, again by Feltrinelli Comics for the Biblioteca Manara series, by Kamasutra, a work written and designed by Manara at the end of the 90s. Small curiosity that demonstrates the ten-year importance of this work since its first edition: at the time of the publication of the first edition, the volume was accompanied by a CD-ROM published together with the Panorama magazine of the Mondadori publishing group (publishing house that published, precisely, the first edition of the work) where a video game was inserted that saw the protagonists of the comic face various tests of courage of an erotic nature to arrive at the carnal conjunction with Shiva. In the new edition there is no CD-ROM but there is an afterword by Boris Battaglia who talks about it with lots of unpublished illustrations, but we'll talk about this later.
Kamasutra: the perfect transposition of the famous Indian opera
The elegant eroticism by Milo Manara
Milo Manara is therefore able to grasp the aforementioned misunderstanding with great tact and intelligence, managing to give the original text an excellent comic transposition. His drawings, thanks to the use of pastels mainly with warm colors, are elegant and very detailed. The free tables, however, have as their main protagonists the famous women of Manara who are often also shown in full-page tables inserted within very large and mainly naturalistic environments. In this case Parva and Lulù are tall, slender, thin, have curly hair, medium-sized breasts and full lips, in short, it is the classic signature of Manara. The characters, even the male ones, possess a great sensuality, mixed with humor, awareness of their actions and extreme libertinage.
Conclusions
Kamasutra by Milo Manara is one of the highest level works among the entire production of the author. A classic example of Manarian eroticism reworked with wit, irony and great artistic quality to intelligently adapt one of the most famous literary works of Indian culture handed down all over the world. Reading Kamasutra means making a journey to discover the profound meaning of pleasure and sharing, freedom and temptations that drive each of us to achieve personal fulfillment achievable with carnal and spiritual union. The volume is exceptional, after all it is personally edited by the author who decided to enrich it with two excellent and interesting critical apparatuses, at the beginning and at the end of the work, and with a vast iconographic collection of unpublished works. Biblioteca Manara has already proved to be a series of great cultural value and now it is enriched with this important work dedicated to a wider and more mature public not necessarily passionate about comics.
