GIOVE TOPPI'S GOLDEN CAGE (1938)

Gabbia d'oro (Golden Cage) is a pre-war Italian jungle perils comics album published in 1938 by Nerbini which is of interest due to both the name behind it and also for its disreputable content.

Both the art and the story are credited to Giove Toppi (1888-1942). Toppi was initially an illustrator for the Florence-based publisher Nerbini. When Nerbini started publishing comics, Toppi joined in the staff of this craft as well. He single-handedly earned his name a permanent place in the history of European comics by making a gag-comics featuring Mickey Mouse for the cover of the first issue of Nerbini's Topolino comics weekly in 1932:

However, Topolino had been started without license from Disney and from the 3rd issue onwards, Mickey Mouse proper would have to be dropped from the magazine upon Disney's legal intervention until Nerbini would get the rights of Disney comics for the Italian market. In the meantime, Toppi made gag-comics featuring another (non-Mickey) mouse for Topolino:

When Nerbini became the legal publisher of Disney material, it would be Toppi who would illustrate most of the covers of the first series Italian Disney comics albums in 1935, such as the below cover:

Another retrospectively interesting episode in Toppi's career came when he collaborated with Federico Fellini in the comics field! In 1937, long before he would embark on a famed career in cinema, then 17 years-old Fellini had moved to Florence and began working for Nerbini as a writer. When Italy's fascist government banned the import of American comics in 1938, Nerbini would begin producing local-made versions of these popular comics and Fellini was among the script writers of this obligatory fad with Toppi at the art chores. The fruits of the collaboration between Fellini and Toppi reportedly include one Flash Gordon comics.

Gabbia d'oro, on the other hand is a solo effort by Toppi. It was published in Turkey as no. 22 (Oct. 1941) of 1001 Roman's monthly special issues. The Turkish edition might be slightly abridged as there are some unresolved sub-plots. Nevertheless, the main plot appears complete in its essentials. The hero is an Italian named Mario who is accompanying a British archeolog and his daughter Alice in an expedition in black Africa. Despite Mario's objections, Alice secretly joins a research party to locate the treasures of a "savage" tribe and eventually gets captured. The natives see in her the return of their divine Daughter of the Sun (Alice had landed in an aeroplane). She demands to be released, even calling the natives' chief as an "ape-man". The chief says that the "civilization has made her rebellious", but that he "knows how to tame her." Consequently, she is locked up in a golden cage to stay there "till her nerves calm down." Mario saves her by massacring the whole tribe with a machine gun and the archeolog confiscates the natives' treasure, including the golden cage. The comics end by Mario warning Alice that he will lock her up in the golden cage whenever she makes him angry and she submissively replies as "understood, love".

The obvious colonialist trajectory of Gabbia d'oro need no elaboration as it is apparent from the above plot summary. It suffices to add that the portrayal of one non-savage black character, "a faithful servant", is also very derogotary as his 'foolish' amazent at the westerners' technology such as aeroplanes and radio is depicted as a matter of ridicule, as in the below panel:

And yet, it shouldn't be missed that this colonialist/white-supremacist context also serves as a background for another dynamic in Gabbio d'oro, that is the fantasy for the subordination of 'rebellious' women. It is ironic that in that case, the 'savages' serve as a double for Mario himself.

APPENDIX: (SPECULATIVE) TRIVIA

'Women in cages' is an iconic image in sado-erotic imaginary and it is naturally very recurrent in exploitation cinema as well. It is also a matter of fact that comics in general has served as inspiration for many filmmakers. Jesus (Jess) Franco is one prominent European exploitation filmmaker with a professed devotion to comics. Franco has made several 'women in cages' films, but one of his more obscure movies include one episode which apparently has some semblance to Gabbia d'oro in particular. Franco's Sex Charade (1970) feature one scene where a white woman is held in a cage in what appears to be a jungle setting (see above still). Though the natives holding her captive are not African but Indian and the cage is not golden, the concomittance of 'woman in cage' and jungle natives tentatively reminds Gabbia d'oro, esp. given the fact that Franco is known to be well versed in European comics. Franco would later be involved (as assistant director) in another movie titled Une cage doree (1976) without any natives but with a golden cage holding captive women.

SOURCES:
http://www.papersera.net/
http://coa.inducks.org/
The Films of Federico Fellini by Peter E. Bondanella
'Manacoa Files' by Alain Petit in Cine Zine Zone

A FORGOTTEN ITALIAN-MADE WESTERN COMICS FROM 1941

La pista d'argento (The Silver Track) was a western comics album published in 1941 as part of Florence-based publisher Nerbini's 'Collona albi grandi avventura' series. It is signed by Italian artist Mario Tempesti. I couldn't find much info on Tempesti other than the fact that he was a staff artist of Nerbini's comics magazine L'Avventuroso; he also seems to have made cover illustrations for publications outside of the comics media.

La pista d'argento was published in Turkey twice during the war era. In its first edition, as the headline comics of 1001 Roman's monthly special issue no. 27 (March 1942), it was titled as 'Gümüş İz' (The Silver Track). The story concerns an expedition to find a team of geographers who had been lost in the wilderness. The search party gets captured by American natives whose chief has plans to organize an uprising to set up an "empire" by uniting all native tribes.

Even though it is a mediocre comics in all aspects from art to story, it had a second edition in Turkey two years later in the same series, the first and only time a comics was published twice in 1001 Roman. The no. 57 (sept. 1944) of the monthly series headlined it as 'Ölüm Yolcuları' (Voyagers of Death). This 2nd edition was not a reprint, but an abridged version with a new Turkish translation. The heroine's name was given as Violetta whereas she was Miss Edna in the earlier edition. The 'Ölüm Yolcuları' edition expanded on the dialogue between the tribal chief and the leader of the captured search party. In the 1st edition, the hero simply calls the chief's plans as "madness", but in the 2nd addition, he strikingly also adds that they are "a minority and should be content with the amount of land they have". In this manner, the story not only assumes a blanket identification with the white people over the non-white people, but also attempts to provide a generalizable justification for the suppression of 'minorities'' aspirations.

In the subsequent monthly issue, the editors of 1001 Roman published a reply to the readers who had apparently written letters to point out that this comics had already been published earlier in the series. In this rather unconvincing reply, they claimed that this was not a case of an unintentional mistake on their part, but they had decided to go ahead with a second edition because the earlier one had sold out.

OBSCURE FUMETTI ABOUT ITALIAN MIGRANTS

Between 1940-46, Türkiye Yayınevi, Turkey's leading comics publisher in the war era, published 75 monthly "special issues" of 1001 Roman alongside the weekly comics magazine of the same title. While several different comics titles were simultanously serialized in the weekly magazine, each "special" issue headlined a complete episode of a single comics. While popular titles such as Mandrake the Magician, Phantom, Tim Tyler's Luck and Secret Agent X-9 dominated the series, several issues were devoted to obscure one-shot titles such as no. 17 (May 1941) whose covers is shown above.
The Turkish title translates as "Beyond the Ocean". It is 20 pages long (with 4 rows in each page) and recounts the plight of the Italian migrants in America. The story begins in 1902. Poor Italians sign up to migrate to America to work there. The heroes' names are Bruno, Marco and Cigli (sp?). Hardships begin on the ship voyage. They are taken to Argentina rather than the USA and begin a very hard life there as farmers. In the story's end, years have passed and the young and healthy new generation sign up to return home as volunteers when the news of "great war" break out.
If anyone knows any info, such as the original title, creators, etc, about the original source of this historical curiosity, please let us know.