Max Bunker, Golden Romics of the 37th edition

The author of Alan Ford, Kriminal and Satanik, the absolute protagonist of Italian comics, will be awarded the Romics d'Oro.

With the Alan Ford series, Bunker embarks on a long and extraordinary creative journey in writing comics, writing 680 issues, with over 80,000 scripted pages. Max Bunker is the signature with which Luciano Secchi, born in Milan in 1939, delivered some of his most important pages to Italian comics.  Journalist, screenwriter, novelist, publisher, and director, he is among the figures who have contributed most to the evolution of Italian comics. After studying literature and history, he made his debut in the late 1950s as an author of crime novels and, in 1960, together with Andrea Corno, founded Editoriale Corno, which was destined to become one of the most important Italian publishing houses dedicated to comics. The publishing house is also responsible for introducing Marvel superheroes to Italy: from Spider-Man to the Fantastic Four, from Captain America to Thor and Daredevil, helping to train entire generations of readers.

He began his career by signing with the pseudonym Esselle and later adopted that of Max Bunker, with whom he created an impressive gallery of characters who entered the collective imagination. Among these, Kriminal and Satanik stand out, created together with Magnus, revolutionary series that in the 1960s redefined Italian noir comics, addressing previously unpublished themes. In 1969, together with Magnus, he created Alan Ford, the masterpiece of Italian comic satire. Initially drawn by Magnus and later by Paolo Piffarerio, Dario Perucca and other important authors, the series became an unprecedented editorial and cultural phenomenon, still regularly published today. After more than fifty years of uninterrupted creativity and 680 issues, Bunker entrusted the continuity of the saga to his son Riccardo Secchi in 2026.

Alongside his comics activity, he developed a rich literary, cinematographic and editorial production. In 1984 he founded Max Bunker Press, continuing his work as an author and editor. Among his novels, the series dedicated to Riccardo Finzi stands out, which was adapted into the film Agenzia Riccardo Finzi... practically detective, starring Renato Pozzetto. He also wrote film scripts and screenplays and made his directorial debut with Crimes, Love and Jealousy. In 2013, he took over the helm at the publishing house 1000VolteMeglio Publishing, where he is an editorial consultant, continuing his work as a writer and screenwriter uninterruptedly with unchanged passion and renewed creativity.

During the 37th edition of Romics, Max Bunker will meet with the public to retrace over sixty years of an extraordinary career, recounting the birth of his most famous characters, the revolution of Kriminal and Satanik, the timeless success of Alan Ford, and his fundamental contribution to the history of Italian comics.