Dylan Dog #59
Dylan Dog #59, titled 'Gente che scompare' (People Who Disappear, August 1991), marks the debut of Hamlin and his wandering London curio shop Safarà — a paranormal bric-a-brac emporium that materialises and vanishes around the city and whose cursed inventory would drive recurring storylines across the series for decades. The issue also introduces the Safarà concept as the series' primary supernatural marketplace, a device Tiziano Sclavi would return to in the landmark #200 and which later anchored the 2019 spin-off anthology 'I Racconti di Domani.' Beyond the first appearance, the story pushes Dylan into confrontation with his own parallel-universe double, placing the series squarely in science-fictional territory well ahead of that theme becoming a mainstream comics staple in Italian fumetti.
ComicBooks.com Value
This exact issue on ebay
Raw / ungraded ▾ $2.27–$7.89 9 listings
More listings for this title
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
The script was written by series creator Tiziano Sclavi — who held the 'ideazione' (concept) credit on all Bonelli-era Dylan Dog — with interior art by Gianluigi Coppola, one of the regular Sclavi-era collaborators, and a cover painted by Angelo Stano, the series' defining cover artist. The issue was produced under the general direction of Decio Canzio (direttore generale) and art-directed by Luigi Corteggi, with lettering by Piero Ravaioli, reflecting the full Sergio Bonelli Editore production apparatus of the period. The cover illustration — depicting Dylan and Groucho facing a crowd of monsters — was deliberately composed as a homage to 'Il Quarto Stato,' the celebrated 1901 painting by Italian artist Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, a culturally loaded visual joke characteristic of the series' high-low register.
Trivia · 10 facts
- First appearance of Hamlin, the sinister proprietor of the supernatural curiosity shop Safarà, confirmed across GCD, Italian Wikipedia's Dylan Dog character list, and multiple fan-reference sites.
- First appearance of the Safarà shop itself — a bric-a-brac emporium whose defining trait is that it never materialises in the same London location twice.
- Script by Tiziano Sclavi; interior art by Gianluigi Coppola; cover art by Angelo Stano (signed 'Stano 89,' indicating the cover was drawn approximately two years before publication); lettering by Piero Ravaioli.
- Published August 1991 by Sergio Bonelli Editore; 94 interior pages in the standard Italian Bonelli format.
- The story features Dylan Dog coming face-to-face with his own double from a parallel universe ('mondo totalbuio'), an early example of the series' science-fiction dimension-hopping plots.
- The interior story contains visual and narrative references to David Lynch's 1984 film 'Dune' and Don Coscarelli's 1977 horror film 'Phantasm,' consistent with the series' signature pop-culture citational style.
- The word 'Safarà' is derived from Arabic, meaning 'to discover' or 'to explore.'
- Reprinted in at least seven subsequent formats: Prima Ristampa (June 1994), Seconda Ristampa (April 1996), Collezione Book #59 (April 2001), Oscar Bestsellers #1830 / Mondadori (September 2008), Grande Ristampa #20 (December 2009), Collezione Storica a Colori #20 (June 2013), Viaggio nell'Incubo #49 (June 2020), and Libri Dylan Dog #12 – 'Altri Mondi' (December 2024).
- Hamlin returned in the key issue Dylan Dog #200 ('Il numero duecento,' May 2003), where — acting on Xabaras' commission — he sells Dylan the famous model galleon that becomes a recurring prop in the series.
- The character of Hamlin is so embedded in the series' identity that an Italian Dylan Dog fan magazine adopted the name 'La Bottega di Hamlin' (The Shop of Hamlin) as its masthead.
Cast · 4 characters
Full credits
Key issues in Dylan Dog
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.