They didn't know how to draw or write, and they knew very little about comics, but the Giussani sisters (Angela and Luciana), with a stroke of genius, were inspired by a crime story that took place in Turin in 1954, where, following the discovery of a FIAT worker, a series of letters claiming the murder, signed under the pseudonym Diabolik, reached the newspaper La Stampa in 1962, creating a key character in our recent history, translated in various countries and becoming a cult for comic book collectors. Diabolik immediately presented himself with an emblematic title: The King of Terror by throwing a hissing knife (in the first advertising postcards) at the reader. In the world of stripes a different, uncomfortable and, above all, outlaw hero made his debut. Without a name, without past, he dedicated all his genius to theft, to robbery (killing even, in case of need). He always got away with it, while his antagonist, Inspector Ginko, the guardian of the order, ended up perpetually in check. The revolutionary comic book was immediately successful and became a myth. It irritated the well-thinking, moved various praetors to kidnap the newspaper, but everyone liked it: bourgeois and intellectuals.
The Giussani sisters were very attentive to the events of modernity. They wrapped themselves in a dense network of consultants (between doctors and technicians), they put announcements on university notice boards to find new subjectists. To be punctual, precise and sensitive to what was happening around them, the designers followed, for example, the evolution of costume and fashion with attention. Diabolik's (romantically and tenaciously monogamously) stainless girlfriend Eva Kant resembles Grace Kelly, one of the sex symbols of the time. She is always up to date in the wardrobe, from miniskirts and trousers to Brigitte Bardot and 70's folk dresses. While bourgeois society was preparing to discover and accept feminism, the registers of the Giussani sisters hosted the thoughts and adventures of Eva Kant. A faithful companion, but also one of the first thinking, demanding, autonomous co-stars of our comic strip. She was one of the first to emerge without leveraging the fulcrum of eros. Always ready to claim her subjectivity, she asks to be understood, respected, listened to, and not only loved.
Diabolik has always been a successful and satisfied outlaw, but he has found comfort in redeeming himself several times by crucifying vices and plagues of our country. He fought the mafia, drugs, political corruption, denounced the horrors and despair of asylums, recorded the discomfort of prisons, stigmatized violence against women, but the final K of his name, ironically or seriously, was a symbolic march of perfidy. With time, he is no longer subversively, scandalously, unbearably evil. Some people even fear the goods turn, but Diabolik continues to be the outlaw of all time and has no intention of redeeming himself. His opponents have become more evil. Today, the rich are the target of his shots, drug dealers, money launderers, human organ dealers, shady businessmen and bribers.
