In practice, Superman became Nembo Kid (nembo is 'nimbus'), Mandrake became. So, all fumetti characters had to be re-named with Italian-like names, although this decision was implemented in some bizarre ways. One important factor was that, with the raise of Fascism during the '20s, chauvinistic policies on all cultural matters became the norm. One example is L'uomo mascherato ('the masked man'), the italian version of Phantom, in (3), but others include Mandrake or Flash Gordon: (3) In the '20s, the first fumetti for adults appeared, in the guise of translations of US adventure comic strips. Again, fumetti had to absolve a pedagogical function. The stories also involved simple puns based on elementary notions of geometry.
This was a reference to Cubism, then the latest emerging trend in painting. The main character, Quadratino, was a child with a square-shaped head. Consider the examples (1)-(2): (1) (2)Įxample (1) is a panel from the Little Nemo, while (2) is from Quadratino. Although for children, fumetti had to absolve a pedagogical function, as they often formed a first gateway to literacy, in the eyes of publishers (Favari, 1996: ch.2). Second, all dialogues were written in rhyme, to maintain a literary approach to the narrative aspect of fumetti. First, there were no baloons in these translations: all the dialogues were written as captions to the panels. In fact, fumetti were born with two differences with respect to their U.S. By 1910, though, some italian authors started creating comics for the magazine, such as Quadratino ('little square') (Barbieri, 2009: ch.1).įumetti were designed as an educational tool for children. Little Nemo (Bubbi, in Italian) and similar other comics. The magazine presented translations of e.g. The magazine Il corriere dei piccoli ('the children's courier') was the pioneer of this newborn genre. A metonymy is a figure of speech, in which a part stands for the whole.įumetti (plural of fumetto) were born as a non-native literary form 105 years ago (1908), as they offered translations of US strips and comics. The term is in part based on a metonymy: it is used to refer to all types of comic forms, insofar as they have baloons as a narrative tool. A primer on Fumetto.įumetto is an italian word that roughly corresponds to 'baloon'. TODAYS LESSON A primer on Fumetto GOALS First, we discuss a panoramic view of Fumetto, from an historical perspective Second, we discuss a case study: Corto Maltese Third, we have a a look at a popular Italian web-comic, zerocalcare. Language and Comics: A primer on Fumetto Seminar X