60s COMIX: A BRIEF HISTORY - part two.

[Max Galli]

In Italy, two sisters with a great passion for Hitchcock movies and classic thrilling stories, Angela and Luciana Giussani, created Diabolik "the king of terror", a fascinating criminal with Robert Taylor's eyes and a blonde, attractive girlfriend to match. Always looking for a crime to commit, driving his deep-black E-type Jaguar in and out Clerville, Diabolik is the first noir comic to be published in Italy. Police inspector Ginko chases him all the time, but - you know - is not so easy to catch him.

 

As mid-Sixties gave space to new experiments in graphic arts, so comics evolved into a new age. Italian architect Guido Crepax, already famous for illustrating jazz records covers in the late 50s, published his carachter Valentina on the new comic magazine "Linus", 1965. Originally named "Neutron", a man with extraordinary psychic powers, Valentina was intended to be only Neutron's girlfriend, but things went a bit different. The girl was a potential sexy carachter, so Crepax started to make his Valentina sexier and sexier, also introducing new elements in the very way to draw comix: a new film-like cut of frames, "fetish" details, the confusion between reality and dream. Every single page of Valentina was a piece of art, as the "comic" was no longer being called that way. By the end of 1967, Valentina replaced completely Neutron as the main carachter of the strip.  

 

If italians did their best to join in the cultural revolution, french didn't sleep at all. Belgian-born illustrator Guy Peellaert created Jodelle in 1966, a swingin' chick with more than a resemblace with pop singer Sylvie Vartan. Set in a rather funny and surrealistic ancient Rome, Jodelle is well known for being the first pop-art comic ever.

 

In 1967 Peellaert invented another pop-art comic strip, Pravda "la survireuse" (one who lives day-by-day). If Jodelle was all about fun and a bit of optimism, Pravda is a cynical, disillusioned girl with an attitude for being completely anarchic. She hates almost everything and she's never satisfied. This time the model for Peellaert's artwork is Francoise Hardy, and the story of Pravda is not even a story, but a mix of various episodes.                                                       

 

                                                                   (2 - to be continued)