The Diabolik Phenomenon 5-Sympathy for the devil

Giacomo Gianniotti as Diabolik in Ginko all'attacco (2022)

How Diabolik anticipates both 007 and Mission: Impossible

In his very first comics issue, november 1962, Diabolik is a merciless, cold-blooded criminal who wouldn’t stop at anything to get what he wants. Unlike Maurice Leblanc's Arséne Lupin, he’s not a ‘gentleman thief’. His weapon of choice is a knife, more silent and effective than any gun: he never carries nor uses firearms. Nobody knows his real identity, so he might be anyone, anywhere, anytime. In fear, people whisper his nickname: the King of Terror. When he’s in action, he wears a black superhero-style bodysuit with a ninja-like mask which only leaves his steel-colored eyes visible. But in fact he’s a master of disguise: he employs masks of his own creation to assume different identities or replace other persons: this allows him to collect informations or create disinformation, in order to get close to the loot and grab it.

Diabolik’s masks predate the ones used by the actors in John Huston’s film The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), the mask left by the Terrible Tinkerer at the end of The Amazing Spiderman #2 (1963), the ones worn by Fantômas in the film versions by André Hunebelle (1964-1967) and the ones used in the series Mission: Impossible (since 1966 till now). As far as I know, Diabolik #1 marks the first appearance in fiction of this kind of flesh-like masks looking like real faces, replacing theatrical make-up for disguises.

Diabolik doesn’t wear masks all the time. His real face in issue #1 might have been somehow a self-portrait of Angelo Zarcone, the missing artist, but soon the character will grow a strong resemblance to actor Robert Taylor. In the first three issues he uses the (stolen, we'll learn years later) identity of a man called Walter Dorian, in order to lead an apparent normal life in Clerville; he has a relationship with an innocent girl he met in #1, nurse Elisabeth Gay; but in #3, when she discovers his secret lair and calls the police, Diabolik is arrested and his real face appears on every newspaper. As you can also see in the first Diabolik movie by Manetti bros., based on the story of issue #3, he escapes thanks to the woman he had just met while trying to rob her, Eva Kant. She saves his life, but it will take awhile for him to trust her completely. In time – since Eva keeps suggesting not to kill innocent people, at least when it’s not strictly necessary – he becomes a little more ‘human’, but remains extremely pragmatic: any obstacle to his plans must be removed, even if it requires killing.

Diabolik's Jaguar used in the films (Photo: A. C. Cappi)

You might notice, masks apart, some similarities with James Bond in the movies. Ian Fleming’s original 007 has a ‘licence to kill’ issued by his government, but never takes advantage of it, while in the film Doctor No (1962) Sean Connery’s 007 does not hesitate to kill the unarmed professor Dent, a character who does not even appear in the original book (1958). Another example: at the beginning of the novel Goldfinger (1959) Bond is haunted by the recent killing of a Mexican drug smuggler, while in the film version (1964) we actually see him doing it: after electrocuting the man in a bathtub, he justs mutters sarcastically «Shocking. Positively shocking.»

It feels like in 1962 audiences world-wide start expecting the hero to kill people just for the sake of it. In Italy more than everywhere else, since the concept is stressed in the Italian title of Doctor No: Licenza di uccidere (‘Licence to Kill’, hence the need twenty-five years later to release in Italy the Bond movie actually called Licence to Kill under the title Vendetta privata).

What’s happening? Perhaps in the early Sixties people is getting tired of following rules. In real life we’re supposed to let someone else decide what we have to do, but in fiction we love to see characters removing every living obstacle.

Inside Diabolik's Jaguar (photo: A. C. Cappi)

The big difference is that James Bond has a licence to kill granted by a higher authority – Her Majesty’s Secret Service – and only eliminates bad guys, while Diabolik has just a self-appointed licence to kill and he is the bad guy. But most of his victims are usually rich and selfish people, which gives him some pre-1968 revolutionary aura (of course, all Clerville policemen who die trying to catch him are just... collateral damage). We’ll have to wait for the Eighties to reach the next level, when we start sympahizing with guys like Hannibal Lecter or Freddy Krueger.

There’s one more connection between Diabolik and the film version of James Bond: they both use technological gadgets and drive top British sports car, which become their equivalent of Batman’s Batmobile. Like Batman, Diabolik makes his gadget all by himself and, long before cell phones, he and Eva can communicate through radio-watches, which might have been inspired by the wrist-radio used by Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy since 1946.

In 1963 Diabolik is at the wheel of a 1961 Jaguar E-Type which soon turns out to be full of tricks, even before the first appearance of Bond’s 1964 ultra-accessorized Aston Martin DB5 provided by the Q Section in the movie adaptation of Goldfinger. But, while James Bond has at least two or three different lovers in each movie, since march 1963 there’s only one woman in Diabolik’s life...

To be continued...

Read also

The Diabolik Phenomenon 1 - Shocking a generation

The Diabolik Phenomenon 2 - Crimes for commuters

The Diabolik Phenomenon 3 - Welcome to Clerville

The Diabolik Phenomenon - 4 - The #1 mystery

Andrea Carlo Cappi, born in Milan in 1964 and living between Italy and Spain since 1973, is an Italian writer, translator and editor. Author of over seventy titles - most of which set in his noir/spy story universe "Kverse" - and member of IAMTW, he also writes tie-in novels for "Diabolik" and "Martin Mystère". Also a member of World SF Italia for his work in speculative fiction, in 2018 he won Italcon's Premio Italia for best Italian fantasy novel. He also works for the Torre Crawford festival and literary award, in memory of F. M. Crawford.

The Diabolik Phenomenon 4-The #1 mystery

Luciano Scarpa as Zarcone in Giancarlo Soldi's film "Diabolik sono io" (2019)

The real case of the missing artist

There were times when publishers in Italy translated foreign first names into Italian: there were novels by Giulio Verne and plays by Guglielmo Shakespeare. This also happened with a few characters in novels; so, for instance, Hercules Poirot became Ercole Poirot in the early Italian translations of Agatha Christie’s books, while Gone with the Wind's Scarlett O'Hara became Rossella O'Hara both in the novel and the movie. In 1962, for the reasons I have previously explained, Angela and Luciana Giussani needed a non-Italian environment for their new comics series and, as they set Diabolik in the fictional European state of Clerville, it seems they went in the same direction.

Diabolik’s name was exotic enough for Italian readers, but his partner could not be named – let’s say – Eva Bianchi, nor their adversary be an inspector Rossi. They needed to sound ‘foreign’ too. Angela’s favourite philosopher from her school years was Immanuel Kant, so she borrowed his surname for ‘Eva Kant’; while inspector ‘Ginko’ – whose first name has never been revealed – comes from the nickname of Angela’s husband Gino Sansoni. Thus, all three main characters of the Diabolik saga have the distinctive letter K in their names.

Most other characters in Diabolik have Italian first names but foreign or foreign-sounding surnames, such as Gustavo Garian or Giorgio Caron. It has never been specified which is the official language in Clerville – a French-sounding name, which is pronounced Clèrville, anyway – though in the new movies by Manetti bros. everything from shop signs to newspaper titles is written in Italian. Actually, the city of Clerville is probably inspired by Milan with a touch of Paris, while the seaside city of Ghenf might have borrowed something from Genova and Marseille, along with little bits of the French Riviera.

Movie poster based on the cover of Diabolik #1

But all this wasn't established from the beginning: the first issue, Il re del terrore (‘The King of Terror’), might have been set in France. As I said, it would not be succesful, had it been set in Italy. And it was succesful: Angela and Luciana Giussani did strike gold when issue #1 was released on november 1st 1962, although they were not satisfied with the art. The artist Angela had hired, Angelo Zarcone, was working at the time on sexy comics stories that would be published by Gino Sansoni’s Astoria the following year, in the collection Albo-Romanzo Vamp. Anyway, right after getting his check for his work on Diabolik #1, Zarcone disappeared. Forever. Leaving no trace.

Most informations about him have been collected later by comics expert and publiher Gianni Bono, intrigued by the mystery. It is said that Zarcone lived in a small hotel in Milan and was always late in delivering his work; that he was nicknamed ‘The German’, since he had a little blond son from a German wife or girlfriend and was seen dressed like a German tourist. Zarcone was the first one to draw Diabolik’s face and according to Brenno Fiumali – Astorina’s historic art director and author of the cover of the first issue – he even resembled the character. Was Diabolik somehow a self-portrait of Angelo Zarcone?

Perhaps it was due to his disappearance that Diabolik #2, L'inafferrabile criminale ('The Elusive Criminal'), was released only three months later, with a two months' delay, on february 1st 1963, with art by a friend of Angela and Luciana’s, Calissa Giacobini aka Kalissa. She was the first (and for a long time, only) woman to work on the art of Diabolik, but she must have been an emergency solution, since the Giussani Sisters were not convinced by her work either: that was the only issue by Kalissa and one year and a half later both stories, #1 e #2, would be remade with new art and reissued. But in 1982, to acknowledge him as the first Diabolik artist ever, Angela and Luciana tried to locate Zarcone with the help of Italy’s top private investigator, Tom Ponzi, to no avail. Where did he go and why did he disappear?

A. C. Cappi as himself in the film "Diabolik sono io" (2019)

In 2018 director Giancarlo Soldi filmed Diabolik sono io (‘I am Diabolik’), part documentary on the Diabolik phenomenon (with footage of the Giussani Sisters and original contemporary interviews to writers and artists of the series), part fiction. In the fictional side, Zarcone (actor Luciano Scarpa, as a Diabolik look-alike) might have been in a coma for over half a century. After the ambulance taking him from one hospital to another has an accident, he wakes up unaged like a comics character and flees, victim of amnesia, to search for himself in a world he doesn't know, where people on tv is talking about a character called 'Diabolik' who looks just like him.

But even after the movie was released in theatres and television in 2019, neither Zarcone nor any family member resurfaced and the mystery remains unsolved. Nevertheless, in spite of its poor art, the original historic issue #1 is today one of the most wanted comics in Italy and even forged copies are sold at a high price. So, what made Diabolik an instant hit and keeps the series going after more than sixty years?

To be continued...

Read also

The Diabolik Phenomenon 1 - Shocking a generation

The Diabolik Phenomenon 2 - Crimes for commuters

The Diabolik Phenomenon 3 - Welcome to Clerville

The Diabolik Phenomenon 5 - Sympathy for the devil

Andrea Carlo Cappi, born in Milan in 1964 and living between Italy and Spain since 1973, is an Italian writer, translator and editor. Author of over seventy titles - most of which set in his noir/spy story universe "Kverse" - and member of IAMTW, he also writes tie-in novels for "Diabolik" and "Martin Mystère". Also a member of World SF Italia for his work in speculative fiction, in 2018 he won Italcon's Premio Italia for best Italian fantasy novel. He also works for the Torre Crawford festival and literary award, in memory of F. M. Crawford.

The Diabolik Phenomenon 3 - Welcome to Clerville

 

Diabolik and Ginko's reflection in Ginko all'attacco (2022), 01 Distribution

From a real life murder to a fictional world

Mystery and crime fiction have been succesful in Italy since 1929, as I already explained here. But, according to the fascist regime in power since 1922, no murder was supposed to happen in Mussolini’s ‘perfect’ country, so most of the few Italian mystery writers at the time had to set their detective stories elsewhere. In the end, readers were effectively convinced that no murder story could ever be set in Italy, therefore no Italian writer would be able to write a credible one, two ideas that would persist for a very, very long time. Later, the regime censored the whole of crime literature, anyway.

The libri gialli were back on sale in 1946, in the newborn free and democratic Repubblica Italiana. But most Italian mystery writers still had to set their stories in US cities they had just read about in American hardboiled books, often hiding themselves behind foreign pen names. Anyway, in Italian language, the word giallo acquired the meaning of "real life unsolved mystery" as well.

When Angela and Luciana Giussani (who decided to sign themselves A. & L. Giussani, keeping their Italian identity) chose a thief and murderer who baffles the police as their new comics hero in 1962, they had two problems to solve: the name and the place.

Art by Riccardo Nunziati

In 1955 audiences world-wide were shocked by Les diaboliques, H. G. Clouzot’s movie based on a thriller by French mystery writers Boileau and Narcejac. The word diabolico became associated with murder... and terror: in 1957 Italian journalist Italo Fasan, under the unlikely pen name 'Bill Skyline', published one of the many gialli you could find in newsstands from minor publishers, a fake-American thriller titled Uccidevano di notte (‘They killed by night’) featuring a serial killer who writes letters to the police signing himself ‘Diabolic’. In 1958 a real life murder in Turin hit the news: the perpetrator sent the police a letter signed ‘Diabolich’ (with a final h), possibly inspired by Fasan’s novel. The book was immediately republished under the title Diabolic-Uccidevano di notte, this time with the author's real name proudly on the cover. Diabolich would never be discovered. In early 1962, famous Italian comedian Totò appeared in various roles in the crime spoof film Totò Diabolicus, inspired by the 1949 British movie Kind Hearts and Coronets.

All this events probably inspired Angela and Luciana's choice of the name ‘Diabolik’, with a final k - unusual in Italian language - giving it both an exotic and ‘evil’ sound. But where would Diabolik commit his crimes?

Clerville State map appearing in the films

At first Angela and Luciana Giussani thought about using Paris and Marseille as a setting, but soon they shifted to the fictional cities of Clerville and Ghenf, in the equally fictional European state of Clerville. This simplified work in the art department: no need to draw the Eiffel Tower in the background, for instance. Besides, no Italian policeman would be offended, since cops always seem unable to defeat Diabolik. A similar choice had been made in his novel El inocente (1953) by Spanish writer Mario Lacruz, who could not criticize the police in his country under Franco's regime; or by American writer Evan Hunter (born Salvatore Lombino) under his pen name 'Ed McBain' in his police procedural 87th Precinct series (1956-2005) set in the fictional US city of Isola, just because this allowed him more leeway in his stories then the real New York City.

After all, fictional cities like Metropolis or Gotham City had already appeared in DC Comics such as Batman and Superman. Half a century later this would lead to a detailed tourist guidebook (the brilliant Guida turistica di Clerville), complete with a Clerville city map and a Clerville State road map, which are now used as a reference book: for instance, the streets and squares mentioned in the opening chase of the film Diabolik (2020) strictly follow the city map.

But Diabolik goes far beyond. A whole brand new geography would be created, with fictional countries surrounding the State of Clerville, and more fictional countries all around the planet. In over sixty years, Diabolik and Eva Kant’s adventures would mostly take place in an alternative world. My personal contributions have been baptising ‘Gau Long’ a previously nameless Hong Kong-like city in the Far East, and establish ‘Zlata’ (inspired by Praha) as the capital of the Republic of Rennert: in the movie Diabolik-Ginko all’attacco you can find both cities in the departure list at Clerville Airport. The only exceptions to this "other world" in the comics are recent occasional short stories set in real Italian cities, published for comics conventions or special events.

One of the Jaguar E-Types used in the films

As it often happens with long-lasting series, time also flows differently in this world: characters are not allowed to age, or rather, they do it very slowly, while objects around change according to real life technology. Diabolik still drives his 1961 Jaguar E-Type, but cell phones and computers have appeared in the comics and Clerville has adopted euro as a currency, along with many real Euopean countries. The rule is: four years in the readers’ reality are just one year in the characters’ lives, so sixty years of comics are actually fifteen years for Diabolik, Eva and all the others. In this time, they have evolved somehow – as it would be natural in fifteen years – but have not been altered. Stories are still essentially capers, a subgenre not overexploited (unlike psychthrillers, for instance) and not so easy to write, which makes stories very interesting to read.

When Marco e Antonio Manetti turned into movies three classic episodes of Diabolik comics from the Sixties, they decided to remain closer to the time in which they had been written, just moving the stories slightly forward, between the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the Seventies. So not only in the films you can find cars, objects and clothing dating back to 1968-72, but also the look and the flavour of the movies of those times: while Diabolik (2020) has a few hitchcockian notes, Diabolik - Who are you? (2023) recalls Italian police movies of the early Seventies.

But there’s more to be discovered in the world of Diabolik, including another real life mystery behind issue #1.

To be continued...

Read also

The Diabolik Phenomenon 1 - Shocking a generation

The Diabolik Phenomenon 2 - Crimes for commuters

The Diabolik Phenomenon 4 - The #1 mystery

The Diabolik Phenomenon 5 - Sympathy for the devil

Andrea Carlo Cappi, born in Milan in 1964 and living between Italy and Spain since 1973, is an Italian writer, translator and editor. Author of over seventy titles - most of which set in his noir/spy story universe "Kverse" - and member of IAMTW, he also writes tie-in novels for "Diabolik" and "Martin Mystère". Also a member of World SF Italia for his work in speculative fiction, in 2018 he won Italcon's Premio Italia for best Italian fantasy novel. He also works for the Torre Crawford festival and literary award, in memory of F. M. Crawford.

The Diabolik Phenomenon 2-Crimes for commuters

Miriam Leone (Eva Kant) and Monica Bellucci (Altea von Vallenberg)
in "Diabolik, who are you?" (2023) - 01 Distribution

The two ladies from Milan who became partners in crime

How come two fictional criminals become household names and movie heroes? Let’s start from the very beginning: in 1961 former model and amateur plane pilot Angela Giussani has been married for fifteen years with horror, science-fiction and sexy-ish comics publisher Gino Sansoni, owner of Casa Editrice Astoria and Gino Sansoni Editore, with headquarters in a flat in via Leopardi, Milan. In 1961 Angela decides to become a publisher on her own and opens - in the kitchen (cucina) of the same flat - Astorina (literally, ‘small Astoria’), specialized in comics, called fumetti in Italian, since the dialogue balloons recall puffs of smoke (fumo). Astorina starts publishing Elliot Caplin’s Big Ben Bolt comics from the US, which don't seem to be particurarly succesful in Italy. Then Angela decides to write something new and her younger sister Luciana joins her as co-author. They don’t expect their new creation will be so groundbreaking as it will turn out to be.

Angela Giussani (1922-1987) and Luciana Giussani (1928-2001)

Two myths surround the birth of Diabolik and both are connected with railways. Myth one: while travelling by train, Angela finds on a seat an abandoned copy of the first Fantômas novel (1911) by French authors Allain and Souvestre, reads it and finds the inspiration for a modern day mysterious criminal with no name and many faces. Myth two: from the window of Astorina overlooking the Stazione Nord, the Milan railway station of Ferrovie Nord, Angela and her sister Luciana see thousands of commuters coming and going every day; so they conceive a comic book that people can buy in newsstands, carry easily in a pocket or a bag and read comfortably on the way to work or home, even while standing in an overcrowded train. Stories have to be gripping, so they might be crime stories, something still unusual in Italian-made comics at the time. And that’s what they set themselves to do.

In 1962 crime novels (gialli in Italian, learn here the origin of the word) are a huge hit in Italian newsstands, a good reason for Angela and Luciana Giussani to consider creating a giallo a fumetti. And what about something really new, such as crime comics where the real ‘hero’ is an unpunished criminal, like Fantômas? At the time, in books, films and comics, robbers and burglars get always jailed or killed in the end, or at least lose their loot. The rules imposed to Hollywood movies by the Hays Code have become a standard everywhere, including French noir masterpieces of the Fifties such as Auguste Le Breton's novel Rififi or Albert Simonin's novel Grisbi, both turned into films.

There must be something in the air, because in 1962 American writer Donald E. Westlake, writing under the pen name ‘Richard Stark’, lets his editor convince him that Parker, the robber in his novel The Hunter, should stay alive and free at the end of the book, and return in further novels. Good idea, since Parker will become an icon of caper fiction: he will appear in twenty-four novels and a few times on the big screen, with the likes of Lee Marvin, Mel Gibson or Jason Statham. Donald/Richard will write about his ‘James Bond of crime’ till his death, on december 31st 2008.

As Diabolik current author Mario Gomboli noted, Parker and Diabolik have some features in common: they’re both careful planners of perfect heists, both cold-blooded but not sadististic killers and both (unlike James Bond) strictly monogamous. But in 1962 only the first of Richard Stark’s books has been published and won’t arrive in Italy before 1964. For Angela and Luciana, the model is clearly Fantômas, created over half a century before in France by Allain and Souvestre.

Fantômas – whose real name is unknown – is a master of disguise, has a lover called Lady Beltham and is chased by French police inspector Juve with the help of journalist Fandor. The same cast of characters is recreated in the first three issues of Diabolik, with Diabolik himself, Lady Eva Kant, inspector Ginko and his sidekick Gustavo Garian, a character who will later fade out of the series.

Elements of the plot of the first three issues actually recall the first Fantômas novel, but with a more modern and technological approach that soon – as we’ll see – anticipates both the 007 movies and the Mission: Impossible tv series. Again, there must be someting in the air...

To be continued...

Read also

The Diabolik Phenomenon 1-Shocking a generation

The Diabolik Phenomenon 3 - Welcome to Clerville

The Diabolik Phenomenon 4 - The #1 mystery

The Diabolik Phenomenon 5 - Sympathy for the devil

Anthology, december 2023; art: Giuseppe di Bernardo

Andrea Carlo Cappi, born in Milan in 1964 and living between Italy and Spain since 1973, is an Italian writer, translator and editor. Author of over seventy titles - most of which set in his noir/spy story universe "Kverse" - and member of IAMTW, he also writes tie-in novels for "Diabolik" and "Martin Mystère". Also a member of World SF Italia for his work in speculative fiction, in 2018 he won Italcon's Premio Italia for best Italian fantasy novel. He also works for the Torre Crawford festival and literary award, in memory of F. M. Crawford.

The Diabolik Phenomenon 1-Shocking a generation

 

Eva Kant (Miriam Leone) and Diabolik (Luca Marinelli) in "Diabolik" (2021)

Tie-in writer A. C. Cappi leads you into the world of Diabolik

Almost everybody in Italy knows this name. Most people, readers and non-readers alike, are aware it’s a comics series about both the eponymous masked male character and his female partner and lover Eva Kant: she just happened to make her first appearance in issue #3, when the brand name Diabolik was already established, due to the overnight success of issue #1 four months before, on november 1st 1962. With issue #2, on february 1st 1963, the series started being published monthly and since then nearly one thousand stories have appeared, including special issues, graphic novels and more.

"Diabolik-Il film" (2021) poster

By the way, Diabolik & Eva Kant are not superheroes, nor ‘heroes’ in a traditional way. They are not even ‘supervillains’, although they live in crime and use plenty of tricks in order to avoid being caught by inspector Ginko. Nor any of the three Diabolik motion pictures released since december 2021 – all based on classic comics episodes from the 60’s and directed by Marco & Antonio Manetti, aka Manetti bros – is your typical Marvel or DC movie. «We love Marvel movies», said the directors at a preview of the final chapter of the Diabolik trilogy in november 2023, «but that’s not what we have been making here.»

After all, Diabolik, still the third best-selling and second longest-running comics series in Italy, is not like anything else. More so when it was created in 1962 by Angela Giussani and her sister Luciana, changing the way comics were made in Italy and becoming a cultural phenomenon that shocked a generation.

Original sketch by Brenno Fiumali for issue #1, 1962

There was no official Comic Code Authority in 1962 Italy, only self-imposed rules, but for sure stories about two unpunished criminals who murder their way from heist to heist were unconceivable. Besides, Diabolik & Eva Kant were clearly an unmarried couple living together, something unacceptable when Italy was ruled by Democrazia Cristiana, the ultra-catholic christian democratic party that kept under scrutiny the two only tv channels, both state-owned (the second channel had started broadcasting the year before).

Not to mention the fact that Eva Kant was an emancipated wman, while women in Italy were supposed to be wives, mothers and cooks. But she was a refelctions of her creators Angela and Luciana Giussani. Who, anyway, signed the comics books as ‘A. & L. Giussani’, hiding the fact that two women were writing them.

Advertisement of issue #2, february 1963

Violence was present in Diabolik, but never graphic and no explicit sex has ever been shown. Though, in little more than one year, its success would spawn several exploitation comics by other authors, featuring outlaw characters, men and women usually with the letter K in their names – Zakimort, Kriminal, Satanik, Sadik, Killing... – some of them more open to nudity and violence. All were labeled ‘adult comics books’ which families did not allow children to read, making them even more appealing to a younger audience.

Soon judges would retire comics books from the newsstands and one even took the Giussani sisters to trial (they’d be acquitted), while newspapers led a crusade against the so-called "horror comics". But the rebellious year 1968 was getting nearer and nearer, and in the end nobody could stop the revolution. By the way, many of those "K" comics would become classics themselves, though only Diabolik would survive the Seventies and keep sailing beyond 2000.

Before the end of the Sixties, Diabolik was translated in several countries. A few episodes were adapted into two different novelization series, one in Italy and one in France. In 1968, the pop-cult movie Danger: Diabolik directed by Mario Bava, featuring an international cast and an original soundtrack by Ennio Morricone, was released world-wide by Paramount Pictures (though a few scenes were safely censored in the Italian version, in order to avoid restrictions).

In time, Diabolik also inspired radio and audio serials, music, art, fashion, the world-wide tv cartoon series Diabolik-Track of the Panther (1999.2001), new tie-in novels since 2002, the adventure game Diabolik-The Original Sin (2007) and an alternative universe comics mini-series titled DK (2015-2019). While Diabolik was reaching its 60th birthday, four movies have been released: Diabolik sono io, a 2019 docu-fiction film by director Giancarlo Soldi, based on the mystery behind issue #1, and the Manetti bros trilogy: Diabolik-Il film (2021), Diabolik-Ginko all'attacco (2022) and Diabolik, chi sei? (2023).

As the official tie-in novels and novelizations writer and the author of an authorized non-fiction book called Fenomenologia di Diabolik (2017), let me be your guide in this world of mystery and heists, love and passion, and crime without punishment.

To be continued...

Read also

The Diabolik Phenomenon 2 - Crimes for commuters

The Diabolik Phenomenon 3 - Welcome to Clerville

The Diabolik Phenomenon 4 - The #1 mystery 

The Diabolik Phenomenon 5 - Sympathy for the devil

Andrea Carlo Cappi, born in Milan in 1964 and living between Italy and Spain since 1973, is an Italian writer, translator and editor. Author of over seventy titles - most of which set in his noir/spy story universe "Kverse" - and member of IAMTW, he also writes tie-in novels for "Diabolik" and "Martin Mystère". Also a member of World SF Italia for his work in speculative fiction, in 2018 he won Italcon's Premio Italia for best Italian fantasy novel. He also works for the Torre Crawford festival and literary award, in memory of F. M. Crawford.

Happy 2024 from the Kverse

Happy new year from Italian writer A. C. Cappi to you... and to them.

Who are they and why 2024 is so important for them? They are the main contemporary characters of my Italian language spy-story/noir literary universe that has been called "Kverse" and have entertained about one hundred thousand Italian readers for almost thirty years.

From left to right, Italian hitman Carlo Medina (no relationship with the character of the same name in the tv series Ugly Betty), Bolivian hitwoman Rosa "Sickrose" Kerr, Spanish private detective Toni "Black" Porcell and Spanish contractor Mercedes "Nightshade" Contreras, also called "Mercy". Each one has her/his own series, although they all frequently work with Mercy in her Nightshade/Agente Nightshade series.

Medina was the first to be published, in the novelette Milano da morire on the special 1994 Christmas issue of 'Il Giallo Mondadori". This makes 2024 the 30th anniversary of the Kverse, now reaching around thirty titles (including three collections of short stories and novelettes) plus various short stories - still uncollected - and twelve Dark Duet novelettes (and more to come) published in ebook, featuring characters of a previous generation in the early years of the Cold War.

Actually, I've been living in this "universe" for quite a long time: I started working on it in 1978 (I was 14 at the time) and brushed up the material in the early Nineties. Since 2002 I've been publishing Kverse novels in the "Segretissimo Mondadori" collection mostly under the pen name François Torrent. Since 2019, older titles have been republished in a collection from Oakmond Publishing, all under my real name, Andrea Carlo Cappi. I'm currently working on two new novels for Mondadori in 2024. Wishing to myself that in the new year the Kverse might start being available at last to readers outside Italy.

Andrea Carlo Cappi, born in Milan in 1964 and living between Italy and Spain since 1973, is an Italian writer, translator and editor. Author of over sixty titles - most of which set in his noir/spy story universe "Kverse" - member of IAMTW he also writes tie-in novels for "Diabolik" and "Martin Mystère". In 2018 he won the Premio Italia for best Italian fantasy novel.

The unknown secret of Italian Giallo

"Italian Giallo" is the definition by which the world remembers the revolutionary, shocking thrillers made in Italy in the 70's that would set the base for psychothrillers of the 80's and sometimes would mix serial killers with supernatural elements, although the word "giallo" originally meant classic murder mysteries and detective stories. Director Mario Bava was the first to lead Italian mystery movies in a new direction in the 60's, but the real Italian Giallo phenomenon started in 1970 with the huge success of Dario Argento's "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage". Not only this movie, credited to Argento both as writer and director, heavily influenced other Italian directors (Aldo Lado, Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino... mentioning only the ones I had the pleasure of meeting personally, but there are many, many more); it is also said to have inspired Alfred Hitchcock while making "Frenzy".

So, Dario Argento is undoubtedly the father of Italian Giallo.

But is he the only one?

On Sept. 11th, 2021, during the "Premio Torre Crawford" Festival in San Nicola Arcella (Italy), guest Aldo Lado tells a different story, which has been recently published in France, in Laure Charcossey's book "Conversation avec Aldo Lado", but was never previously heard in Italy.

Moment of revelation: Lado and Cappi in the TV news 

Let's go back to the 60's. Dario Argento is the writer of Maurizio Lucidi's war movie "Probabilità Zero", filmed in (then) Yugoslavia, with Aldo Lado as assistant director. According to Lado, Argento tells him he'd like to make a movie from Fredric Brown's "The Screaming Mimi" but he hasn't been able to obtain film rights for the novel. Lado reads the book and doesn't see it as film material, except for one thing: in the book, a man witnesses a murder and not the murderer, the murderer thinks the witness has seen it all. That would really work.

So - said Lado last saturday - they start working together on a film project of their own and, in a restaurant in Rome, they come up with a title which will become famous: "L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo". Then Lado goes back working as assistant director on various films all over the world, later including "The Conformist" by Bernardo Bertolucci, from a novel by Alberto Moravia. According to Lado, he doesn't hear about "The Bird" till, back in Italy, he reads that Argento is working on "their" film; Argento wouldn't return his calls and the movie is released only with Argento's name as writer. The lack of credit, says Lado, "delayed my career for three or four years". He adds "I didn't speak with Dario for over forty years".

In 1971 Lado is the director of an Italian Giallo of his own, filmed in Prague as "Malastrana", but the distributors choose a different title, "The Short Night of the Butterflies"; and, since director Duccio Tessari is releasing his "The Bloodstained Butterfly", the title is changed again into "The Short Night of the Glass Dolls", reminding of the "crystal plumage" of Argento's film. Meanwhile Lado has been working with Bertolucci on the project of "Last Tango in Paris", delayed because Marlon Brando got himself hired by Francis Ford Coppola in "The Godfather". Lado will miss "Tango", since he is called to film in Venice - the city where he grew up - his second giallo, "Who Saw Her Die".

He won't make another giallo - "I didn't like to make the same film twice" - although some thrilling elements appear in the shocking, highly political movie "Last Stop of the Night Train". He will later be back to something similar to giallo with a few tv productions and the film "Il notturno di Chopin". Meanwhile he adapts various novels for the screen, including one by Moravia,  "La disubbidienza". He later becomes a film producer in France and currently lives near Rome, writing novels. He also published in English the book "The Movies You Will Never See", a collection of original unused film stories of his.

Quentin Tarantino said that his two giallo movies and "Last Stop of the Night Train" are enough to consider him one of the great Italian directors. But maybe a paragraph of the history of Italian cinema should be rewritten and Dario Argento would not be the only father of Italian Giallo.

Sept. 14th, 2021

Andrea Carlo Cappi

F. M. Crawford, the American writer from Italy

Torre Crawford, photo by A. C. Cappi

American writer Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was a bestselling author in the late XIX-early XX. century. Today he's remembered mostly for his gothic stories, a comparatively small part of his works. Born in Tuscany, he established himself in Southern Italy, living in Sant'Agnello, Campania, and spending his summers in San Nicola Arcella, Calabria. Here he used to live in a 16th century tower that turned out to be the setting for one of the most celebrated gothic stories ever, For the Blood is the Life; since then, the tower is known as Torre Crawford.

In 2019, 110 years after his death, someone in the Calabrian town and elsewhere in Italy volunteered to create a literary contest - open to writers in Italian language - and a festival inspired by F. M. Crawford.

The first edition of Premio Torre Crawford was celebrated in San Nicola Arcella on September 19th, 2020. taking advantage of a pause in the pandemic lockdown: winners of the contest, writers and performers came to town. I edited a book in Italian which includes my translation of Crawford's story set in the town - For the Blood is the Life - a novelette by horrow/thriller top writer Cristiana Astori and the selected short stories by contestants, all inspired by the title of Crawford's story. For those who can read Italian, the book Perché il sangue è la vita (Oakmond Publishing) is available both for kindle and as an actual book on Amazon all over the world.

The second edition of Premio Torre Crawford is taking place in September 10th- 11th-12th, 2021. Guests include writer Alda Teodorani, about whom director Dario Argento declared "her stories feel like my deepest nightmares" and whose work is studied in European and American universities; master film director Aldo Lado; writer-actress Giada Trebeschi and musician-actor Giorgio Rizzo, whose short film Mia won in May 2021 at the Cineville Calcutta Global Cinefest: you can see it here. It almost seems (somehow) inspired by the same theme as tihis year's literary contest.

Because this year the Premio Torre Crawford contest and subsequent book are based on a quote from Crawford's story By the Waters of Paradise: "Falling in love with a ghost." The short story collection Innamorarsi di un fantasma will be soon available on Amazon for kindle and on paper from Oakmond Publishing, and will include my Italian translation of Crawford's abovementioned story, a short story by Alda Teodorani and fourteen short stories by the winners of the literary contest.

The following is a piece I wrote about F. M. Crawford in summer 2020 for the Italian blog Borderfiction Zone.

It was his destiny to become a genre writer and a sui generis writer. His father was American artist Thomas Crawford, one of whose statues decorates the Washington DC Capitol. Thomas moved to Rome in 1835 and in 1844 married Louisa Ward, (sister of American poet Julia Ward, known for her antislavery position and the text for Battle Hymn of the Republic). The Crawfords had four children. Three of them would dedicate themselves to literature: Anne Crawford von Rabe (b. 1846), Mary Crawford Fraser (b. 1851) and Francis Marion Crawford, born in Bagni di Lucca, Tuscany, in 1854.

Francis Marion's education was international: he studied in the US, in Cambridge, Britain, in Heidelberg, Germany and in Rome, at La Sapienza university. His family was protestant, but he became a catholic in 1880 and in 1884 married Elizabeth Berdan (in a French church in Istanbul, I read somewhere). Meanwhile he had spent two years in India and when he was back in 1882, he had published his first novel, Mr. Isaacs, based on this experience Success led him to keep on writing. He lived in Italy since 1883: first in Sorrento, then in Sant’Agnello (Napoli) at Villa Crawford. Later in San Nicola Arcella (Cosenza) he aquired an ancient Spanish tower which would be named Torre Crawford after him. From time to time he crossed the ocean to lecture in the US. During one of this trips, he caught a lung illness that would undermine his health forever.

At the top of his career, he had sold an extimated 600.000 copies, becoming a bestselling author of his time. His vision of literature was one of intelligent entertainment. He was not ashamed of dealing with adventure, love or mystery. He considered books as pocket-size theatre.

His work in superantural fiction would even influence H. P. Lovecraft, a reader of his. Crawford's bibliography includes historical novels and several books set in Italy, getting him close to writers of the Italian "Verismo" current. He died in 1909, leaving a legacy of over fifty books and four plays.

One of his best known stories was written and set in San Nicola Arcella in 1905: For the Blood is the Life, a title taken from the Bible. It's one of the world's most famour vampire stories, more exactly female vampire stories. It should be noted that another famous stories of  this kind was written by his sister Anne Crawford, who had published in 1891 A Mystery of the Campagna.

While in Anne's story, as well as in the previous Carmilla by Le Fanu (1872) the vampire has ancient origins, in For the Blood is the Life we witness the birth of the creature; before becoming a predator, she's a victim herself, of a murder committed to hide a theft: one of the many elements of social criticism in the story. It might be possible that, while writing about the rules of rural Italy - with arranged marriages and economic marginalization - he was also thinking about his American middle-class readers.

As it frequently happens in gothic stories, For the Blood is the Life is developed on two different narrative levels, the one of the narrator and the one of the narration: present, when Crawford himself nonchalantly explains to his guest on top of the tower the mysterious phenomenon they see; and past, up to the innatural love story between Angelo - a stranger in his own town - and Cristina, an independent, unconventional girl who becomes a damned in spite of herself but still keeps an innocente of her own. Sexual innuendos are evident but understated, with a modesty somehow both catholic and victorian. Nevertheless, the story maintains an extremely modern value, as classics always do.

Andrea Carlo Cappi

Coming soon: F. M. Crawford's Italian legacy

Emilio Salgari, master of adventure

April 25th is an important date in Italy: in 1945, it marked the end of World War II and freedom from fascism. But in 1911 - 110 years ago today - it was also the day one of Italy's most influential writers died. Emilio Salgari was an author of bestsellers but, exploited by publishers and overcome by financial problems, he killed himself with a razor blade.

In spite of his personal tragedy. many of his works have been in print ever since; some of them were later turned into films, comics and tv series. Translated into other languages - Spanish, for instance - they had a strong impact even on the political side: Ernesto "Che" Guevara read Salgari and learnt from him.

But most of all, for Italian readers, Salgari was a household tradition all over the 20th century: although his books were not conceived either as children's or young adults' literature, they were passed fron generation to generation, to boys and girls alike - with no censorship even during the fascist regime - and were usually the first novels we read, out first approach to literature and, even if the word was still unknown to us, to "pulp".

Born in Verona on August 21, 1862, Emilio Salgari started writing at an early age. At 20 he publishd on newspapers and weekly magazines his first serialized novels, later re-edited as proper books. Their locations were mostly foreign, exotic countries, often in contemporary war or guerrilla settings. Salgari let his readers believe he had been sailing world-wide and had first-hand knowledge of the places he described.

In fact he only lived in Verona, Venice, Genova and Turin and never left Italy. But he spent a lot of time in local public libraries studying newspapers and books, so much that he could describe faraway places in vivid details. He often wrote about turmoils in what would later be called the Third World from an indigenous, anti-colonialistic point of view. Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Mexican novelist of the so called neo-aventura and biographer of Che Guevara, once said "I learnt more about anti-imperialism from Salgari than from the Che". Authors like Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Madrid or Gabriel Garcia Marquez have declared themselves Salgari readers.

Between 1882 and 1911 the Italian writer published dozens of novels, many of them featuring Sandokan, by birth a Malaysian prince, who becomes a pirate to fight colonialism along with Portuguese adventurer Yanez de Gomera; while Sandokan is always ready for action and battle, Yanez is more keen to light himself a cigarette and rationally consider the situation. Another famous saga follows the family of the Black Corsair, an Italian count who becomes a Tortuga corsair seeking a personal revenge. Salgari wrote more historical and contemporary adventure books, including western novels, long before spaghetti western.

He was somehow considered a rival of French author Jules Verne and that might be the reason why, among Salgari's standalone books, there is also one science-fiction novel: in Le meraviglie del 2000 ("The Wonders of 2000") a rich American, disiillusioned about his time, decides to go into hibernation and wakes up in 2003 to see how the world has changed. In the novel you can even read about something like a flat-screen smart-tv with an Internet connection. The book was originally published in 1907 under the pen name Guido Altieri (while years later a real Altieri, Sergio D. known as Alan D. Altieri, would become one of the masters of Italian science-fiction).

Salgari's success was also his curse. His three-books-per-year contract meant a lot of research work (and Internet didn't really exist at the time). He was a goldmine for his publishers but not so much for himself, since he had to support a wife - actress Ida Peruzzi, who fell ill in 1903 and would die in a mental institution in 1922 - and four children. Depression, wine, hard work and cigarettes were his only company, until he chose the same way out his father had taken years before: suicide. In one of his farewell letters he announced he was "breaking his pen" and accused his publishers of exploiting him.

If so it was, his death didn't stop it. Some novels were published posthumously, other books were completed by his son Omar and a few more continuation novels were written by writers Emilio Fancelli and Luigi Motta. Even the line of tragedies went on with Salgari's daughter Fatima, who died of tuberculosis in 1914, and his sons: Nadir died in a motorbike accident in 1936, while the other two, Romero and Omar, both killed themselves in 1931 and 1963.

Nevertheless, Salgari was still the bestselling Italian author at least well into the 1970's. The first movies officially based on his books - from the Black Corsair saga - were made one century ago, in 1921; many more were filmed, including three by director Umberto Lenzi in the 60's. In 1976 the tv series Sandokan directed by Sergio Sollima and starring Kabir Bedi led to a Salgari revival and to more films and tv sequels, one of them by Enzo G. Castellari in 1996. Moreover, the adjective salgariano still describes a certain kind of pulp-style adventure novel. The writer's influence still hangs on in the works of Italian novelists and comics authors.

Unluckily, Salgari is now one of the victims of the cultural "anti-pulp" phenomenon I already described in a previous post: parents no longer pass their Sandokan books to their children and nobody would teach about the Black Corsair in schools. So the new generations miss the entrance to a world of adventures... and books. Salgari didn't really die on April 25th, 1911, but we really need to keep him alive today.

Andrea Carlo Cappi

Art by A. Della Valle