Fumetti
adult comics - erotic comics - Diabolik - Elvifrance - Italian comics - Italy - Lucifera - Milo Manara - Guido Crepax - Tanino Liberatore - Cannibale (magazine) - Frigidaire (magazine) - Satanik - Valentina
Diabolik
Italian fumetti neri, Kriminal covers
image sourced here.
Definition
Fumetto (plural: fumetti) is the Italian word for comics, fumetto literally means "little clouds of smoke" in reference to speech balloons. --adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumetti [Aug 2005]
Italian comic
Italian comics, locally known as fumetti are comic books produced in Italy by Italian authors. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_comics [Apr 2005]Edifumetto
Edifumetto was an Italian publishing house of fumetti, founded by Renzo Barbieri.
A recent example of their publication is Biancaneve by Leone Frollo and Necron by Magnus of 1981.
Their publising lists a couple of vampire-centric publications:
Sukia
Suka
Image sourced here. [Aug 2005]
Unlike most horror/fantasy series (Lucifera, Maghella, Biancaneve, Zora, Jacula), Sukia is set in the modern age--specifically the seventies! Her jet-setting vampiric adventures play out against a backdrop of night-lit city skylines. --http://groovyageofhorror.blogspot.com/2005_10_16_groovyageofhorror_archive.html [Nov 2005]
Drawn by Nicola del Principe, published from 1977 to 1986, for a total of 150 albums. Translated in Flemish where it was published by uitgeverij de Schorpioen, Ringlaan 19, Strombeek-Bever.
Petit format
Un « petit format » est un fascicule de bande dessinée vendu à bon marché et édité dans un format de poche (en général 13 x 18 cm), le plus souvent en noir et blanc. --http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_format [Aug 2005]
L'Italie et les Fumetti
Fumetti est le nom donné en Italie aux bandes dessinées. Fumetti signifie fumée en référence à l'aspect des bulles servant à faire parler les personnages. L'Italie fut incontestablement le plus gros pourvoyeur des revues petit format.
Si en Italie, le format poche existe (Alan Ford ou Diabolik par exemple), la plupart des revues sont d'abord sorties au format a strisce plus connu sous le nom de format à l'italienne avec une seule bande de dessin qu'il a fallu remonter pour constituer des pages plus classiques.
Il existe aussi un format appelé Bonelli du nom de l'éditeur qui l'a imposé. Plus grand qu'un Petit Format classique, il est de 16x21 cm. La plupart des éditeurs décidant de reproduire les planches en les réduisant légèrement. Si l'Italie semble connaître aussi une crise, la BD de kiosques y est encore florissante, au détriment du marché des albums qui y est encore embryonnaire. --http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_format#L.27Italie_et_les_Fumetti [Aug 2005]
Fumetti neri
Fumetti Neri is a subgenre of comics born in Italy with the Diabolik character.The heroes of fumetti neri [literally black comics] are more anti-hero or villain than genuine hero. Diabolik itself was very loosely based on the French Fantômas character. The other heroes in these comics were all inspired on Diabolik and often have a K in their names.
We have :
- Kriminal by Magnus and Max Bunker with a more violent variation of Diabolik.
- Satanik of the same authors, a female version of Diabolik.
- Génius etc.
In France, these comics were published in small size editions by the likes of Elvifrance. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumetti_neri [Aug 2005]
see also: fumetti - Italy - comics - erotic comics
Sandro Angiolini (1920 - 1985)
Isabella
Image sourced here. [Aug 2005]
Vartan
Goldrake
Image sourced here. [Aug 2005]
Sandro Angiolini (June 6, 1920 - 1985) was an Italian comics creator.
In 1966 he was the first to illustrate one of Italy's most important adult comics, 'Isabella', written by Renzo Barbieri and Giorgio Cavedon. He was also involved in the creation of Goldrake, Vartan, Una, Belzeba and La Poliziotta. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro_Angiolini [Aug 2005]
see also: fumetti - Italy - comics - European comics
Fotoromanzo and cineromanzo
A subgenre of comics in which the story is told not by drawings, but by photos. This kind of graphic storytelling is tipically Italian, in the sense that it reached its top popularity in Italian weeklies such as “Grand Hotel” and “Bolero Film” that, in in the late 1940’s, sold by million copies and still sell well
The famous film “The White Sheyk” by Federico Fellini deals with this specific genre of “fumetti”. The “Fotoromanzo” (Photonovel), as it is called in Italian, became popular also in France, Spain and Latin America; in the USA it was never much appreciated.
Storytelling by sequential pictures which follow a script was, of course, experimented much before the Italian “boom” of “Fotoromanzi”. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_novel [Jul 2005]
see also: photography - fumetti - comics - novel
Magnus and Bunker
Magnus (Bologna, 30 May 1939 - 5 February 1996), pseudonym of Roberto Raviola, Italian comic book drawer.
Born in Bologna in 1939, Roberto Raviola has lived all his life in this city. He started his career and his association with Max Bunker in 1964 with the series Kriminal. He uses the pseudonym Magnus, derived from the Latin saying Magnus Pictor Fecit. During the 1960s he created series like Satanik (1964), Dennis Cobb, Gesebel (1966) and Maxmagnus (1968).
Italian fumetti neri, Satanik covers
image sourced here.
Danger: Diabolik (1968) - Mario Bava
Master criminal Diabolik's got it all. He's got a black leather suit and ski mask, a pair of Jaguar XKEs, gadgets galore, an underground headquarters, and of course the ravishing Eva (played by Sixties Euro-hottie Marisa Mell). Together, the two of them pull off daring capers, staying a step or two ahead of the police, the government and rival mobsters all the while. Think the Sixties Batman TV series, James Bond, Barbarella, Matt Helm, and even a bit of Austin Powers for this distinctly Sixties crime romp. Director Mario Bava, as usual, made the most out of a less-than-lavish budget, with wild sets, an Ennio Morricone score, striking photography, and a psychedelic-soaked feel all the way around, with Bava's trademark camera work making it a visual delight in many scenes. Terry-Thomas comes in as a bumbling government official (the scene where his press conference is disrupted by Diabolik's "exhilarating gas" is a classic). It's all very tongue-in-cheek fun, based as it is on a comic book from the period. John Phillip Law, of course, is no better than he ever is as the rather fey master criminal, passing off his wooden performance as "stoic", but it works. Unlike contemporaries like Bond, though, Diabolik eschews the swinging Sixties life for a happily monogamous relationship with Eva (who wouldn't?). This is some goofy brain candy that's perfect for an evening of Sixties-retro fun. --Jerry Renshaw
Biancaneve
Michaela Miti in Biancaneve & Co (1982) - Mario Bianchi
image sourced here.
Genere: Erotico
Status: ex rental
Regia: Mario Bianchi
Cast: Michela Miti, Gianfranco D' Angelo
Paese di produzione: Italia
Anno: 1982
Durata: 93 minuti
Etichetta: Futurama
Audio: Italiano
Codifica: PAL
Colore: colore
Commento / Trama: Versione erotica della famosa favola. La Miti è sempre nudissima --http://kultvideo.org/scheda.asp?item=2286&type=VHS&key=3&hsa=
Biancaneve
image sourced here.
Pour l'anecdote, la série Biancaneve aura eu tellement de succès en Italie qu'ils en firent un film en 1982, " Biancaneve & co [[IMDb]", avec l'actrice Michela Miti, et qui sortira en France sous le titre de " Blanche Neige et les 7 sadiques ". --http://poncetd.club.fr/images/couvertures/ContesMalicieux/Biancaneve.htm [Aug 2005]
Les 26 premières histoires sont dessinées par Leone Frollo et sont bien sur les plus intéressantes, tant au niveau de l'histoire qu'au niveau du dessin qui est vraiment fantastique ! --http://poncetd.club.fr/images/couvertures/ContesMalicieux/Biancaneve.htm [Aug 2005]
see also: Italian cinema - Italian comics - Italy - adult - comics
SAM BOT n°1, January 1973
cover of SAM BOT n°1, January 1973
image sourced here.
see also: Elvifrance - France - adult - comics
Biancaneve
Biancaneve
image sourced here.
Around the time the European cinematic sex-and-horror boom was hitting full swing (check out Tombs and Tohill's Immoral Tales for an excellent overview), there was a corresponding boom in sleazy pulp digest-size sex-and-horror comics (fumetti, in Italian). These fumetti rivaled the movies in explicitness and intensity. Immoral Tales [pages 265-268] features a brief Appendix about them, and that's how I became interested.
I haven't had an easy time tracking any of these down, but my efforts have yielded some success. Because I've had to take whatever I could find, I haven't been able to collect exclusively in the original Italian. I also have Dutch and French versions (in Dutch they're called strip pockets, and in French they're called bandes dessinees [petit format]). I would assume there are also Spanish versions, though I haven't run across any yet. [note: Tiburon]
Alas, there's some confusing variation among these different language versions. Lucifera is Lucifera is Lucifera, all across the board. However, the Italian Biancaneve is the Dutch Erotische Vertellingen is the French Contes Malicieux. The numbering is often different, too. Erotische Vertellingen runs together an earlier and a later series of Biancaneve. Special supplementary issues in Italian might appear as regular numbers in the series in another language. I don't know if some Italian numbers are omitted in other versions, but it wouldn't surprise me.
The covers might be slightly different, too. Usually that means variation in the color, or mirror-flipped images, but some art has actually been altered to tone down the nudity. --Curt via http://groovyageofhorror.blogspot.com/2005/02/few-notes-on-collecting-70s-horror.html [Aug 2005]
see also: Italy - adult - comics - fumetti
Wallestein
Wallestein
image sourced here.
ElviFrance
Editeur leader dans le domaine des bandes dessinées érotiques pour adultes. Créé en 1969 par Georges Bielec pour traduire des «fumetti per adulti» italiens pour l'essentiel, mais aussi quelques bandes françaises (dont Sam Bot, par Georges Bielec et Raoul Buzzelli).
Les bandes publiées reflètent à la fois l'évolution des mœurs, mais aussi celle du marché de la bande pour adultes :
La constante, ce sont les femmes nues.
Les débuts se font autour de personnages érotomanes dans des environnements historiques ou fantastiques. Les scénarios sont grivois et les femmes sont souvent des salopes adorables.
Tout cela évoluera vers des bandes au dessin plus détaillé (zoom sur les pénétrations), au scénarios plus axés sur la violence gore, matinée de surnaturel et de monstres extra-terrestres, sans distanciation. Les femmes sont plus souvent des victimes, et il n'est pas rare que tout le monde meurt à la fin.
Sam Bot, une des meilleures ventes, tournera à 80.000 exemplaires. Le tirage moyen se situant plutôt autour de 40.000. Dans les années '80, il passera à 25.000. De nombreux invendus sont recyclés sous une nouvelle couverture.
A l'été 1992, ElviFrance a mis fin à son activité, Georges Bielec ne voulant plus s'occuper de bande dessinée. --http://mapage.noos.fr/bd9/i/elvif.htm [Aug 2005]
Elvifrance
Elvifrance was a French comic book publisher, specializing in pocket sized publications, often translations from Italian fumetti.
Edited by Georges Bielec (October 21, 1936 - July 1993), it was founded in 1970 and owned by Giorgio Cavedon and Renzo Barbieri of Erregi. It ceased publication in 1992. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvifrance [Aug 2005]
Renzo Barbieri
Renzo Barbieri (10 March 1940 Milan, Italy) is an author and editor of Italian comics. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renzo_Barbieri [Aug 2005]
see also: Elvifrance - adult - comics - fumetti
Barbarella and fumetti neri: Adult comics
I de 60er Jahr sind d' Comics schliesslich au als Medium für Erwachseni wichtiger worde, mit de fumetti neri in Italie, de Barbarella vom Jean-Claude Forest in Frankrych und de Underground Comix i de USA. --http://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic [Aug 2005]
see also: adult - 1962 - comics - erotic comics
Roberto Raviola
Italian fumetti neri, Kriminal covers
image sourced here.
Magnus (Bologna, 30 May 1939 - 5 February 1996), pseudonym of Roberto Raviola, Italian comic book drawer.
Born in Bologna in 1939, Roberto Raviola has lived all his life in this city. He started his career and his association with Max Bunker in 1964 with the series Kriminal. He uses the pseudonym Magnus, derived from the Latin saying Magnus Pictor Fecit. During the 1960s he created series like Satanik (1964), Dennis Cobb, Gesebel (1966) and Maxmagnus (1968).
Italian fumetti neri, Satanik covers
image sourced here.
In 1967 Magnus and Bunker started working on a new character: in May of 1969 Alan Ford came out. His use of black and white to create certain atmospheres launched a new comics genre called Black comics.
After leaving the T.N.T Group, Magnus began an association with Renzo Barbieri's publishing house. He devoted these years to research and the result was a revolution in the erotic comics genre. In 1974 Midnight of fire, Ten knights and a wizard, Vendetta Macumba, and The living skull came out. In the seventies he continued creating the long saga The Outlaws and in 1975 he started the Unknown series. In 1977 The Company of the Gallows series appeared.
During the eighties he created two heroines: Milady 3000 and Necron's Frieda Boher. Inspired by oriental literature, he created The 110 pills, Fiori di prugno in un vaso d'oro and The enchanted women. In 1989 Magnus began his long adventure in the creation of his big Tex - 223 plates in 7 years of work. In August 1991 he moved to Castel del Rio, near Bologna, where he spends his last years. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Raviola [Aug 2005]
see also: fumetti - Italy - comics - Satanik - erotic comics
Les premiers pockets érotiques
[P]remiers pockets érotiques d'origine italienne (Teddy boy, Demoniak, Messaline, Goldrake, Kriminal… ). Détail d'importance : parmi ces titres, Messaline et Goldrake proviennent d'une toute jeune maison d'édition milanaise, Erregi ("R et G" prononcé à l'italienne, du nom des deux associés qui la dirigent, Giorgio Cavedon et Renzo Barbieri). --http://poncetd.club.fr/Logos/HistEF/Hist-EF.htm [Aug 2005]see also: fumetti - Italy - comics - erotic comics
Censorship and French "petit format" comics
Censure
La commission de Censure et la loi de 1949 concernant les publications pour la jeunesse sont indissociables de l'Histoire des PF. De nombreuses revues cessèrent leurs publications à cause d'elles (Fantax, Strange, Fantask ainsi que de multiples fascicules Elvifrance etc.) et l'ensemble de la production s'auto-censura de façon drastique pour éviter tout problème avec cette fameuse commission.
De nombreux amateurs de BD ont en tête des exemples de censure plus ou moins aberrantes comme celle qui décida de la mort de Fantask sous le prétexte (fallacieux ?) de couleurs trop vives pour les yeux des jeunes enfants. Il faut savoir que les décisions de cette commission n'était pas seulement dictées par le bien-être de nos chères têtes blondes. Il y avait aussi des considérations plus politiques tendant à censurer les parutions d'origine étrangères et plus particulièrement celles en provenance des USA. Protectionnisme ou anti-américanisme ? La réponse n'est pas aisée, mais le résultat fut que de nombreuses histoires furent charcutées pour passer entre les mailles du filet de la Censure. Chez Lug, un studio complet de retoucheurs travaillait à plein temps. C'est ainsi que Jean-Yves Mitton et Ciro Tota démarrèrent leurs carrières. --http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_format#Censure [Aug 2005]
see also: France - Elvifrance - European comics
L'Italie et les Fumetti
Fumetti est le nom donné en Italie aux bdandes dessinées. Fumetti signifie fumée en référence à l'aspect des bulles servant à faire parler les personnages. L'Italie fut incontestablement le plus gros pourvoyeur des revues petit format. Si en Italie, le format poche existe (Alan Ford ou Diabolik par exemple), la plupart des revues sont d'abord sorties au format a strisce plus connu sous le nom de format à l'italienne avec une seule bande de dessin qu'il a fallu remonter pour constituer des pages plus classiques. Il existe aussi un format appelé Bonelli du nom de l'éditeur qui l'a imposé. Plus grand qu'un PF classique, il est de 16x21 cm. La plupart des éditeurs décidant de reproduire les planches en les réduisant légèrement. Si l'Italie semble connaître aussi une crise, la BD de kiosques y est encore florissante, au détriment du marché des albums qui y est encore embryonnaire. --http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_format#Censure [Aug 2005]
Note: The above French Wikipedia extract seems like a good definition of fumetti:
- stressing that fumetti is a term used for all Italian comics and
- mentioning the pocket size of the publications.
Notice that the title of the article is Petit format which literally translated means small size.
see also: fumetti - Italy - comics - European comics
The White Sheik (1952) -Federico Fellini
Roy Stuart vol. 2 (1999) - Roy Stuart [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon.com
Federico Fellini's solo-directing debut seems like a pure excursion into the director's extravagant imagination, but its comedy, alternately ethereal and tumultuous, is grounded in reality. A honeymooning clerk (Leopoldo Trieste) and his big-eyed bride (Brunella Bovo) make a package-tour pilgrimage to Rome to have an audience with the Pope. There are bureaucratic delays, and the couple become separated. The still-virginal husband falls in with prostitutes (including Giulietta Masina's Cabiria, later canonized in Fellini's most enduring masterpiece). The bride finds herself in the world of her favorite fantasy-figure, "the White Sheik"--the hero of the photographic comic books, or fumetti, eagerly followed by the Italian populace. It was Michelangelo Antonioni who proposed the fumetti as a ripe film subject, and the film's central episode--dominated by Alberto Sordi's preposterous fantasy-figure and the Mack Sennett-like production methods of the fumetti company--is the first tour de force of Fellini's spectacular career. --Richard T. Jameson --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
Description
Ivan Cavalli (Leopoldo Trieste) brings his new wife Wanda (Brunella Bovo) to Rome on the least romantic honeymoon in history—a rigid schedule of family meetings and audiences with the Pope. But Wanda, dreaming of the dashing hero of a photo-strip cartoon, drifts off in search of the White Sheik, thus setting off a slapstick comedy worthy of Chaplin. The style and themes which made Federico Fellini world famous are already apparent in this charming comedy (his first solo directorial effort), featuring such long-time collaborators as his wife, actress Giulietta Masina, and composer Nino Rota. --via Amazon.com
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