My current work in progress is a giallo-inspired mystery thriller set in 1970s Italy in which the cast and crew of a fotoromanzo are stalked and slain by a mysterious killer. What is a fotoromanzo? Well, imagine a comic book where the panels are photographs rather than illustrations. That’s the basic idea, though the medium has been far more popular in mainland Europe and Latin America than in the UK and the US.

Anglicized as ‘photo novel’ or ‘photo comic’, the Italian fotoromanzi (plural) are often called ‘fumetti’ which simply refers to all comic books, (fumetto being the little ‘puff of smoke’ containing dialogue). The medium’s heyday was from the 1950s to the early 1980s, and faded somewhat after most Italians got television. In the mid-20th century, the fotoromanzo was a staple of Italian entertainment, delivering stories in a variety of genres such as superhero, spy, soap romance and even erotica. 

Yes, due to the photographic nature of fotoromanzi, the medium tended to veer into pretty adult territory with many magazines focusing on sex. Even the juvenile-looking Killing – a skeleton suit-wearing master criminal – had its sadistic protagonist torture and murder scantily-clad women (often having his way with them first) in every issue in the latter half of the 1960s. 

Killing is one of the more famous fotoromanzi, running from 1966 to 1969 and featured a diabolical master criminal and his array of James Bond-style gadgets. Kolossal and Erotik demonstrate other genres in the medium such as romance and erotica. 

The fotoromanzo medium is inextricably linked with the medium of cinema and several of its stars went on to work in movies like Sophia Loren, Paola Pitti and Franco Gasparri. In turn, many fotoromanzi were adaptations of popular movies or TV series, being a cost effective way to bring the story to new audiences while promoting the movie at the same time. The medium even had some success in the US with adaptations of sci-fi movies and series like Alien and Star Trek.

A page from Sadistik Vol. 1, an English translation of the original Killing fotoromanzo by Mort Todd and Stephen R. Bissette, available here. 

I love the idea of fotoromanzi and, as soon as i discovered the medium, I knew that I wanted to utilize it as a setting for my horror novel. You can imagine the environment surrounding the production of this somewhat low-brow form of entertainment. I imagine a set that was fast-paced, volatile and a tad sleazy. The perfect backdrop to a giallo-esque tale of murder and mystery! 

More on this next month, but until then, take care!