Italian fumetti such as Oltretomba, Vampirissimo, Terrore and Wallestein were regular features in every newspaper stand throughout my childhood. As a kid and horror film fanatic alike, I was immediately attracted by those often astonishing and gorgeously atmospheric covers, with their promise of gruesome and sordid tales of terror and, very importantly for a young boy growing up, the imagery of naked girls and sleazy sex. The quality of the stories and the interior art varied immensely from issue to issue. Most stories were wildly imaginative though, creating a weirdly eclectic mixture by throwing every horror cliché and situation into the blender, leading to the strangest combinations imaginable. The interior art, on the other hand, went from plain ugly, across serviceable and basic to wonderfully atmospheric and artsy.
Over the years, in their search for ever more weird situation and plot elements, the writers often found inspiration in the genre film of the 1960s and 1970s. This borrowing was sometimes apparent in their cover art as well, as they occasionally featured reproductions of scenes, familiar faces or visuals directly taken from the publicity art of these films. A 1975 issue called, De Vloek van de Vurdalaks (The Curse of the Vurdalaks)°, was a particularly enjoyable and at times fairly straightforward adaption of Giorgio Ferroni's wonderful 1972 film, La Notte dei Diavoli. Of course, it was occasionally the other way around as well, exemplified by Jesus Franco, who often related to have used these fumetti as a source of inspiration for, among others, Les Expériences Erotiques de Frankenstein (1972).
As these series progressed, noticeable by changes in spine color and sometimes format, quality gradually declined, with the often carefully evoked mood, fun storytelling and nicely integrated sexual content of the early issues replaced by more and more hardcore renditions of sex.
But some of the early issues were absolutely terrific, with a good balance between horror atmospherics, sadistic violence and sleazy sex. Their dank and decrepit images of sinister castles, decaying catacombs and isolated fog-shrouded moors were invariably spiced up with some of the most outrageous elements of sex and nudity, the stories, already packed to the brim with gruesome and sadistic situations, wallowing in all manner of devious sexual behavior, degeneracy and generally sleazy wackiness such as rape, incestuous liaissons, voyeurism, bestiality and pre-teen nudity, alongside every conceivable (s)exploitative and taboo element.
These fumetti often got away with quite a lot, usually taking its adult content far beyond the boundaries encountered in genre related movies. So it wasn't all that unusual to encounter such sequences in which a father watches his very young daughter undress or take a pee, and then proceed to touch her up or even rape her, or such scenes in which the sadistic villain unleashes his hounds upon a young naked village girl, with far sleazier motives than having them just tear her to shreds...
Over a series of posts, I will take a closer look at the creation of the atmospherics and some of these sleazy and taboo elements enhancing the violent horrors of these often hugely enjoyable pocket-sized tales...
° Unless otherwise noted, the dates in the post refer to the released of the Dutch editions, as they were released here in Belgium through Vrijbuiter/Schorpioen/Byblos. I will also include a free translation of the Dutch title.
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