Biography

Luciano Bernasconi, (alias Lube,Saint Germain) was born in Rome. After a period in Brasil.where he drew for some advertising headlines,he came back to Italy. From 1959 to 1964 he prepared some pencil plates for Carlo Cedroni,who drew for Barbato-Mancini in Rome,an agency dealing with comic-strips production for Lug publishing in Lyon. During the same period he cooperated with Alberto Giolitti. Ruggero Giovannini, Gino Guida, Nevio Zeccara, producing pencil drawings.In 1966 he worked on pencil and ink plates for “Attak”, Europer publishing in Rome.

In 1967 his name was linked to the series “Pappagone”, conceived and dramatized by Luigi de Filippo and the following series “Ciccio e Franco”.For the same publisher (Gallo Rosso, in Rome) he drew some issues of “La Donna Invisibile” (the invisible woman) and other pictures. In 1968 he drew three issues of “l’Intrepido” (Universo publishing). In 1969 , thanks to Martini-Maffi agency in Milan, he started
cooperating whit Lug publishing, thus creating two series: “Wampus”and “Bob Lance”, of wich some episodes were published in Italy. In 1970 he started working directly for the french publisher Lug.This cooperation went on until the shut down of the firm. After Wampus e Bob Lance, Bernasconi created many other characters for the french market: L’Autre, Kabur, Waki, le Gladiateur de Bronze, Bob Flay, l’Ami Barry, Jeff Sullivan, Billy Boyd,Phenix, Kit Kappa, Starlok and some episodes of the serie Baby Bang, two episodes of the serie the Great Blek and some single stories..

In 1978 he started working for the “Giornalino” owned by San Paolo. For them he created some short stories that go from customs to science-fiction. In the same year he cooperated with “Edifumetto” (in Milan) for them he created some erotic stories. This cooperation went on until the publishing company, created by Renzo Barbieri, shut down. In 1983 he was invited to take part in “Fumetto dell’estate” Welcome to Rome (script by Dal Prà) and born an idea of the Councillor for tourism Nicolini.He was one of the 40 draftsmen that look turn to draw the story, then published daily on the newspaper “Il Messaggero”. In 1989 he cooperated with Blue Press in Rome,for the erotic genre. In 1990 he worked at the same time for “Edifumetto”, l’Intrepido, he produced some pencil plates for Gordon Lynch and Tex with inks by Della Monica.

From 1993 to 1995 he created several stories, among which an episode of Sherlok Holmes (unplished)for the magazine Crimen. He drew the comic-strip version of the erotic novel “Gamiani” for the publisher Fenix in Rome. In 1995 he started cooperating with “l’Intrepido” again, drawing two western stories by Dal Prà and some episodes of the series”I Custodi” (the Keepers). In the following period, he painted and drew for private people. He specialized in erotic drawings (see website:http://www.arteerotica.com), but he also drew some covers for Semic publishing in Paris. Bernasconi also drew a version of the Tarots of‘500, (standard and erotic edition) and the Zodiac. Bernasconi is quoted in the “Enciclopedia del Fumetto” (comic strips enciclopaedia by Graziano Origa,1977) and in “Foto di famiglia” by Gianni Bono (family portrait) in Tex n°172. Some quotations appeared in Diva by Glittering Images and in some French publications eg.”Le collectionneur des bandes dessinèes (the comic strip collector). His portfolio was issued in Inedit during the Angouleme festival in 2001 and in the magazine Fantask.