Rascals: the indie comic that left its mark on skin
A self-published comic about tattoos, friendship, trouble, and the strange things that happen when a story refuses to stay on paper.
At the center: Jack, Marv and a tattoo shop with more trouble than square meters
Jack is a tattoo artist. Marv is a piercer. Together they run Doughty Tattoo Rascals, a small tattoo shop where life is quiet enough until someone tries to take away an ancient artifact they have been keeping.
From there the story opens into needles, pigments, legends, obscure traffics and energy flows.
A perfectly reasonable mess, if you ask the right kind of person.
Rascals gave me people, places and scars that were worth it
Some projects are valuable because they sell. Some are valuable because they move you through rooms, festivals, conversations, friendships and versions of yourself you would not have met otherwise.
Rascals belongs there. It taught me pages, pacing, stubbornness, independence and the strange human side of making comics in public. Which is much less glamorous than it sounds, and much more important.
Covers, pages, characters
A selected archive of Rascals artwork. Not every file. Mercy again.
Super Max
Some names belong inside a project not because they are a footnote, but because they are part of the road that made the project matter.
This section belongs here because Rascals was never only about pages. It was also about people, presence, shared ground, and the human side of making something independent in public.
Massimiliano Martignoni was the spark.
At the time, he was the owner of HeavyBolter, the legendary comic shop in Carrara. But for Rascals, he was much more than that. He was an editor, a partner in crime, a motivator, and one of the voices that helped me believe the project could exist beyond the sketchbook.
Every independent project needs someone who sees the thing before the world does. Someone who pushes, questions, supports, laughs, argues, and still stays there. Massimiliano was that person for me.
This is my small tribute to him, and to a time made of comics, conversations, late ideas, impossible plans, and the kind of enthusiasm that only exists when something is being born for real.
Some memories do not need to be explained too much. They just deserve a place.
See you soon, my friend. The beer is waiting. Because, as you know, great deeds are not done sober. 😛
A small independent comic that made some noise
The first issue debuted in 2014. The second volume received the title of Best Italian Self-Published ComicBook 2015 through an online survey promoted by Universo Fumetto.
More than the badge, I remember the people.
But the badge can stay on the shelf too.
Thank You Everybody!
This is personal work. But personal work still leaves fingerprints
If you are here because you care about comics, storytelling or characters with a little damage, you are probably in the right neighborhood.