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Dylan Dog is an Italian horror comics series featuring an eponymous character (a paranormal investigator) created by Tiziano Sclavi for the publishing house Sergio Bonelli Editore. Though published in Italy, the series is mainly set in London, where the protagonist lives, though he occasionally travels elsewhere.

Sclavi's progressive disinvolvement has left other authors the task of carrying forward character continuity. After being absent for several years, Xabaras returned in 2004.

Dark Horse Comics has published the English version of Dylan Dog. It is also published in Croatia under Ludens, Serbia under Veseli Četvrtak, Denmark under Shadow Zone Media, The Netherlands under Silvester, Poland under Egmont Polska, Spain under Aleta Ediciones, and in Turkey under Rodeo and Hoz Comics.

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Dylan Dog is a penniless nightmare investigator (in fact, his title in Italian is "L'indagatore dell'incubo", which translates as "Nightmare Investigator") who defies the whole preceding horror tradition with a vein of surrealism and an anti-bourgeois rhetoric.

His clothes are one of his defining characteristics: he always dresses the same way, in a red shirt, black jacket, and blue jeans; he bought twelve identical outfits after the death of his lover Lillie Connolly. Even during the worst weather, he never wears an overcoat or even carries an umbrella, since, according to him, an overcoat "would ruin his look", and he thinks that an umbrella is a "useless invention. Especially when it doesn't rain."

One of the principal supporting characters in the series is his assistant (or rather, comic relief), Groucho, a punning double of Groucho Marx. Another supporting character is Inspector Bloch, who was his superior when he worked at Scotland Yard and remains his father figure (in fact he calls Dylan "Old boy") even after Dylan struck out on his own to become a private investigator specializing in the supernatural.

Dylan lives with Groucho at 7 Craven Road in a cluttered apartment with a doorbell that screams. His hobbies include playing the clarinet and constructing a model ship which apparently never manages to finish; he has many phobias, including claustrophobia, bats and heights. Dylan is also particularly susceptible to motion sickness, which is one of the reasons why he rarely travels, and anyway never by plane. Once an alcoholic, he now never drinks. He is a vegetarian. Dylan cares little for many aspects of modern life. He hates cellphones and to record his memories, he still uses a feather-pen and an inkpot. Naturally, he loves literature (poetry in particular), music (his tastes range from classical to heavy metal), and horror films. Though perpetually penniless, he doesn't seem to be interested in money. In fact, the usual first piece of advice he gives to numerous clients who have found themselves in his study over the years is to go to a psychiatrist or psychologist.

He does not believe in coincidences.

He's also a hopeless romantic who loves and loses a new woman in nearly every issue. In fact, in a majority of his cases, his clients are women, with whom he often has a sexual relationship.

Dylan Dog seems to have an Oedipus complex: many of the numerous women he pursues resemble his mother Morgana, and he dramatically collides with the shadow of his father -- Xabaras -- (Slight transformation of Abraxas) cut into two halves, which seems to allude to the ambivalence of this father figure and of Dylan's feelings for him.

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In 1994 Italian director Michele Soavi directed the film Dellamorte Dellamore (known abroad as Cemetery Man or Of Death and Love), with a screenplay written by Giovanni Romoli and based on Tiziano Sclavi's similarly titled novel. Francesco Dellamorte (his mother's surname was Dellamore) - a sort of Italian alter ego for Dylan Dog - appears for the first time in the third special issue of Dylan Dog, Orrore nero (Black Horror), released July 1989, in which he met the Nightmares Detective, but the Sclavi's novel was written before the special issue.

Francesco Dellamorte also appears in a short sequel of Orrore nero, entitled Stelle cadenti (Falling stars), where Dylan, Groucho, Francesco and Gnaghi are walking together during saint Lawrence's night, watching shooting stars and talking about life and death. But they are not alone, that night...

English actor Rupert Everett played the protagonist, Francesco Dellamorte, while Italian model and actress Anna Falchi played the female lead. Although Everett, playing Dellamorte, wore Dylan Dog's trademark costume, the Dylan Dog character did not appear in the movie

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