Dylan Dog #25

Oct 1988 · Sergio Bonelli Editore · 1700 ITL

🌐 Italian edition · synopsis shown in English

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“Morgana”

★ 1st appearance — Madame Trelkovski

About this Issue

Dylan Dog #25 — titled 'Morgana' and on sale October 1, 1988 — is one of the handful of issues that define the entire mythology of the series, functioning as the second major chapter in the long-arc story of Dylan's origins. It delivers the first proper appearance of Morgana, the enigmatic undead woman who will eventually be revealed as Dylan's immortal mother, and it is the issue in which Xabaras openly declares himself Dylan's father for the first time, planting a revelation that would not be fully excavated until issue #100. Beyond its narrative weight in the Sclavi continuity, the issue is a formally daring piece of work: it operates as a metanarrative, with the characters inside the story actually reading the very comic book they inhabit, making it one of Italian popular comics' earliest and most sustained experiments in self-referential fourth-wall fiction. It is routinely cited, alongside #1 and #43, as one of the five essential issues for any reader seeking to understand Dylan Dog's creative ambitions.

In "Morgana," Dylan Dog ventures into a zombie-ravaged London, where a mysterious woman wanders the dead while he and his allies track the source of the plague to the eerie highlands of Inverness. Written by Tiziano Sclavi and illustrated by Angelo Stano—with inks and lettering by the same—this 1988 issue features a haunting cover by Claudio Villa, capturing the eerie tone of a world where the line between life and death has blurred.

writer Tiziano Sclavi · artist, inker Angelo Stano · letterer Renata Tuis · cover Claudio Villa

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History

Written by series creator Tiziano Sclavi — who was still personally scripting every issue at this stage of the run — and drawn by Angelo Stano, the artist who had illustrated the very first issue and would serve as the series' cover artist for roughly three decades, the issue bears the editorial stamp of Sergio Bonelli himself as direttore responsabile, with Decio Canzio as general director and Luigi Corteggi as art director. Sclavi has acknowledged in interviews that he was reluctant to spell out Dylan's backstory in explicit terms and would have preferred the character's origins to remain mysterious; the publisher's pressure to provide narrative connective tissue meant that issues like #25 became obligatory waypoints. The metafictional conceit of the issue — in which the fictional comic-strip artist Crandall Reed is drawn with the physical features of Angelo Stano himself — suggests Sclavi and Stano were using the story as a playful act of self-commentary on the act of making the series.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Morgana: she debuts as a dreamlike undead woman drawn to Dylan's London address, though her true identity as his immortal mother is not confirmed until issue #100.
First issue in which Xabaras directly tells Dylan that he is his father, a claim Dylan cannot yet verify; the revelation had been foreshadowed since issue #1 but never stated on-panel until here.
Written by Tiziano Sclavi and drawn by Angelo Stano; Stano is also the series' long-running cover artist, having provided the interior art for the debut issue #1 as well.
On-sale date: October 1, 1988 (Sergio Bonelli Editore regular series, 94 pages, black-and-white interiors).
Metanarrative structure: the story breaks the fourth wall by having its characters read Dylan Dog #25 — the very issue in hand — and the in-story comic artist Crandall Reed is visually modelled on Angelo Stano himself.
Continuity callback: Morgana returns Dylan's clarinet in this issue, recovering an object he lost on page 69 of issue #1, 'L'alba dei morti viventi.'
The name Xabaras is an anagram of Abraxas, a name associated with a supreme deity or demonic figure in Gnostic tradition, a detail reinforced by the backstory developed across the arc.
Reprinted multiple times by Sergio Bonelli Editore (first reprint August 1991; second reprint June 1993; Collezione Book edition June 1998; Grande Ristampa February 2008; Collezione storica a colori April 2013) and in a Mondadori paperback (May 1992); also collected in the 2017 'Libri Dylan Dog: Xabaras' colour omnibus alongside issues #1, #43, and #100, and in the 2018 'Il Dylan Dog di Tiziano Sclavi #12' reprint series.