From Ansa.
Born in 1931 in Rome, he worked for Panorama and left-leaning daily La Repubblica, edited Il Male, and later created illustrations for liberal daily La Stampa, conservative daily Il Giornale and centrist daily QN.
Forattini entered graphic design at 40, after working as a worker in a refinery in northern Italy, a sales representative for petroleum products in Naples, a salesman and sales manager for a record company, and a household appliances salesman.
He became very popular at La Repubblica where his work lampooning politicians earned him legendary status, before he fell out with editor and founder Eugenio Scalfari and resigned over a cartoon of then post-Communist premier Massimo D’Alema as Adolf Hitler.
One of the main reasons for his success was the scathingly irreverent characterization of some politicians:
Bettino Craxi dressed as Benito Mussolini, Giuliano Amato as Mickey Mouse, Silvio Berlusconi and Amintore Fanfani as dwarves.
In 2012 he declared that he disliked political parties: "I hate fundamentalism. I can't stand a party that professes 'whoever is not with me is against me'. To be honest, I can't stand any party." 
"My first cartoon was in 1974, after the victory in the divorce referendum. I drew Fanfani as a cork (he was very short) popping out of a bottle with a large NO on the label," Forattini said on his 90th birthday.
A master of satire, Forattin has produced 14,000 cartoons which have parodied presidents of the Republic, popes, foreign leaders and heads of state, punctuating crucial moments in public life, major tragedies, political terrorism, mafia massacres, and the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands, or Bribesville) scandal.
He said the guiding principle of his long career was "the principle of freedom and entertainment," aware that he had angered countless people with his barbs.
"Many simply complained to the newspaper's editor, others filed lawsuits.
Massimo D'Alema, then Prime Minister, sued me alone, without the newspaper, demanding three billion lire for the cartoon on the Mitrokhin affair.
It was the first time a politician had asked for such a high amount of damages, and without help from the newspaper.
A very dangerous precedent against freedom of satire.
That episode marked the end of his long relationship with La Repubblica ("Eugenio Scalfari founded it, I designed it," he said in an interview) and his move to the daily newspaper La Stampa with a very lucrative contract offered to him by the owner, Fiat supremo and uncrowned King of Italy Gianni Agnelli.
Fanfani paid, precisely, for his short stature.
The historic first cartoon was suggested to him by a printer from Paese Sera who predicted the outcome of the referendum, he commented, "This time the cork pops," referring precisely to the Christian Democrat leader, Amintore Fanfani, who had led the anti-divorce battle.
"But I'm very fond of the cartoons of Spadolini, naked, innocent as a child," he specified on the occasion of his 90th birthday in an interview with ANSA, referring to the leader of the Republican Party.
He alternated low blows against politicians with glimpses of melancholy and emotion, such as the cartoon of the wheelchair on the seashore dedicated to Leon Klinghoffer, the disabled American tourist killed and thrown into the sea by the group of Palestinians who had hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship.
But he knew how to touch very deeply: the image of Sicily in the shape of a weeping crocodile's head, drawn after the death of anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, is justly famous.
"My greatest satisfaction is having always worked with courage and independence and never bowed in the face of attacks that often caused me great problems."
Since the mid-1970s, Giorgio Forattini covered periods marked by tension and major transformations as a "political journalist."
"I covered them with the utmost freedom," he emphasized.
"You could explain it with a phrase Andreotti used when asked why he never sued me: 'What can I say about Forattini? He invented me.'
These were the characters of the past." If asked to acknowledge a mistake, he simply replied: "None," although he admitted on more than one occasion in the past to having made a mistake with the cartoon
depicting Enimont entrepreneur Raul Gardini's suicide.
Although his success was primarily in left-wing publications, in an interview a few years ago he was careful to clarify: "I've never been left-wing. Nor right-wing. I've always been a liberal and a free man.
The truth is that I detest fundamentalism. I can't stand any party."
His cartoons have appeared in some sixty books that have sold over three million copies.
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