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| 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.
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| "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.
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| 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 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 woman, while women in Italy were supposed to be wives, mothers and cooks. But she was a refelction 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.
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| 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 order the retiring of 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.
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...
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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.
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