Monday, November 22, 2010

Diabolik Vs. Fantomas

When I was a kid, my favorite superheroes were The Phantom and The Shadow. Something about the - then unknown - world of dark 20's-40's quasi-noir/pulp quality dragged me in and struck a real chord with me. I got Doc Savage and Alan Quartermaine, too but not in the same way. Those two were ripped muscle men with a Hemingway style, "Great White Hunter" quality - which I didn't understand when I was 7 - which made it less exciting. None of that was even possible in my world, in my life. Sure, The Shadow spent time in the far East, and the Phantom spent time in the Amazon - both in their late teens/early adulthood, learning the ways of mystical religions and ancient teachings about the mind - but they lived and fought much more in the atmosphere that was real to me: the decay of the city.
I still have a soft spot for both of those 'Golden Age' heros, despite the awful films they produced in the 90's. But in the age of information, colliding with the obsessive nature of my own mind, I found two European characters who eclipse the depth and bizarre of either of the aforementioned heros. Granted, neither of these anti-heros can be considered good guys and - if anything - their both villains. However, they're the sort of villains you want to cheer on, the kind of villains you want to be drinking buddies with.
The first is Fantomas, a cryptic, French pulp novel protagonist. Through disguises and other strange trickery, Fantomas is able to damn near bring all of France kneeling before him and seemingly for little more reason than that he enjoys it as a joke. Over 35 Fantomas books have been written, several films, and a black and white tv series. Given his amoral and extremely dark view of the world and humanity, I remain continually puzzled how he was so famous in France (and how he remains fairly unknown in the US.)







The second comes from Italy in the 1960's. Diabolik is the brainchild of two sisters, who apparently loved spy stories. He is - again - an anti-hero type who, with the help of his assistant, Eva, steals a bunch of money and valuables from rich people; but all in the name of making himself rich, there is no "Robin Hood" mentality here. The comics, unfortunately, haven't been translated into english (a horrible trend that needs to be remedied, we'll have to start with Diabolik, Baba Yaga, Dylan Dog, and anything Alejandro Jodorowski ever wrote), but from what I've seen they involve a compelling amount of knocking people out with rags soaked in Chloroform, driving around while looking bad-ass, and having sex on huge piles of money - it's pretty much everything cool in the world ever. In 1968, Mario Bava turned the comic book into one of the greatest examples of both the Psychedelic Spy and the 60's Euro-Trash genres ever produced. It also spawned a great episode of MST3K, but don't let that ruin the fact that this movie is pure fucking gold.





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