Zerocalcare was born in Arezzo on December 12, 1983. After living in France, he moved to Rebibbia (Rome), a neighborhood to which the author is deeply attached. In 2011, he created his first comic book, The Armadillo’s Prophecy, which was published in a colored edition in 2012 by the Milanese publishing house BAO Publishing. That same year, he published his second book, The Octopus Around the Throat. Two years later, Every Damn Monday Almost was released, a collection of stories from his blog, followed by Twelve, a zombie apocalypse story that serves as a thinly veiled love letter to his neighborhood, Rebibbia. In the following year, 2014, his fifth book, Forget My Name, was published. In 2015, it was nominated for the “Strega” award, securing second place in the “Young Adult Comics” category. That same year, it was named Book of the Year on the popular radio show Fahrenheit broadcast on Rai Radio 3.
Before publishing his second collection of blog stories, The Phone Book, in early 2015, Zero released a comedic report in Internazionale titled Kobane Calling, recounting his experiences at the Turkish-Syrian border in solidarity with the Kurdish people. Enriched with an unpublished second part, the report became a book in 2016, selling over 120,000 copies and winning the “Micheluzzi” award for the best book in 2017. It was later translated into eight languages. That same year, his masterpiece The Armadillo’s Prophecy was adapted for the big screen by director Emanuele Scaringi and screened in Venice the following year in the “New Horizons” category. Zero continued to publish comics at a remarkable pace, including the two-volume Raw Gravel, which further solidified his status as one of Italy’s most important contemporary storytellers.
As spectacular exhibitions of his work are organized across Italy and catalogs filled with additional exclusive material are printed, Zerocalcare showcases his versatility by publishing stories and reviews of popular movies and TV series. A new, expanded edition of Kobane Calling followed, and during the lockdown, he published new comics online through the series Quarantine in Rebibbia. Once Italy’s health situation stabilized, the graphic novel Skeletons hit bookstore shelves, a work Zero described as “grimmer” than his previous ones, followed by the fairytale Dead Grandpa, which addresses life’s insecurities in modern society through the character of Santa Claus.
Zerocalcare’s popularity continues to grow exponentially. Since 2021, his stories have been adapted into an animated series on Netflix titled Tear Along the Dotted Line, which received widespread acclaim from both audiences and critics, instantly becoming a classic! As the second season is in production, the collection Nothing New on the Rebibbia Front was published, featuring stories about the fears he experienced while preparing the series. Just a few months ago, in October 2022, his latest work, No Sleep Till Shengal, was released—a sort of reportage about his journey to Iraq among the Yazidis, detailing the dire conditions faced by this people, who are often victims of international political upheaval.
In November 2022, Zerocalcare announced a new Netflix series titled This World Can’t Tear Me Down, set to premiere in 2023. Additionally, a major exhibition dedicated to him opened in Milan in December, running for four months and concluding on April 23, coinciding with the end of the Herceg Novi Comics Weekend, which is dedicated to this extraordinary author.