[crashryan]

La Pantera Bionda--The Blonde Panther--began her career in Italy in 1948. courtesy of writer Gian Giacomo Delmasso and artist Enzo Magni, who signed himself "Ingam." Pasquale Giurleo's Editrice Arc launched the comic as a twelve-page biweekly but sales were so good that six issues later it went weekly. "Good" is an understatement. La Pantera Bionda sold in excess of 100,000 copies an issue. For postwar Italy this was an astonishing success. The jungle woman's adventures provided one-handed reading for countless adolescent Italian boys over the next two years. To meet the workload Magni  used a host of assistants. Among them was newcomer Mario Cubbino, who specialized in drawing La Pantera's figure.

Here's the eye-catching cover of the first issue:



Teenage boys weren't the only ones who noticed La Pantera Bionda. Almost immediately the guardians of decency, led by the Catholic church, declared the book a "threat to public morality." A series of lawsuits and judicial seizures plagued the publisher. The title was suspended briefly after issue 40. When it resumed publication Giurleo instituted a number of changes intended to placate the censors.

The censors had two primary complaints. First, obviously, was La Pantera's skimpy costume. But they were equally offended by the fact that La Pantera operated on an equal plane with men, overcame male antagonists single-handed, and showed undesirable "independent" behavior. Despite the content changes lawsuits and harassment continued. Pasquale Giurleo pulled the plug in mid-1950 after 108 issues. Fed up with the hassle, he decided to concentrate on educational comics in the future.

There was a brief series of reprints in 1954. Ten years later SEAT, which published mostly erotic comics, revived La Pantera with new stories provided by a Spanish studio. The series raised little interest.

La Pantera Bionda's Wardrobe

As we saw above, on her first issue cover La Pantera wore a skimpy bikini. However inside she wore a two-piece outfit reminiscent of that worn by Maureen O'Sullivan in Tarzan and His Mate. This comprised a bikini-style top and a breechcloth which in profile exposed skin from top to toe. Somehow the flaps defied gravity and protected La Pantera's modesty even when she was upside-down.



After the hiatus her breechcloth became a short skirt:



Even that wasn't enough coverage. Eventually La Pantera sported a single-piece dress with shoulder straps and minimal cleavage. The hemline lengthened at least once.



La Pantera Bionda was exported to Spain in 1949 as La Pantera Rubia. Needless to say Francisco Franco's semi-fascist government, strongly supported by the Church, was not thrilled by the young lady's dress. When the comics hit the stands La Pantera was sporting a conservative two-piece ensemble with a white blouse and a spotted skirt that changed size and length as necessary to protect the poor girl's virtue.



The Spanish series ran 45 issues with one "special," ending in 1952. Here is a copy of the opening page of the first Italian issue followed by a regrettably-small reproduction of the Spanish version:

[The Australian Panther]

Thanks,
Interesting stuff!

[paw broon]

Excellent piece, indeed. The censors, motivated by various factions - church or fascists or communists or the morally outraged or a combination thereof, have tried to shut down comics in some countries. The Netherlands suffered a similar experience - see here:-
https://www.lambiek.net/dutchcomics/1945.htm
One of the problems with censorship is the aftermath as was experienced in Spain after the fall of the Castro regime.  Not long after, newsstands, and newsagent shops were flooded with what can only be described as porno comics and many very violent ones at that.  These titles were often reprints of Italian series.  They disappeared quite quickly but I don't know if it was censorship again, moral pressure or they just didn't sell.
Italy saw censorship against not only Pantere Bionda but later applied to the pocket library titles that sprang up after the arrival of Diabolik.  Titles such as Sadik, Kriminal, Spettrus, Fantasm, Demoniak etc. were particularly violent and prurient in many opinions and had to be "toned down"  Interestingly, Kriminal became a better read in many afficionados' minds after that.
Plugging Sequential again, there is a an illo and mention of Pantera Bionda in the next issue due out end of November. And in a previous issue I wrote a bit about Dutch beeldromans and the censoring of them.