Vittorio Giardino (born December 24, 1946) is an Italian comic artist. Giardino was born in Bologna, where he graduated in electrical engineering in 1969. At the age of 30, he decided to leave his job and devote himself to comics. Two years later his first short story Pax Romana was published in La Città Futura, a weekly magazine published by the Italian Communist Youth Federation and edited by Luigi Bernardi.

In 1982 Giardino created a new character: Max Fridman, an ex-secret agent involved in the political struggle in 1930s Europe. His first adventure, Hungarian Rhapsody was serialized in the first four issues of Orient Express and brought Giardino in the limelight of the international comic scene. Max Fridman adventures have been published in 18 countries, and are universally recognised as comic book classics. Some of the prizes the series won include Lucca Festival's Yellow Kid and Brussels' St. Michel.