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Designer and advertiser, Guido De Maria was one of the symbolic faces of the Emilian ‘joy of living’ but also the one who brought the world of comics to television at the beginning of the Seventies, with that ‘Gulp! Comics on TV’, which later became ‘SuperGulp!’. A program that has become cult. De Maria died at the age of 93 in Modena, leaving a huge void.
‘Gulp! Comics on TV’, born from an intuition of Giancarlo Governi, saw De Maria from Modena as director: an evening event that had the merit of uniting the world of children and that of adults, thanks to those drawn characters who were ‘ambassadors’ of culture and criticism. Characters of the caliber of Nick Carter, created by De Maria specifically for the programme, then Patsy and Ten, Bonvi’s Sturmtruppen, Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese. Again: Lupo Alberto and the Tnt Group, not to forget Bonelli’s Tex. Guido De Maria was 93 years old and was a great friend of Francesco Guccini and Franco Fontana: the singer-songwriter died last August 6th, the master of photography on Saturday. A terrible summer for Modena culture, and beyond. At the beginning of the month there was also mourning for the painter Giuliano Della Casa.
Born in Lama Mocogno on the Modena Apennines on 20 December 1932, De Maria abandoned his university studies after moving to Bologna to dedicate himself exclusively to humorous drawing. His cartoons found space in the most important Italian newspapers and weeklies, such as ‘Epoca’ directed by Enzo Biagi and ‘Candido’, founded by Giovannino Guareschi. The ability to make people smile with pencil and words soon made its way into the world of advertising, another area in which De Maria left his mark. Just to mention some of those that have made history: the ‘shirt with a moustache’ with Maurizio Costanzo, the dwarf lumberjacks by Loacker or ‘Grey wax is excellent, I would say’.
The funeral will be celebrated on Wednesday at 2.30 pm at the Funeral Home Terracielo in Modena, and will then continue at the cemetery of Santa Maria di Mugnano. On August 1, 2010, the Municipality of Lama Mocogno wanted to pay homage to the illustrious fellow villager by granting him honorary citizenship. The Tenco club remembers him, which in 2015 awarded him the Cultural Operator Award: «He had presented, without the knowledge of the person concerned, the application for registration with Siae for his friend Francesco Guccini. He brought comics to TV. For Tenco’s friends he cooked and distributed fried gnocco on the streets of Sanremo.”
The local community is also in pain. «Guido De Maria has left us. It is news that – writes the mayor of Modena Massimo Mezzetti – arrives on the last day of a truly painful August for Modena, marked by the passing of people who gave so much to the culture of our city and who, starting from here, were able to speak to Italy and the world. Guido’s loss is also a personal loss for me. Another protagonist of a Modena that he loved and in which he grew up is leaving: a curious, creative, ironic city, capable of bringing together very different talents and giving rise to experiences that would leave a profound mark. Guido fully belonged to that season. That of Guccini, of Bonvi, of Franco Cosimo Panini, of a group of people who were not afraid to invent, experiment and contaminate different languages.” The President of the Region Michele de Pascale remembers him as one «of the most creative protagonists of twentieth-century culture» who «was able to transform the language of comics into a popular phenomenon».