Mariano D’Elia is a professional piano tuner, following the occupation he inherited from his father. But there is an important difference between Mariano and the ordinary tradesman – his interest in tuning extends well beyond the instruments themselves. As the story’s opening joke puts it, a piano that is not played loses its tone, freshness and responsiveness, and, in Mariano’s mind the same principle applies to women.

The Piano Tuner is structured as a series of erotic episodes rather than as one continuous adventure. Mariano travels from one appointment to another, visiting private homes, institutions, hotels and places of entertainment, and encounters a succession of women whose interest in having their pianos serviced is accompanied by rather more personal demands.

The series was produced digitally, placing it within the period in which digital colouring and painting were becoming increasingly important to European comics production; however, Noé retains the highly rendered figurative style that had distinguished his earlier erotic stories.

Originally published in Spanish as El Afinador, The Piano Tuner was serialised in Kiss Comix from around 2001. The stories were subsequently collected in two English-language volumes by NBM Publishing’s Eurotica imprint, the first appearing in 2003 and the second in 2009. The series was also published in French by Éditions Dynamite as L’Accordeur, in two volumes dated 2007 and 2009. A Spanish collected edition was published by La Cúpula, bringing the series together in a substantial volume.