Ranxerox, a heap of scrap metal with a heart of gold: a brief history of Italian underground comics from Rome to New York and back

Abstract

Critical discourse surrounding the work of Stefano Tamburini has naturally focused on his most significant and accomplished creation: Ranxerox, the rough-edged cyborg illustrated by Tanino Liberatore, whose stories were published in the two underground comic magazines Cannibale and Frigidaire—both co-founded by Tamburini.

In this study, we have examined a number of original scripts written by Tamburini for some of the most celebrated Ranxerox episodes. The material analyzed here derives from two work notebooks and a folder containing drafts and sketches, discovered in Tamburini’s residence after his death from a heroin overdose in April 1986.

This is a body of work of exceptional interest, allowing us to speculate on the artistic directions Tamburini might have pursued had he lived longer.

Ranxerox, the cyborg, endowed with a mechanical brain, often appears as a mere heap of stupid scrap metal, yet he is capable of impulsive acts of love and generosity toward Lubna—gestures that modern, emotionally desensitized individuals seem incapable of performing.

In one of the most iconic scenes conceived by Tamburini and illustrated by Liberatore, Ranx tears from his chest his greasy, oil-stained mechanical heart and offers it—still beating, or rather, still clanking—to his beloved.