Sex and Horror: The Art of Alessandro Biffignandi

Between the late 1960s and the late 1980s, Italy went crazy for “sexy fumetti," a home-grown genre of adult comics with a unique brand of twisted humor, violence, and up-front sexuality. Wilder and weirder than you can imagine, they were some of the most outrageous and shocking comics ever produced, and their eye-catching, highly provocative covers could be seen on every news stand and kiosk in the country. One of the most talented and prolific of the cover artists at Edifumetto—the foremost Italian producer of adult comics during this period—was Alessandro Biffignandi, whose work featured horror, fantasy, and sci-fi elements alongside plenty of naked female flesh. This book is a collection of some of the sexiest examples of Biffigandi’s cover art for Edifumetto, which is highly coveted by collectors today.

Alessandro Biffignandi was born in Rome in 1935 and developed an interest in drawing and cartoons at a very young age. He attended art college, where he became fascinated by cinema posters, and on graduating he became an apprentice with the great Italian poster illustrator Averardo Ciriello. Biffigandi was head-hunted by the studio of Augusto Favelli, which at that time was Italy's biggest producer of film posters. In the 1960s, he moved to Milan and created cover artwork for the D’Ami studio, an art agency that produced comic strips for the UK market, including the famous Fleetway war comics. From 1970 until the early 1980s, he produced hundreds of high-quality covers for the adult comics titles published by Edifumetto—including Zora la Vampira, Cimiteria, and Biancaneve.  Biffigandi then left the world of comics to concentrate on magazine and book illustration.