Asso di Picche was an Italian comic series featuring an eponymous masked crime fighter who combats an international crime syndicate known as the Band of Panthers - the action occurs all over the world, but chiefly in a dark, melancholic version of San Francisco. The series was created in 1945 by Mario Faustinelli, Alberto Ongaro, and Hugo Pratt. The editorial work was done by Faustinelli, Ongaro wrote the text, while Pratt did the initial pencil drawings which were later revised in ink by Faustinelli. It was terminated in 1949.