Paolo Piffarerio (27 August 1924 – 30 June 2015) was an Italian comics artist and animator.
Born in Recanati, the son of a silversmith and a seamstress,[1] Piffarerio studied at the Brera Academy, where he met Gino Gavioli. In 1953 Gavioli and Piffarerio founded "Gamma Film", a pioneering company in the field of animation in Italy.[1][2] Piffarerio realized several animation shorts for the TV show Carosello, as well as The Long Green Sock (Italian: La lunga calza verde), a 1961 film about the history of Italy scripted by Cesare Zavattini.[3]
Piffarerio's first comic character, Capitan Falco, was created in 1943.[1][4] He collaborated with writer Max Bunker on a number of comics series, including Viva l'Italia (1961), Maschera Nera (1963), El Gringo (1965) and Alan Ford, where he pencilled about one hundred issues between 1975 and 1984.[4][5] Piffarerio also collaborated with journalist and writer Enzo Biagi for his book series La storia d'Italia a fumetti, and was the author of a number of comics adaptations of novels and historical biographies for Il Giornalino.[4][5]
