Dylan Dog #74

History

The story originated from a plot outline ('soggetto') by Mauro Marcheselli — his second contribution to the series — which series creator Tiziano Sclavi then shaped into a full screenplay; Carlo Ambrosini provided the interior art and Angelo Stano painted the cover. Sclavi's editorial framing in the issue's 'Club dell'Orrore' column positioned the story almost as a deliberate gift to the series' female readership, an unusual self-aware gesture for a horror monthly at the height of its commercial peak. Ambrosini made a distinctive artistic choice, rendering the adolescent flashback sequences in soft, watercolor-like grey washes that contrast with the starker black-and-white inking of the present-day scenes — an approach that was subsequently lost in early colorized reprints. The back cover of the first-edition issue carries an advertisement for the Dylan Dog & Martin Mystère one-shot 'La fine del mondo,' situating #74 at a moment when Bonelli was actively expanding its shared-universe publishing strategy.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Title: 'Il lungo addio' ('The Long Goodbye') — on sale November 1992, Sergio Bonelli Editore, 94 pages.
• Credits: plot by Mauro Marcheselli, screenplay by Tiziano Sclavi, interior art by Carlo Ambrosini, cover painting by Angelo Stano.
• First and defining appearance of Marina Kimball, Dylan's teenage first love from the fictional seaside town of Moonlight; she is revealed to have died by suicide before the story's present-day events begin, appearing to Dylan as a ghost.
• The issue is one of the key biography entries for Dylan Dog cited across both the Italian Wikipedia and the Sergio Bonelli Editore Fandom wiki, alongside #1, #7, #25, #43, and #100, as an installment that reveals essential backstory about the protagonist.
• Groucho appears but delivers no jokes — the only time in the entire series' regular run that this occurs — functioning as a narrative signal that the story exists outside its usual tonal reality.
• Dylan finds his revolver (the Bodeo modello 1889) and sees the phantom galleon for the first time in this issue, two recurring series elements whose origins are established here.
• Reprint history is extensive: Prima Ristampa (September 1995), Oscar Mondadori 'Tutte le donne di Dylan Dog' (April 1996), Seconda Ristampa (July 1997), Collezione Book (July 2002), Grande Ristampa #25 (October 2010), Collezione storica a colori #25 (August 2013), 'Il Dylan Dog di Tiziano Sclavi' #24 (April 2019 — final volume of that deluxe series), and a hardcover Libri Dylan Dog cartonato (October 2024); a standalone remake, 'Ancora un lungo addio,' was scripted by Paola Barbato with art by Carmine Di Giandomenico.
• The title borrows directly from Raymond Chandler's novel 'The Long Goodbye,' consistent with Sclavi's practice of embedding literary and pop-cultural allusions throughout the series.

Cast · 4 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Dylan Dog