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Illustrations from Antonio Rubino's Viperetta, both the 1920 and 1934 versions

1920 (with arm shaded-in by artful child)

Description from an Italian show based on the book:

Le Avventure Lunari di una bambina lunatica (The lunar adventures of a moody little girl) is a reading show with voices and sounds based on Viperetta, a novel for youngsters written and illustrated by Antonio Rubino in the Twenties. The story tells about the journey to the Moon of a whimsical and pestiferous little girl; Viperetta flies away during a full moon night, carried on the satellite by the whimsies living in her hair.

The lunar world, described in that period, when the satellite has not yet been “walked on” by the man, evokes a dreamy image inventory: Viperetta, dressed in red, is the only clashing element in a landscape completely dominated by the white colour, and her hot tempered nature contrasts with the sweetness and the slowness of a dilated world.

These scans come from the heavily-illustrated coffee-table book Antonio Rubino: I Libri Illustrati, edited by Santo Alligo (not the easiest book to get your hands on). [2/2014 update: I swapped most of the scans for better versions found at Italian database Indire.] Here are some links for the Italian illustrator Antonio Rubino (1880–1964), one of my favorites:

—Comics from Coconino-World.com
—In the Nursery of Good and Evil
—post at Lambiek.com
—kid's room decorated by Rubino
—article: 'L'intuizione del fantastico': Anton
—book of his comics from Black Velvet Editrice

Previously: Century-old Rubino

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