Italian comics
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Italian comics | |
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Magnus Sergio Bonelli | |
Series | "Bilbolbul" "Tex Willer" "Dylan Dog" "RanXerox" "Martin Mystère" |
Languages | Italian |
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Italian comics, also known as fumetto
In English, the term fumetti can refer to photo comics, regardless of origin or language.
History
Italian fumetto has its roots in periodicals aimed at younger readers and in the satirical publications of the 19th century. These magazines published cartoons and illustrations for educational and propagandist purposes. The first illustrated satirical publication appeared in 1848, in
Birth
On December 27, 1908, the first mainstream publication primarily for comics,
Despite being officially considered the birthplace of fumetto, the Corrierino, as it was nicknamed, did not use
The most prolific comics illustrator before World War I was Antonio Rubino. Both Mussino and Rubino based their strips on parodies of school learning: Bilbolbul is a parody of idioms, while "Quadratino" (literally "Little Square") is a parody of geometry.
Il Corrierino introduced American comics to an Italian audience: "Happy Hooligan" was renamed "Fortunello", "The Katzenjammer Kids" became "Bibì e Bibò", Bringing Up Father was "Arcibaldo e Petronilla", "Felix the Cat" became "Mio Mao".
Following Il Corrierino's spectacular success (reaching 700 000 copies), several other periodicals appeared during the following years: Il Giornaletto (1910), Donnina (1914), L'Intrepido (1920), and Piccolo mondo (1924).
Fumetto during Fascism
The fascist regime was quick to recognize the potential for propaganda through the new medium. During the 1920s several periodicals published educational comics for Italian youth, including Il Giornale dei Balilla (1923) and La piccola italiana (1927).
The three most popular characters of the period, reprinted for decades on Corrierino, were:
- "Il Signor Bonaventura" by Sergio Tofano (1917), was the Italian response to "Happy Hooligan", with a big difference: if the latter is always unlucky, at the end of every story Bonaventura wins a million liras.
- "parvenus: not really Fascist, it expresses bourgeois classism.[4]
- "Marmittone" by Bruno Angoletta (1929), was a mildly antimilitaristic strip, the maximum anti-authoritarianism allowed by Fascism.[5]
Beginning January 1, 1939, the publication of foreign comics was forbidden, and Italian material was required to follow a strict standard, exalting heroism, patriotism, and the superiority of the Italian race. To work around these restrictions, some publishers simply renamed American heroes with Italian names. The only exception to the censorship was
In 1932 Milan publisher Lotario Vecchi started Jumbo, a weekly magazine that many consider the first true Italian comics publication. The magazine reached a circulation of 350,000 copies, sanctioning comics as a mainstream medium with broad appeal.
In 1937
After World War II: Bonelli and the rise of the comic book
The end of World War II marked a flurry of activity in the Italian comic press: many titles that were forced to suspend publication during the war came back to saturate the newsstands, joined by new publications often backed by improvised publishers looking for a quick buck. Finally this oversupply of comic material resulted in a crisis of the traditional comic magazine. Among the numerous publications of the period were L'Avventura (1944), a Roman magazine that presented American adventure strips like Mandrake, L'Uomo Mascherato (The Phantom), and Flash Gordon. Another Roman publication appeared in 1945: Robinson, a first attempt to target a more adult audience. It introduced several American characters like Prince Valiant, Tarzan, Secret Agent X-9, Rip Kirby, Li'l Abner and Dick Tracy. Robinson lasted until 1947, publishing 90 issues.
In 1945, one of the most original magazines of the period was born: L'asso di Picche published in Venice as a result of the work of a group of young Venetian artists, including Alberto Ongaro, Damiano Damiani, Dino Battaglia, Rinaldo D'Ami, and above all Fernando Carcupino and Hugo Pratt. Their distinctive approach to the art form earned them the name of "Venetian School" of comics. Among the characters created for the magazine were Pratt's L'Asso di Picche, Battaglia's Junglemen, Draky and Robin Hood.
Inspired by the success of the Catholic Il Vittorioso, the Italian Communist party decided to use the comic medium for their own purposes: in 1949 Il Pioniere was born. Aimed at a very young audience, the new publication presented fantasy material as well as adventures, with an eye to the social issues of the period.
On Il Vittorioso began the career of the most famous satirical comic writer of post-war Italy, Benito Jacovitti.[7] However, his most popular character, Cocco Bill (1957), a parody of Western comics, was published in the newspaper Il Giorno and then in the other Catholic comic magazine Il Giornalino.
In 1954 Il Disco Volante began publication. It is the Italian version of British weekly
But the most significant phenomenon of the period was the appearance of comics books. Printed in a variety of formats, from strip size to booklets to giant size, they presented collected stories from the periodicals as well as new adventures of Italian characters. It is on the comic books pages that heroes made in Italy gained popularity, eventually overshadowing their American counterparts.
Among the host of Italian series that were created during these years, Tex Willer is without doubt the most renowned. Born on September 30, 1948, from the imagination of Gian Luigi Bonelli and from the pencil of Aurelio Galleppini, Tex Willer became the model for a line of publications that became known as Bonelliano, from the name of the publisher. These comic books presented complete stories in 100+ black and white pages in a pocket book format. The subject matter was always adventure, whether western, horror, mystery or science fiction. The bonelliani are to date the most popular form of comics in the country.
Some of the series that followed Tex Willer were
Another popular series, (1969).
Another famous author of humouristic strips is
In the 1970s and early 80s, many young intellectual artists centred around the famous student city of Bologna began to be influenced by the underground comic scene of the United States, typified by the work of Robert Crumb. Artists such as Andrea Pazienza, Filippo Scòzzari, Stefano Tamburini, Tanino Liberatore, and Massimo Mattioli published stories with dark and surreal themes, ranging from political activism, to struggles with drug addiction and the disagio and disillusionment of youth culture in Italy. Many of the comics were extremely violent and sexual and attempted to stretch the comic genre to its vary limits in both style and "good taste." Satirical magazines such as Frigidaire and Il Male often printed these stories in episodic formats or as vignettes in their monthly publications.
Though read by a more restricted audience, in the past years comics series with the greatest critical success are Corto Maltese, by Hugo Pratt, and Valentina by Guido Crepax. While the former is a kind of summa of the evolution into an adult form of the classic adventure comics, the latter gave birth to that special kind of erotic comics quite typical of the Italian scene, and whose main pupils have been in more recent years Milo Manara and Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri.
Disney Italia
Italy also produces many
Among the most important artists and authors are
Italy prints around 8000 pages of new Disney stories per year, exported worldwide (it makes up 50% of the total production). The main publication, digest size Topolino, prints only new stories every week, but there exist 32 different series of reprints going on, for 30 million of copies sold each year. Since the late 1990s,
Notable authors and artists
- Alessandro Biffignandi
- Antonio Rubino
- Antonio Serra
- Alfredo Castelli
- Aurelio Galleppini
- Attilio Micheluzzi
- Ade Capone
- Angela Giussani
- Andrea Pazienza
- Andrea Lavezzolo
- Bruno Angoletta
- Bruno Bozzetto
- Bepi Vigna
- Benito Jacovitti
- Claudio Castellini
- Dino Battaglia
- Dario Guzzon
- Emanuele Taglietti
- Ferdinando Tacconi
- Franco Bonvicini
- Fernando Carcupino
- Franco Saudelli
- Giancarlo Alessandrini
- Gianni De Luca
- Giovanni Gualdoni
- Giovanni Sinchetto
- Giancarlo Berardi
- Guido Buzzelli
- Gian Luigi Bonelli
- Giorgio Cavazzano
- Guido Crepax
- Gianluca Costantini
- Hugo Pratt
- Ivo Milazzo
- Luciano Bernasconi
- Luciano Bottaro
- Lorenzo Mattotti
- Luciana Giussani
- Leonardo Ortolani
- Luca Enoch
- Max Bunker, pseudonym of Luciano Secchi
- Milo Manara
- Michelle Medda
- Maurizio Colombo
- Massimo Rotundo
- Mauro Boselli
- Pietro Sartoris
- Pino Daeni, pseudonym of Pino Dangelico
- Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri
- Renzo Calegari
- Roberto Renzi
- Magnus, pseudonym of Roberto Raviola
- Romano Scarpa
- Stefano Tamburini
- Sergio Tofano
- Sergio Toppi
- Silvia Ziche
- Sergio Bonelli
- Tanino Liberatore
- Tiziano Sclavi
- Vittorio Giardino
- Walter Molino
Notable comics
Adventure comics
- Corto Maltese, Sergeant Kirk, Fort Wheeling, Jesuit Joe, Morgan, all by Hugo Pratt
- Luciana Giussani
- Il Grande Blek by EsseGesse
- Magnus
- Lo Sconosciuto (The Unknown) by Magnus
- Lazarus Ledd by Ade Capone
- RanXerox by Tanino Liberatore and Stefano Tamburini
Sergio Bonelli Editore adventure comics
- Tex Willer by Gian Luigi Bonelli (since 1948)
- Zagor by Sergio Bonelli (since 1965)
- Martin Mystère by Alfredo Castelli (since 1982)
- Dylan Dog by Tiziano Sclavi (since 1986)
- Antonio Serra and Bepi Vigna(since 1991)
- Mister No by Sergio Bonelli (from 1975 to 2006)
- Ken Parker by Giancarlo Berardi and Ivo Milazzo(from 1977 to 1998)
Humour comics
- Bilbolbul by Attilio Mussino
- Il Signor Bonaventura by Sto
- Marmittone by Bruno Angoletta
- Alan Ford and Maxmagnus by Max Bunker and Magnus
- Silver)
- Silver
- Bonvi
- Cocco Bill by Benito Jacovitti
- Leo Ortolani
- Topolino
Erotic comics
- Click (Il Gioco) and Giuseppe Bergman by Milo Manara
- Valentina by Guido Crepax
- Druuna by Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri
- Calavera by Enrico Teodorani and Joe Vigil
- Djustine by Enrico Teodorani
Fantasy comics
See also
- Donald Duck pocket books
- For a non-exhaustive list of Italian authors, see List of comic creators
- For a non-exhaustive list of Italian comic books, see List of comic books
References
- ISBN 978-1-135-45530-9. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
- ^ Luigi F. Bona. Fumetto - characters e disegnatori. Electa, 2005.
- ^ Claudio Gallo, Giuseppe Bonomi. Tutto cominciò con Bilbolbul: per una storia del fumetto italiano. Perosini, 2006.
- ^ Paolo Gallarinari (cured by), Un maestro dell'ironia borghese. Carlo Bisi fumettista e illustratore nella cultura del suo tempo, ANAFI, 2011.
- ^ Maurice Horn, The World encyclopedia of comics, Volume 4, Chelsea House Publishers, 1983, pp.478-479.
- ^ Maurice Horn; Luciano Secchi (1978). Enciclopedia Mondiale del Fumetto. Editoriale Corno.
- ^ Leonardo Becciu (1971). Il Fumetto in Italia. G.C. Sansoni.
External links
- afNews: daily news and all kind of information about fumetti and comic art. Press agency by Gianfranco Goria
- uBC Fumetti: fumetti from publisher Bonelli, with translations in English and other languages
- Museo del Fumetto Fondazione Franco Fossati (in Italian)
- Slumberland - Encyclopedia of Italian comics (in Italian)
- Website TexBR Italian comics of Sergio Bonelli Editore (in Portuguese)