Who is Jeremiah the Frog? And Sassy Fras the Cat? And what about Polka Dot Underwear Guy? These are some of the weird creatures originated by the bizarre imagination of Daniel Johnston, naive genius of the underground scene.

Perhaps mostly known for his music, defined by lyrics that are tender and bitter at the same time, Daniel has always been a fervent illustrator too. Since he was eight years old, he has drawn characters and adventures inspired by the disparate sources from Godzilla to Casper the Friendly Ghost, from the Incredible Hulk to his cat (and the Bible, since he was brought up in a Catholic-Methodist family). Anyone who's listened to Daniel's hallucinating songs, populated by good and evil forces, can easily recognise its protagonists in his parallel childish, colourful drawing activity.

Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea in Milan is now hosting Italy's first Daniel Johnston solo show, an exhibition that will move the bookshop of the prestigious Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, during the Traffic Free Festival in July.

The several works that hang on the walls of the gallery embody all the dreams and nightmares of Johnston's eccentric personality, displaying a boundless artistic flair which has been compared both to Art Brut, an art movement coined by the French painter Jean Dubuffet in 1945 based on "solitude and pure, authentic creative impulses", and also to Outsider Art. However, Daniel Johnston, who studied art at Kent State, West Virginia, also numbers among his passions the Italian Renaissance, the Surrealism mouvement, Marcel Duchamp and Picasso... and of course comic-book superheroes. He even confessed to Tarssa Yazdani and Don Goede, authors of the monograph The Life, Art & Music of Daniel Johnston, that he was always convinced that he would become famous as an artist rather than as a musician. 

Well, perhaps it comes a bit late, but the recognition in the art world has finally arrived, including invitation by Philippe Vergne to participate in the 2006 Whitney Biennial in New York. Now his drawings - where many-eyed monsters, ducks, and Wonder Women coexist, sometimes shouting verses from his songs, surrounded by indecipherable symbols - have attracted the attention of galleries and museums.

More than fifteen years have passed since Kurt Cobain's famous appearance at the MTV Award wearing a white T-shirt showing Jeremiah the Frog (the most popular character of  Daniel's repertoire, created in 1983 for the cover of one of his first mixtapes Hi, How Are You?), and Daniel is still a candid man-child, a fragile hero living in the cradle of his fears and fancies.

The Devil and the Daniel is showing at Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea until 4th July.