


In 1976, Ballad of the Salt Sea was published in book format and was awarded the prize for best foreign realistic comic album at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. In 1974 he returned to full-length stories, sending Corto to 1918 Siberia in the story Corte sconta detta arcana ( Corto Maltese in Siberia), first serialised in the Italian comics magazine Linus. In 1970, Pratt moved to France and began a series of short Corto Maltese stories for the French magazine Pif Gadget (see Franco-Belgian comics), an arrangement lasting four years and producing many 20-page stories. The story centers around smugglers and pirates in the World War I–era Pacific Islands. The character debuted in the serial Una ballata del mare salato ( Ballad of the Salt Sea), one of several Pratt stories published in the first edition of the magazine Sergeant Kirk in July 1967.
