Whether dismissed as trash or celebrated as art, the erotic fumetti of the 1970s remain an unforgettable, indelible chapter in the history of comics.
However, the true death knell came from within the industry. The arrival of home video and readily available hardcore pornography in the early 1980s made the sfumato of the fumetti seem quaint and frustrating. Readers wanted more. Publishers, in a desperate move, abandoned lo sfumato and began publishing genuine hardcore fumetti, often using photomontage or detailed, anatomically explicit drawings.
They are a time capsule of a specific moment in Italian history: a nation torn between its Catholic past and a hedonistic, liberal future. In their cheap, yellowed pages, the anxieties and desires of the Anni di Piombo are laid bare – often literally. For scholars, they offer a fascinating, if sleazy, window into the Italian sexual revolution, the rise of consumerism, and the enduring power of a beautifully drawn, naked woman on a horse.