I never knew Guido Crepax did history illustrations

Because my mother volunteers there, I have been frequenting the local church’s charity bookshop. One of the books I bought there the last time was a pop history volume I remember from my parents’ bookcases, about the ancient Greeks, which I literally read until it fell apart as a child. Browsing through it to sate my nostalgia I found something surprising, a familiar looking signature in the two page illustration of Createan bull jumping:

Tucked away on the bottom left there it was: “G. Crepax”. In case you’re not as familiar with European comics, that’s Guido Crepax, the Italian cartoonist who is best known for, as the Lambiek Comiclopedia linked above calls it, “his depictions of elaborate and aesthetic erotic fantasies”. Once I noticed it was him it was quite obvious: compare the illustration above with the Shell advertisement shown on the Comiclopedia e.g. I bought two volumenes of the series (7000 Jaar Wereldgeschiedenis) and both have his illustrations. No actual credits are given in either but the style is unmistakeable. A really fun thing to discover some four decades later.