Mister Kappa story, written by Mauro Tenacci in 1984, and drawn by Jésus Blasco
Very few know the exploits of Mauro Tenacci; this writer spent most of his career as "ghost-writer", beginning in 1976 with Editoriale Universo of the Del Duca brothers. He began writing tales without an regular main character, that in the Universo tradition omitted the names of writer and penciler. Many of Tenacci's stories, ranging from adventure to romances and sport tales, appeared throughout the 1980s in Intrepido (then Intrepido Sport), Il Monello and Bliz (then Albo Blitz). Tenacci also did two tales for the short-lived horror magazine Occulto, published in 1987, and this work again was uncredited. The magazine however ceased publication after only three issues.
When Universo entered in crisis in the beginning of the 1990s, Monello and Blitz were axed and Intrepido was reshaped. Tenacci parted ways with Del Duca and began writing for foreign publications, again as ghost-writer. Some stories written by him have appeared in Spanish and Belgian magazines like A Suivre, that printed the work of many Italian artists. He wrote two stories for the new comic book 'Dagon' in 1994 but they remained unpublished as the book was canceled after 5 issues. He then supervised the new comic book 'Braintrust', that was briefly published by the Italian editor Unicorn, and some stories of 'Zembla'.
In 1995 Tenacci had a big opportunity when Marvel Italia contacted him to write a story about a clash between the historic Italian character 'Tiramolla' and the Marvel Comics character 'Slapstick'. The writer produced the story - that included the death of Tiramolla - but Marvel Italia dropped the project focusing instead on the short-lived 'Europa' project. This setback penalized Tenacci, who meanwhile wrote some X-rated comics for the French and German markets. Another setback came in 1998. He was hired by Zero Press of Catanzaro to write a parody of 'Tiger Mask', including also the Kenshiro spoof 'Kenshemo il Guerraiolo'. but he found himself without a job as Zero Press went bankrupt. Disillusioned by the comic book world, Tenacci decided to retire from the field, and returned to his native Reggio nell'Emilia.