Rat-Man is this little guy here!
From the pen of Leo Ortolani, who wrote and drew this series from 1989 to 2014. It's a primarily comedic series, full of dark jokes and play on words that make it almost impossible to translate to other languages, it gradually delves into horror themes. Mostly, it's just about the author's immense love of comic books, mainly the superhero ones that inspired him, but he doesn't mind delving into experimentation and taking from other versions of the medium, like manga.
It had a 50 episodes cartoon adaptation made by RAI, which basically did everything to sabotage the series and only ever aired 13. The comics have several queer characters, including a transgender woman as one of the main characters. She's as much of a butt of the joke as everyone else and still a surprisingly delicate and heartfelt portrayal of something that RAI wasn't willing to deal with. Other adult or "controversial" themes were heavily censored in the cartoon or completely shafted. Each episode also ran for only 10 minutes, had none of the horizontal plot of the comics, and was overall tamer in the humor because it was aimed at kids.
The fans disliked it. The author thought of it as a mixed experience. I still loved it because it was my introduction to Rat-Man in middle school! I then purchased the comics and began a long lasting love for the series, whose ending I actually read just yesterday because, by 2014, I was at university and couldn't read the final arcs of the publication because of life related shenanigans.
I think a new animated adaptation of the series, in a post zerocalcare world, would be taken more seriously and actually manage to go international!
