[mr_goldenage]

Part 4 of 5

Strengthening of censorship

In 1938, the international trend radical domestic policy. Mussolini said his rapprochement with Hitler by participating in the creation of the Berlin axis Rome, the wars in Ethiopia and Spain. The new Ministry of Popular Culture, created in 1937, strengthens the confidence and inspiration from Germany has banned comics like American Hollywood cinema. This is the first time that the Italian State has a dedicated management culture administration. After 15 years of rule, it is more propaganda, but to unite the people in Italianization culture. However, in practice, this ministry regime strengthens the control and guidance. In 1938, his minister, Dino Alfieri, proclaims: "Press for youth should have an educational ambition inspiring heroism Italian, especially military, the Italian race the past and present" (GORI . et al , 2011, p. 187).

It prohibits all import subjects or American imitation, except Disney productions are characterized by their "artistic merit and morals" (GORI et al .) 9 . It also calls for the reduction half of illustrated pages that will be replaced by texts. The National Congress for children's literature in November 1938, the instructions are clear: "A mediocre book an Italian mediocre writer is better than the famous books by famous authors, but foreign" (finocchi and Marchetti, 2004, p 165. ). This is the slogan of the regime. The use of cultural and educational sector to expand  it consenso (consent) into the foreground (MATARD-BONUCCI and MILZA, 2004). Consumer culture to relax, or distraction is not among the ideals espoused by the regime. Mass culture is cosmopolitan while foreign influences are hated by the fascists who conceive a national consciousness. Publishers panic, they try to intervene, but the time is interrupted confabulations. The Department remains firm. Publishers yield and they announce their disappearance player series.

Why then the permission granted to Mickey and others? The legend says that these stories were very well liked in the Mussolini family but the reality is certainly more complex. If it is almost certain that Mussolini met the Disney brothers when they came to Europe and obviously he liked their films as well as
their characters. Guido Bonsaver entitled a chapter of his book "Mussolini, the supreme censor" its role is crucial as to prohibit allowing (Bonsaver, 2007). Notwithstanding this result undoubtedly action Mondadori who has the confidence of the regime and is a dominant player in the youth sector editor. We also know that the King Features Syndicate, dealer stamped Disney work had some influence with the notable fascists. William Randolph Hearst knows Mussolini, they met in 1931 and he was offered a lucrative publishing contract. There is no proof, but we can imagine that this collusion was driven by a few well distributed commissions. These actors, very influential in the fascist sphere, so successful in obtaining this notable exception (GORI, 2011). But the anomaly Disney opens the door to compromise difficult to justify only Mickey and As, other exceptions are necessarily introduced, for example The ??Phantom or . Popeye However, foreign imports decreased considerably and publishers make more use of Italian designers. The artists and writers take refuge in history, patriotic saga knows its heyday, for example written by Federico Pedrocchi and designed by Rino series Albertarelli A gentiluomo sedici anni di published in Topolino . The titles of the series illustrate the nationalist bent as Alla conquista di un impero Chiletto designed by Franco and written by Guido Mellini. In The avventuroso , this is a story about the Battle of Macalle 1896 I tre Macalle di Giove Toppi, which replaces Flash Gordon . The exaltation of the past is enhanced and great novels of Salgari, Malot, De Amicis are appropriate. Many authors do not, however, have the skills to invent and sc

[mr_goldenage]

Part 5 (A)

Italy's Post-War Resistance Movement in Contemporary Comics

In his book on historical comics in America, Witek observes that comics function as particularly subversive spaces in which established historical fact comes to be challenged or Viewed from alternative perspectives (Witek 1989: 48-56). Does the same hold true in other contexts and in other countries? To begin addressing this question, look at several Graphic novels and comic strips published between 2006 and 2008 that take as their subject a rather contested area of contemporary Italian history, the post WWII struggle known As la Resistenza (to be defined in detail in a moment).

Focusing on comic work that treats a specific moment of the past, we can make observations and conclusions that may apply to historical comics in general, at the very least, Such examination can open discussion about them. La Resistenza as that specific historical moment will be of particular interest first, because of its current disputed status in Italian politics. Second, perhaps related to this status, Resistenza comics have witnessed a small surge in production relative to previous decades and, more interestingly, 
Comic artist

[mr_goldenage]

Part 5 (B)

While escapism remained a primary goal of adventure strips in general, comics creators often based their stories on documented episodes of la Resistenza and would call their readers' attention to it, they integrated photographs, reproductions of documents, or historical data into the panels, noted within captions that questa storia e` vera, at times in combination. This trend of entertaining didacticism with an explicit historical reference never completely dissipated, and one still observes it today. Catalogues of two 
commemorative exhibitions collect and briefly analyse Resistenza comics from the late 1940s through the 1970s, No al fascismo!, la Resistenza nella narrativa grafica, presented by the Istituto nazionale per la documentazione sull'immagine di Sansepolcro which opened in Florence on 25 April, 1975, and Per la libert

[mr_goldenage]

Part 5 (C)

Faux-tography

Artists have incorporated another documentary source, the photograph, into the vast majority of esistenza comics, whether from the 1940s or last year. Italian comic artists over the years have borrowed from a practice of the wider commemorative tradition that collects portraits of partisans into books or on public monuments. To adapt this practice to their own medium, artists include reproductions of photos within panels, draw directly from photos, or, less often, invoke the photo/Polaroid image as a panel frame. Like a 
foundation on first hand testimony, this device has the effect of authenticating a comic's narrative, but deceptively, as is the case for photography in general, an image brought to us from another time and place conceals and omits just as much as it allows us to see (among others, Barthes famously muses on inexactness and the photo in Camera Lucida [1981]). Also like first-hand testimony, the inclusion of photography can serve to reinforce established traditions and imagery related to Resistenza memory, the 
photographic portrait of the partisan will be familiar to Italian readers and call to mind the commemorative practice mentioned above. The comic image invokes the established narrative, which informs reader interpretation.

Just as artists use first hand testimony to achieve a range of results in Resistenza comics, photography can offer more than a simple reference to artistic traditions already in place. For example, the anthology Resistenza, Cronache di ribellione quotidiana features Dario Morgante and Thomas Birres short strip In futuro ci scorderanno [In the future they'll forget about us]. Morgante's text of this minimally narrative piece recounts an episode in the area of Leonessa on Italy's northern plain with facts, figures, 
reproduction of documents, while Birres's images provide an emotionally charged, figurative counterpart to the words. As Costantini uses Ultimo to delve into alternative manifestations of the partisan figure, Birres portrays groups of partisans that Italians do not often encounter in traditional photographic commemorative works, in addition to the standard robust young men, he also depicts an older man, women, and, perhaps most disturbingly, a trio of hanged partisans (of both sexes). Birres employs multiple styles to 
depict these partisans, making for a visually stunning strip, for this argument though, I will only call attention to those images whose style invokes photographs. This affect is achieved namely by the style of drawing, but also by vertical captions along their sides or frames that recall a Polaroid (I have confirmed with the artist that he referred to specific photographs, some of which reside at Rome's Museo della Resistenza). Birres drawings allude as much to the photograph form as they represent particular photographed subjects. What does it mean when an artist chooses to draw photos in a stylised manner, when the tradition permits and even encourages their direct inclusion into a strip or a photo-realistic style of drawing them?  With this choice, whether he intends to or not, the artist calls attention to his role as mediator between the history he portrays and the reader. Writing about photographic inclusions in Maus, Cioffi remarked that "by inserting a photo, an artifact from 'our' world, into the closing pages of the narrative, Spiegelman reminds readers that their constructed version of the Holocaust story has behind it an actuality, with guards and uniforms and real people: here is a photo from that world" (Cioffi 2001: 119-120). In his own piece, Birres invokes a "photo from that [past] world," and he goes a step further, indicating that the images on the comics pages are from our own time and world and have been interpreted by the hand of the artist.  While his portrayal of partisans is sympathetic to the established Resistenza narrative, his means of executing his drawings serve as a literal reminder that forces of the present inform and even reconstruct Resistenza history and memory.

Fiction as a channel to fact

Comics that root themselves in documentary sources make up the entirety of Resistenza comic work, with one exception, to my knowledge, to which I will turn now. Alberto Pagliaro's series Storie Partigiane has appeared roughly every month in the humour/satire magazine Il Vernacoliere and on the artist's online blog since April 2007 (I will discuss the communicative implications of online work in a moment), and it merits some attention for a couple of reasons. First, in it, the reader encounters a very different picture of partisans than those of the pedagogical comics mentioned at the beginning of this paper, reminiscent of adventure strips of previous decades. In Pagliaro's series, partisans cuss, ogle women through their binoculars, fight physically, argue, and antagonise each other. At the end of the strips, it is clear that they participate in the same fight as the official narrative's dutiful partisan, strong in his camaraderie with his fellow combatants, but the day-to-day behavior and antics of Pagliaro's characters reflect a rather different paradigm, or at least, an under-represented aspect of the partisan experience. Further, the reader encounters characters who are not partisans themselves, but who aid in the struggle, again, the question arises of what Resistenza entails. Besides portraying alternatives to the official narrative's version of the partisan, Pagliaro's strip stands out among other Resistenza comics because of its non-historical basis, he finds inspiration for his strips not in specific episodes from the past, but in his own daily experiences (he recounted these origin stories, so to speak, in an interview at the opening of Una storia partigiana, the artist's first public showing of this series, in Lastra a Signa, 25 April, 2008). A fictitious account of la Resistenza, though, may not be without merit, as it can serve to activate memories and 
post-memories that do correspond to actual events. Scanning the comments of Pagliaro's blog-readers, one finds instances of close reader identification with the strips, or of their connection between the strips and their grandparents stories of partisan activity. Pagliaro has struck a chord with his readers, and even if he is not telling a factual event, his work serves as an access point to very real, personal history and stories for them. Witek asserted that there is a space between the historical fact and experiential 
truth, and that "'realism' becomes a conspiracy between writer and reader, not an essential relation between certain texts and the world of experience" (Witek 1989: 116).

Even though the connections Pagliaro's readers make with his strips are probably not quite the conspiracies that Witek had in mind, the point still stands that one can reach reality by means other than fact. With the online incarnation of Pagliaro's strips, a reader reaches another access point, this time, into the comic itself. When a reader looks at his blog, which includes all but the first strip of Storie Partigiane, he or she finds information related to the creative process, allowing a greater understanding of the work's content, in much the same way that Ultimo's documentary supplements reveal the research that went into the project or the way that Birres' drawings in In futuro ci scorderanno encompass both the forms of the documentary source, the photograph, and of the mediated interpretation, the drawing. Further, contact with the artist and with other a reader promotes exchanges not only about the strips themselves, but the memories and perceptions they invoke. This channel into individual memory is invaluable in a climate where the historiography of la Resistenza remains malleable, and political forces continue to work towards establishing a generalized national memory where these individual experiences may be glossed over.  It should be noted that the Internet as a site for accessibility and discussion is not limited to Pagliaro's strip: Costantini, Carnoli, and Colombari have made Ultimo available for download for free in its entirety, and artists who publish work in the anthologies Resistenze and RES-istanze include their email and/or blog addresses. This online access to artists and their work multiplies possibilities for discussion about the art of a comic and the history it portrays. Conclusions, Refocusing on the reader. So, what can one conclude about la Resistenza as comic artists from the past few years have interpreted it? In conjunction with currents from 
Resistenza scholarship and from the international comics scene, one can trace, first and foremost, an increased presence of the artists within their work. When treating a national history, this has implications distinct from fictional or more personal autobiographical comics. Besides the problems and possibilities we have already mentioned, this presence may constitute an attempt to participate in la Resistenza as a national experience, as the second or third generation's way of claiming one instance of national 
identity (Hirsch [2001] discusses this same claiming process as it applies to Holocaust and post-survivor generations). 

[mr_goldenage]

Part 5 (D)

Besides a means for the artists to claim their national history, and for those in the present to access the past, Resistenza comics also stand as a starting point for the very discussion about that past.  Returning to the question I posed at the beginning of this paper, do contemporary comics about la Resistenza offer a subversive space to challenge established narratives, or do they reinforce those narratives? They do both, in fact, recalling traditional sources, narrative elements, and images, and at the same time, examining those very components from new perspectives. Perhaps most importantly, they push the reader to consider or reconsider their own notions of la Resistenza, whether alone or in discussion with others, whether in regard to family or national history. When analyzing primary and even secondary accounts of violence, instances of silence, gaps, and absences can reveal as much about the reality of and emotions surrounding anevent as what is included and expressed. What interests me here is how such silences operate in 
comics that portray armed conflict. Silence may occur as reticence within speech or verbal representation; or, as comics is a visual medium, instances of silence may unfold on the visual plane, but still express an absence of sound. To start what I hope will turn into a much larger discussion, I will consider three instances of graphic retrospection of the Italian post-World War II Resistance movement, which happened between September 8, 1943 and April 25, 1945. The majority of the comics that represent this short, intense moment in Northern-Central Italy

[mr_goldenage]

Part 5 (E)

SUMMARY...Part A...<Somewhat>

The first police officer to appear in a comic book was Italian Renato Gallo in "The challenge of the bandit" of Jupiter Toppi, but intrepid hero did not, however, result in serial follow-ons, would have had better luck in time the figure of Joseph Petrosino ("The Sherlock Holmes Italian ") that would have been for a few years involved in some of the most popular Italian magazines followed and would have had the honor to be illustrated by authors such as Tancredi Scarpelli and the aforementioned Giove Toppi. Petrosino would become in the thirties also a darling of the comic book "The Adventurous" thanks to the designs of Ferdinando Vichi. To mention but a real detective series detached from literary influences we get to 1938,
the year in which Vincenzo Baggioli and Carlo Cossio launched their Dick Lightning (character who happily continue his adventures until 1951). This giant, whose face dashed faces boxer Primo Carnera, is an Italian-American cop who works in Chicago at the time. We find him in the throes of terrible bands of gangsters, but also with bad guys like the lone gunman White Mask, or the hypnotist Flattavion, and the gigantic Zambo, two of which he turned. Characters from which promptly Dick defends himself with his fists and slaps. Having to adapt better to the rules and conservative antiesterofile of the fascist regime, with the passing of years the hero will lose to the street its English name, however, and will keep intact to Lightning. In 1940 he joins the market no less herculean Furio Almirante (baptized in its early days as "The boxer mysterious") created in 1940 in the pages of '"Bold" by Gianluigi Bonelli, an author and as we will see in his stories show an eye particularly with regard to issues of the yellow mold adventurous variety. A robust giant Italian who emigrated to the United States in 1920 and that "by dint of sacrifice, was able to purchase a farm in a wooded area of ​​Missouri", Furio is a real bogeyman which acts at the shoulder of no less a brawny gorilla named Serafino, and is drawn over the years by Carlo and Vittorio Cossio, Dino Attanasio, Franco Donatelli, Lina Buffolente and Franco Bigotti. "L' uomo con il pugno di ferro" (the man with the iron fist) in the middle of the adventure, is catapulted by the arrival of a letter from the city of Milan that permanently changes the life and leads him to wander around the world. Thanks to continuous reprints, the character Bonelli created continues his adventures until 1964 and according to the different periods will assume narrative features: for a time during the war we see him wearing the uniform of the soldier and move in contexts of war and at the end of the conflict will occur even in a curious and fascinating disguised version of its businesses. Va revealed that Furio Almirante is however not the first hero detective devised by Gianluigi Bonelli. In 1937, in fact, the future father of Tex Willer had devised Detective John Gable for his novel "The last pirate," published in installments on '"Bold" signed Gino Bonelli (the same story will be reprinted in volume in 1940 protagonist, to avoid problems of censorship, the Italian-American John Mauri and the new title of "The Tigers of the Atlantic"). The author mixes in this gripping novel classic elements of the detective story with inspiration taken from the pure adventure fiction of Conrad, Salgari, London and Verne.

Bonelli favored in fact a tight narrative rhythm, made of chases and beatings, rather than evidence and thorough investigation by detectives. "I have always preferred the action to the complexity of the plot - he declared himself in a long interview - My characters are people that move in large wild places and so they necessarily have to be much more dynamic than a Hercule Poirot or Philo Vance ... More than the stories of Van Dine, Christie's and Wallace, I actually prefer the mystery writers of action of the forties and fifties. Two names for: Peter Cheyney and Mickey Spillane (the creators respectively of the hardest private investigators Slim Callaghan and Mike Hammer). " You will then have already figured out that pasta could be the John Mauri, who appeared in "The tigers of the Atlantic": a man in one piece and easy fists, that does not perform sophisticated investigations brain but prefer to take abreast all situations resolve them in an energetic and dynamic way. Mauri must investigate the discovery of a corpse in blue water off of Gibraltar, a place where long runs about a mysterious submarine and finds himself, against his will, to fight a band of modern pirates led by the pirate Han Wolstein (an individual who violently hates the British that led to the
suicide's of his brother). The investigations of the volcanic yellow-literary Bonelli continue in the next "The Brothers of Silence" (published in installments between '37 and '38 and then collected in a volume), this time John Mauri, having married, he must address, amongst dunes and mountains in North West Africa, a tribe of vicious thugs who were Moroccan dedicated to the worship of the god Moloch that recall very losely the terrible Thugs descrittici by Salgari in the cycle of Sandokan. But the verve of Bonelli police in those years is not limited to the sector novel and continues in a dynamic field in comics. This is how two investigators as Giorgio Landi and Marco Villa. The first (an Italian investigator, complete with pipe and mustache, he prefers for his investigations abroad and that sometimes recalling the actor Clark Gable) appears in three stories, "The Mystery of Bridgeword" (cineromanzo designed by Guido Grilli on the "Victorious", 1939), "Raiders of the Thames" (1940) and "The disappearance of the Sacred Grant" (1941). Giorgio Landi in these adventures demonstrates his great talent but also his investigative skills in disguises and an innate ability to act as undercover to thwart criminal plans. In his first story, "The Mystery of Bridgeword" to save you from a vile blackmail the billionaire William Baxter became his personal secretary in order to trap the evil Clavier. In order to entrap the blackmailer, our Landi simulate the disappearance of billionaire so as to act uncovered the criminals. In "Raiders of the Thames," Landi instead infiltrates within the ranks of a gang of thieves operating in the area of ​​the port of London, while in "The disappearance of the Sacred Grant" (designed by the great Walter Molino), during his vacation at the Maharajah of Kapurthala (where it is involved in exotic hunts in the jungle of Salgari memory) must retrieve a precious book "stolen by sacrilegious hands." But now we come to Marco Villa, the other detective comic book created by Gianluigi Bonelli who will make his appearance in "The Enigma of horror Medway" (released in 1940 with art by Angelo Platania): here the Italian detective is in charge by Scotland Yard to catch a gang of counterfeiters but also must solve a strange crime took place in an underground tunnel in the vicinity of horror of Medway. The characterization of these graphic stories at times approaching the imagery of Dick Tracy by Chester Gould and stories of espionage Agent X 9 devised by Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond Bonelli but Platania will add their part a personal narrative research and the whole Italian the London setting gives a taste of the exotic in the development of more events. Unfortunately, the lack of recall on the public obtained by the two characters will force Bonelli to invest his energies in genres such as the adventurous and the western, although as we will see later his passion for the police will return frequently to re-emerge. In 1945 he founded the Ace of Spades, intrepid caped crime fighter, created by Hugo Pratt on texts by Mario Faustinelli for the series of "Hurricane Albi." If you should not be overlooked that the first model under consideration as a starting point for those stories is the Phantom of Lee Falk's not forget that Pratt made treasure, to characterize the best the world of the Ace of Spades, also experience graphics authors such as Will Eisner and Milton Caniff. Under the custom of our masked hero hides the journalist Gary Peters who have long vowed to fight crime and specifically the Band of the Black Panthers, the Club of Five and even the Nazis. A Faustinelli and Pratt will support them in their work a close-knit team of authors who are part of the Venetian Dino Battaglia, George Bellavitis and Damiano Damiani. And the latter, before turning to film directing career, will give life to cop bowler Pat La Rocca and reporter Mike moving to the United States in the thirties and face, respectively in New York and New Orleans, ruthless bands of gangsters. Building on the success of the Ace of Spades in 1947 was born Amok (written by Cesare Solini and designed by Antonio Canale) but also Plutos (1949) whose stories are written by Gianluigi Bonelli and are drawn by Leo Cimpellin (who signed for the 'occasion with the pseudonym Alex Lyod). Under the hood and cloak of Plutos (debtor definitely in his clothing to Batman by Bill Finger and Bob Kane) with a splendid mustache Mephistopheles hides Bill Donovan, to avenge his brother's death, he decided to devote his life to Law and dealing guns drawn spies, gangsters and seven Chinese (terrible criminals with whom they will fight long in the slums of San Francisco also has two other Bonelli characters as the ranger Tex Willer and the agent Rick Masters). Special and unique in their kind the colt pistols used by Plutos that discharge projectiles loaded with sleeping gas (a little 'as deadly weapons used by the evil Joker in one of his famous confrontations with Batman) and prevent the bad guys finally put in place their plans criminals. A classic topos of these adventures is the awakening of the bad guys in jail on duty, still sleepy from the terrible gas masked avenger.

As for what concerns the companions of Plutos are certainly mentioned the fascinating Lula Michigan and former boxer Joe who often alongside our executioner during his undertakings. Some time before, in 1948, always Gianluigi Bonelli (under the pseudonym B. O 'Nelly) had given birth to "The patrol without fear," a series that will be drawn by Roy D'Amy, Guido and Franco Donatelli and Zamperoni which also will sign several screenplays Franco Baglioni. They are the protagonists of these stories (some of which recall the
structure of the famous "Radio Patrol" by Eddie Sullivan and Charles Schmidt) police officers Bob and Alan Grey carrying on a relentless struggle against crime, engaging in frequent shootings and performing the their investigations in the worst slums in the America's. The two agents have to deal with from time to time gangsters, bombers, arsonists, killers, robbers, smugglers of alcohol, murder and move against the backdrop of a New York long imaginary protagonist of the American pulp literature. Bob and Alan Grey move the shade of giant skyscrapers, roads are where frantic chases occur, control banks where the robbery is on the agenda, burst into bars that become the place to shop for alcohol, visiting radio studios and film where is the scene of the crime. Ideal for scenes stories weekly strip of only 36 pages, designed to keep the audience in suspense ... Over the years the passion for the police would not have mitigated some of the stories Gianluigi Bonelli and his most popular hero, Tex Willer, he would have had to contend with more than one occasion crimes and mysteries. In particular we would like to mention here a story like "The mysterious voice" (appeared in issue 45 of the series Tex Gigante and designed by Aurelio Galleppini) where we see action in a real forerunner of the serial killer who later become the protagonists of the yellow literature world. The murderess in question with the scimitar behead their victims and performs the ritual and obsessive its terrible murders, wearing the skin of an ape. Tex find that the crowds hide his identity under the clothes, apparently harmless, a wealthy landowner from a long time ago, paralyzed in a wheelchair. These are just some of the Characters to appear in Italy's Golden Age an exciting a place as any to hunt for treasures undiscovered.

(Light Edits by Me)

[mr_goldenage]

A few days ago, the Rome prosecutor investigating the theft took place at the home of journalist Francesco de Giacomo, who denounced the disappearance of material relating to an interview that Romano Mussolini released about the passion that the leader (IL Duce) had for comics and in particular for the works of Walt Disney. Pursuing this argument I had the pleasure to read this excellent article by Mario Bozzi Paths Riscossa Christian appeared on the site that accurately describes the relationship between the Fascist regime and the comics. I leave you to enjoy reading....

CARTOONS IN BLACK SHIRT.....

Ideology and disengagement in the comics of the Fascist - From Corriere dei Piccoli in the Roman Legionary - Italy divided between autarky and fashions overseas. To the family of the Duce liked Mickey Mouse. He remembers in his memoirs Rachele Guidi Mussolini (Mussolini private), indicating that the creator of the most famous mouse in the world, Walt Disney, "which was a great admirer of Benito", in 1934, was "to visit us at Villa Torlonia." In reality, the visits were two, what he writes Alessandro Barbera (Camerata Mickey Mouse), a scholar of the ideology of the father of Mickey Mouse, which reports such as Disney met Mussolini in 1932 and in 1937, confirming his attentions national revolutionary to the point that
Marc Eliot (Black Prince of Hollywood. Walt Disney) will report later as a sympathizer of the American Nazi Party and elected to join the committee nationalist and isolationist "American First" and its leader Charles Lindberg. The link between the Duce of Fascism and Mickey Mouse appeared even more significantly, in 1938, when it was launched the campaign for the Italianization of comic

[mr_goldenage]

The Italian Devil 1955 I have searched High and Low. Anyone perhaps have a pic on this guy? I know International Superheroes UK has a really raw bio on him but that's all I can find. Anyways as always help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Richard

[paw broon]

I'm afraid you've got me beat with this one.