He won the award in the writers category, as did Gianluca Bartoli, a screenwriter to whom the coveted award is dedicated. Gianluca Piredda was judged the best writer at the Bartoli Award 2025 in Cassino.
It beat out the highly regarded competition thanks to the character “Freeman”, a black slave who escapes from Virginia in 1861 and begins a road trip in perfect Western style with important historical references, from Nat Turner’s revolt to John Brown, made famous by the song, and of course to Abraham Lincoln.
The comic series, illustrated by Vincenzo Arces, debuted in 2018 on the pages of Skorpio (Aurea editions) and was then re-proposed starting last October in the series “I classici del fumetto di Lanciostory & Skorpio”. Freeman is also published in Brazil, published by DaRosa Studios and Lorobuono.
Born in 1976, Gianluca Piredda from Sassari made his debut in the early 1990s in the Italian independent market, before landing in the American market at the end of the decade. His works include “Winds of Winter”, the screenplays for “Warrior Nun” and “Dago”, the creation of Dracula in the West.