"I am evidently a complicated person, I always have been, and the stories I tell are about exactly these complications. And what the young people I meet latch onto is precisely this: the sense of inadequacy, of insecurity, of fragility, and so on.
And so in reality I often find myself not knowing what to answer, in the sense that some people think that because I talk about these things, I have, I don't know, more knowledge or the answers. But I have no idea, I have no advice to give, because if I had advice I'd be in a much better place than where I am right now..." Zerocalcare, with his usual Roman frankness, tries to wriggle out of it, but there's no getting away from it: his is one of the most packed events at Giffoni.
And the young people ask him a great many questions indeed.
Because in his work and in his creativity there is truly everything, or a great deal of what is needed by those who are stepping out into life and have the strength and the desire to straighten out this rather crooked world: insecurity, yes, but also civic engagement and the portrayal of a politics that does not shy away from history. And further still, the memory to be cultivated (see the G8 in Genoa), the conflicts burning in corners of the world.
The creator of Due Spicci, the animated series on Netflix that closes the trilogy begun with Strappare lungo i bordi and Questo mondo non mi renderà cattivo, recounts the sparks that brought him to where he is now. Zerocalcare points to Les Lascars, a series of short films set in the French banlieues that literally struck him like lightning. "I have always paid attention to the stories of the marginalized," he said. "I use my language to push people to take an interest in issues that are far removed from them. We live in a time with no horizons to look toward. The Seventies were different, but perhaps even then there were too many lenses of fascination distorting things. What's certain is that now everything has collapsed."
One of the questions is about the influence of punk culture: "It influenced me massively," he stresses. "The basic rule is do it yourself — meaning, make things yourself, and they don't even need to be perfect." Then there is the risk of being misunderstood: "I think I am very didactic. And honestly, the idea of being misunderstood terrifies me, which is why I think carefully about every syllable and try to fence in my message. This is a drawback from an artistic point of view, because there should always be room left for the reader's own interpretation. But in my case it is also difficult to separate the work from the persona."
Zerocalcare reiterates: "I live with a great sense of frustration.
I was raised and grew up inspired by high values and a drive toward action. This is evident in part of my work. Is being happy impossible? I have no idea. I have always given myself an alibi to justify why I wasn't happy. I have chased after elsewhere, the unresolved, anxiety. You can survive the void, but I urge you to understand its reasons as soon as possible."
Then there is the Kurdish question, Palestine, antifascist consciousness, the power of reading as a tool for gaining awareness. And plans for the future? "For now I'm catching my breath after Due Spicci."
Finally, his advice to all shy people: "When I was a kid, if my mother or a friend came over, I would always cover the sheet and didn't want them to see what I was drawing. My advice to a shy boy who can't manage to carry forward his own project, his own aspiration, would be to surround himself with enterprising people. In the sense that, for me, that's what made the difference. I didn't have the courage to send my own stuff and a friend of mine sent it on my behalf to a publisher. But this applies to everything in life: I'm not someone who makes things happen."
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