Giardino was born in
Bologna, where he graduated in electrical engineering in 1969. At the age of 30, he decided to leave his job and devote himself to comics. Two years later his first short story, "Pax Romana", was published in
La Città Futura, a weekly magazine published by the Italian Communist Youth Federation and edited by Luigi Bernardi. In 1982, Giardino created a new character:
Max Fridman, an ex-secret agent involved in the political struggle in 1930s Europe. His first adventure,
Hungarian Rhapsody was serialized in the first four issues of magazine
Orient Express, bringing Giardino in the limelight of the international comic scene. Max Fridman adventures have been published in 18 countries. Some of the prizes the series won include
Lucca Festival's Yellow Kid and Brussels'
St. Michel. Starting in 1984, Giardino produced a number of short stories for the Italian magazine
Comic Art, where he introduced
Little Ego, a young and sexy girl inspired by
Winsor McCay's
Little Nemo who stars in one-page dreamy erotic stories. In 1991, Giardino created a new character,
Jonas Fink for the
Il Grifo magazine. Jonas is a young Jew in 1950's Prague whose father is arrested by the communist police. He and his mother have to cope with the discrimination and oppression of the
Stalinist regime. The book, collected as
A Jew in Communist Prague, won the
Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Album for Best Foreign Comic in 1995 as well as a
Harvey Award at
WonderCon in 1999. Giardino's detailed art style recalls the Belgian
ligne claire, while his writing owes to hard-boiled and spy story authors like
Dashiell Hammett and
John le Carré. == Awards ==