Tanino (christened Tanino) Liberatore was born, through no choice of his own, in Quadri, Italy, on 12 April 1953.

As a child, his fondest wish was to paint naked women, so he enrolled at the High School of Fine Arts in Pescara, a small town in Italy, where he discovered that women didn't take their clothes off very much. Reluctantly completing his course, he finally took the road to Rome (since all roads lead to Rome) where, he was convinced, all women (except his mother and sisters, when they visited) walked around buck-nekid. To console himself in his frustration, he attended the University of Architecture.

Liberatore freelanced for many advertising agencies from 1974 until 1978, at which point he met Tamburini and began publishing his first comic stories in Cannibale, a magazine aimed at those who wanted an alternative to chicken.

In 1980, the first issue of Frigidaire appeared on the newsstands. Contrary to what its name would lead you to believe, this was not a trade-paper for refrigerator salesmen but an amazingly innovative comics magazine. Liberatore's famous illustrations in the Bordello and Client series were first published in Frigidaire, as were the first episodes of Tamburini and Liberatore's Ranxerox: Ranxerox in New York and Ranxerox: Happy Birthday, Lubna.

In the early 1980's, Liberatore — like any self-respecting Italian — set forth to conquer the world. He produced magazine covers and posters for major festivals; he painted the album cover for Frank Zappa's The Man from Utopiaand created sets and computer-generated characters for the stage and for French and Italian television.

Since 1982, Liberatore has lived and worked in France — but continues to swear like a sailor in Italian.

In recent years, Liberatore has worked regularly with Alain Chabat, a French comedian turned actor/director and writer. In 1997, they collaborated to produce the third (and last?) volume of the adventures of Ranxerox: Amen. Liberatore also worked on Chabat's film Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, and was awarded the Cesar 2003 (France's answer to the Oscar, in spite of the fact that Caesar was an honorable Roman) for Best Costume Design. He recently worked on the sets for Chabat's latest film, RRRrrr!!!, a soon-to-be-released prehistoric comedy.

Universally acclaimed in Italy as the Michelangelo of comics, Liberatore is now completing his own Sistine Chapel: Lucy, a graphic novel about the origins of humanity, which is scheduled for publication in 2004 — unless Liberatore gets sidetracked as usual and takes off looking for new horizons where he can find more naked women to draw.