L'Avventuroso
L'avventuroso was a weekly Italian magazine, published from 1934 to 1943 by the editor Mario Nerbini.
History
L'avventuroso was the first comics magazine to release "The Phantom" in Europe with an appearance in the issue #101, dated September 13, 1936 - just a few months after "The Phantom" first appeared in American newspapers. "The Phantom" continued to appear until issue #388 in 1942. At the time, the large format (32×43.5 cm until the issue #304 and 25×35 cm from #305 to the end) as well of the attractive colors of the magazine and its innovative contents, partly based on American comics of a period which is now called "the Golden Age of Comics" with such classicals as "Flash Gordon", "Mandrake the Magician","Prince Valiant", "Red Barry", "Secret Agent X9", "Jungle Jim", "Brick Bradford", "Terry and the Pirates" and so on came to a great success with a frequent publishing of 500.000 or 600.000 copies sold each week. Unfortunately, the Fascist Regime of Mussolini considered all non-Italian material bad, and due to new laws it was banished. During the Second World War, there were more and more difficulties to maintain the publication and in spite of the popular success of the magazine amongst the young readers, the last issue of L'Avventuroso was released on May 16, 1943 (#450). As "Flash Gordon" was published in L'Avventuroso since the very first issue, it was very often presented on the first page, but for a short period of time (some issues with the story “Spie sul mare” ) the Phantom strips were also presented in that same way. A total of 17 Phantom different stories was released (in fact 16 American original stories) and, for the last ones, the Ray Moore strips were re-drawn by the Italian artist Roberto Lemmi, who also drew a series entitled "Il Giustiziere Mascherato" which was directly inspired by the Phantom.
Issue overview
Phantom stories
- "L’Uomo Mascherato" ("The Singh Brotherhood") part 1 / issues # 101 to 128
- "Nel regno dei Singh" ("The Singh Brotherhood") part 2 / issues # 129 to 142
- "La banda aerea" ("The Sky Band") / issues # 142 to 155
- "La guerra nella giungla" ("War in the Jungle") part 1 / issues # 155 to 160
- "La regina dei Bandar" ("War in the Jungle") part 2 / issues # 161 to 169
- "Il piccolo Toma" ("Little Toma") / issues # 169 to 184
- "Il ratto di Diana" ("The Prisoner of the Himalayas") / issues # 184 to 200
- "Una sosta angosciosa" ("Adventure in Algiers") / issues # 201 to 205
- "I fuorilegge dell’Oceano" ("The Shark's Nest") / issues # 206 to 221
- "Il ritorno di Diana" ("Fishers of Pearls") / issues # 272 to 280
- "La liberazione di Diana" ("The Slave Traders") / issues # 281 to 289
- "La bella smemorata" ("The Mysterious Girl") / issues # 289 to 299
- "Spie sul mare" ("The Golden Circle") incomplete / issues # 300 and 301
- "Spie sul mare" ("The Sea Horse") / issues # 301 to 328
- "I trafficanti d'armi" ("The Game of Alvar") / issues # 329 to 350
- "L’aviatrice dispersa" ("Diana Aviatrix Lost") / issues # 351 to 375
- "Nel Paese dei Pigmei" ("The Phantom's Treasure") / issues # 376 to 388
Notes
- "Il ritorno di Diana" ("Fishers of Pearls"), "La liberazione di Diana" ("The Slave Traders") and "La bella smemorata" ("The Mysterious Girl") are re-drawn by Roberto Lemmi from or over the original Ray Moore strips.
- "Spie sul mare" ("The Golden Circle"), same case as above. And despite the Italian title, only the dailies strips from September 4 to 23, 1939 have been published. The remain of the story was not published.
- "Spie sul mare" "The Sea Horse", also re-drawn by Roberto Lemmi from or over the original strips.
- "I trafficanti d’armi" ("The Game of Alvar"), re-drawn by Roberto Lemmi from or over the original strips but only until issue # #.332. From the following issue # 333, the original panels were featured again.
- "Nel Paese dei Pigmei" ("The Phantom's Treasure"), also re-drawn by Roberto Lemmi from or over the original strips. From issue # 378, the plot was exclusively written by Lorenzo Paolini (Paolo Lorenzini, the original material having need to be completed in reason of the gap caused by the war between Italy and the United States; this Italian version was made without any reference either to the screenplay or the original drawings.
- 15 issues of "L'Avventuroso, grande giornale d'avventure", with "The Phantom" among others comics characters, were reprinted from the 14th October 1985 to the 30th June 1986 by "Casa Editrice Nerbini".