Giuseppe Manunta is an Italian comics artist and writer whose work ranges across fantasy, crime, documentary-influenced graphic novels, children’s books and adult comics. He was born and grew up in Naples, but has lived and worked in Strasbourg since 2011. He trained in the visual arts and graphic design before turning to comics in the early 1990s. He describes himself as an ‘artefice’, a craftsman, rather than as an artist.

Raised between Naples and family holidays in Sardinia, Manunta remembers the sea as a formative presence – its colour, movement and sense of freedom recur in his work, which is distinguished by fine line, direct colour and a soft watercolour-like atmosphere. His pages are both tactile and light-filled, with bodies and landscapes treated as equally expressive parts of the narrative.

Manunta came to prominence through the adventurous fantasy of Giunchiglia, while his work for the Italian magazines Blue and Selen established him as one of the more distinctive voices in European erotic comics. The portfolios we have chosen here, from The Polinators, Les 5 sens d’Eros and Quand Cupidon s’emmêle to Souvenirs de jeunesse and Scandales, demonstrate the breadth of that contribution. For Manunta, eroticism is a state of mind, dependent on suggestion, humour, imagination and narrative context.

His wider portfolio extends further, encompassing work for publishers in Italy, France, Spain and beyond, as well as projects connected with Disney, John Doe, Sherlock Holmes and Zombie Walk. At Éditions Félès, where he has served as artistic director as well as author, he created or contributed to HiéroglypH, Le dîner de Noël, Hellé Nice, and the Une table pour 2 series, later followed by Une table pour 3.

In 2025 Manunta made his first original English-language comics appearance with Dark Horse’s Hellboy and the BPRD: Professor Harvey Is Gone, written by Mike Mignola and drawn and coloured by Manunta. The project fulfilled what he has called ‘a dream meticulously stowed away in a locked drawer’ – an apt image for a career built from patient craft, a wide-ranging imagination, and a lasting faith in the expressive freedom of comics.

Giuseppe Manunta’s Instagram account, where he showcases his recent work, can be found here.

Similar artists

Giovanna Casotto – Contemporary Italian illustrator whose watercolour-soft eroticism echoes Manunta’s.
Colleen Coover – American cartoonist whose family-friendly and explicit work mirrors Manunta’s.
Vittorio Giardino – Fellow Italian craftsman whose genre-hopping career included erotic work.
Milo Manara – Defined Italian erotic comics as playful aesthetic pleasure, much like Manunta.
Stefano Mazzotti – Also broke through via Selen, part of the same Italian erotic comics wave.
Alex Varenne – French illustrator from the same adult-album publishing world Manunta joined.