'La Principessa Rapita'.
Annibale Casabianca is an Italian artist who worked in both the humorous and the realistic genres for the many small publishing houses that emerged in the Rome area during the 1950s. Casabianca's influences can be attributed to George Herriman, Carl Barks and the funny animal comic books published by the American Comics Group and Harvey Comics, and to Milton Caniff and Alex Raymond for his realistic work.
'Albi del Condor'.
Casabianca's earliest known work was 'Piccolo Bart' (1953) for Albo Azzurro. At Casa Editrice Flaminia, he worked with Lamberto Lombardi on an early version of 'Miciolino', before Francesco Privitera adopted the cat character. Casabianca and Lombardi also made 'Frugolino' for Puffi, and stories with the kangaroo 'Bingo'. Casabianca remained active for Flaminia until the early 1960s, with contributions to Bambola ('Baldo l'Invulnerabile'), Gli Allegri Racconti della Foresta ('Argentovivo') and Indomito. Early realistic work was for the collections 'Albi del Condor' and 'Albi del Caimano' of Cecchini e Remondini, and the western 'Gordon Short' for publisher Mario Coccia.
'Benni E La Sua Invenzione'.
Casabianca contributed to the publishing efforts of Sergio Rosi, such as La Mia Lulù, and made the detective comic book 'Tony Rand' (1954), as well as 'Pattini d'Oro' in Bimbebelle (1953-1954) with Renata Gelardini for Casa Editrice Astra. He was a regular in the sci-fi/adventure titles I Tre Assi and Anno 3000 by Edizioni Astrid. He additionally illustrated serials and features like 'Il Re Delle Frontiere Selvagge' in Lupettino, 'Mike Lazos' in Pablito, 'A Fil di Spada' in Il Picchio, 'Argentovivo' in Gli Allegri Racconti della Foresta, 'Capitan Sparviero' in Serie Billy Boy and 'Therry Roger' in Scugnizzo.
'Miciolino'.
From the 1960s on, Casabianca also worked for foreign publishers through studios like D'Ami and Giolitti. He drew for British war comic books like the War Picture Library, Death or Glory, Battle Picture Library and War at Sea. For the French market, he drew features like 'Jaleb le Télépathe', 'Larry Cannon', 'Brigade Temporelle', 'Gun Gallon' and 'Marino' for Lug, the Lyon-based publishing house of pocket comics like Futura, Zembla and Baroud. At Aventures & Voyages, he also took over 'Galax' from Roland Garel in Marco Polo, and he drew stories with the jungle hero 'Yataka'.
'Yaleb le Télépathe'.
Casabianca worked with writer Pier Carpi on the adult comic book 'I Serpenti' in 1967-1968 and in the 1970s, he was one of the artists for the erotic heroine 'Cosmine'. Through Giolitti, he has also drawn stories with the Lee Falk characters 'Mandrake the Magician' and 'The Phantom'. He has worked for several other adult-oriented pulp comics of the time, such as Dany Coler and Fantax. He is also known under the pen name Ancas.
'Yataka'.