Dylan Dog #121

History

The creative team paired series editor Mauro Marcheselli, who provided the plot, with Tiziano Sclavi, who wrote the full script — a collaboration that had already produced landmark issues like #74 and #81. Sclavi has admitted publicly that he was reluctant to map out Dylan's backstory in detail and would have preferred to keep the character's origins shrouded in mystery, but did so at the publisher's request; #121 represents his most thorough and sustained engagement with that biography. Interior art was handled by Bruno Brindisi, a Bonelli regular who returned to draw the direct sequel in issue #200, while cover duties went to series cover mainstay Angelo Stano. The expanded 110-page full-color format — unprecedented for a standard monthly issue, adding sixteen pages over the normal count — was chosen specifically to honor the ten-year milestone, and no subsequent regular issue matched that page count until issue #338.

Trivia · 9 facts

• Title: 'Finché morte non vi separi' ('Till Death Do Us Part'); published October 1996 by Sergio Bonelli Editore as Dylan Dog #121.
• Script by Tiziano Sclavi from a plot/subject by series editor Mauro Marcheselli; interior art by Bruno Brindisi; cover by Angelo Stano.
• First appearance of Lillie Connolly: an Irish IRA militant whom a young, Scotland Yard–era Dylan Dog falls in love with, briefly marries in prison, and loses — the event later established as the foundational trauma of his adult persona.
• First in-continuity depiction of Dylan Dog meeting Groucho, making this the origin story of the series' central partnership.
• Published as a full-color issue of 110 interior pages — 12 pages longer than the standard 98 — as part of the series' tenth-anniversary celebration (the series launched in October 1986).
• Lillie Connolly's death is retroactively explained in issue #200 as the reason Dylan adopted his signature black jacket/red shirt/blue jeans uniform: he wore that outfit at their last meeting and kept it as a permanent act of mourning.
• The story is set in Dylan's past as an active Scotland Yard officer, depicting the Anglo-Irish political conflict of the era as its backdrop — an unusually grounded, realistic political setting for the series.
• Reprinted at least seven times across multiple formats, including: Prima Ristampa #121 (Bonelli, Aug 1999), Classici del Fumetto #11 (Rizzoli, Jun 2000), Seconda Ristampa #121 (Bonelli, Jun 2001), Collezione Book #121 (Bonelli, Jun 2006), 100 Anni di Fumetto Italiano #1 (Panini Comics, Sep 2009), Grande Ristampa #41 (Bonelli, Jun 2013), and Collezione Storica a Colori #41 (Bonelli, Nov 2013).
• Issue #200 ('Il Numero 200,' written by Paola Barbato, art again by Brindisi) was produced as a direct sequel to #121 and a prequel to issue #1, forming a biographical trilogy around Lillie Connolly's story.

Cast · 5 characters

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