Robinson

On November 22, 1936, a new children's magazine with an exotic name arrives on Italian newsstands: «Robinson», a weekly magazine of wonderful adventures. The modern graphic of the header, which refers to the myth of Robinson Crosuè, represents an island of the South Seas adorned with classic palm trees and lapped by a stylized sea, at one end of which you can glimpse the glow of a bivouac fire.

The periodical directed by Mario Manuli and printed by the ALA Typography of Varese does not state the name of the publishing house. It is actually another publication published by Lotario Vecchi's SAEV which joins the other weeklies produced by the Milanese publishing house in Via Stelvio. However, there is something different in «Robinson» compared to the other weeklies: the name of the publishing house does not appear and the printing appears to be done in Varese rather than in Milan, like all his other older "brothers". A probable hypothesis put forward at the time about this inconsistency is that according to which Vecchi would have had problems with the Milan Police Headquarters and to avoid further clashes with the authorities he therefore decided to register "Robinson" at the nearby Varese Police Headquarters. After all, the advertising flyer leaves no doubt: it is identical in graphics, format and composition to the other SAEV flyers printed at the time for the launch of «Jumbo», «Primarosa», «Pinocchio» etc.

Other findings make certain the attribution of paternity to SAEV: the presence on the front page of Jim Alaska, or the adventures of a Canadian police captain, seems to be published specifically to advertise the pulp novels of Captain Jim Hoover or Alaska Jim, a hero of a series of popular pulp novels entitled "Alaska Jim" which appeared from 1935 to 1939 with a total of 226 issues in the German publishing house Freya, Heidenau. The booklets had 48 pages and each issue is self-contained. The series was banned in 1939 by the Nazis. In Italy Lotario Vecchi translated it into a series of 28 issues published between 1936 and 1937 by the Saev.

Jim Alaska was an itinerant character among the Vecchi magazines: after just eight episodes, the brave officer passes on the pages of "Pinocchio", obviously SAEV, then on those of "Jumbo", to finish on the «Audace».

Another identifying factor: the "group" that gathers around Lotario Vecchi and which is made up of Dante Daini, Gianluigi Bonelli, Agostino Della Casa, as well as the brothers Carlo, Vittorio and Gino Cossio. An important group from which all or almost all the strands of Italian adventure comics originate and which will give life to numerous series with countless characters. These authors will remain united even after the collapse of Vecchi or at least until 1940/1941, when the IDEA Publishing House was founded, which took over from SAEV, after the brief and disastrous Mondadorian management of the «Audace».

So, we are in 1940, the newborn IDEA finds itself facing a situation that is certainly not favorable. Italy entered the war, with all the troubles and difficulties that a war event of that kind entails. After just six decent numbers, even to a certain extent innovative, produced by the duo Bonelli - Daini, the experiment ends. The two friends decide to try different paths while remaining on good terms, including collaboration. Bonelli chooses to keep the «Audace» and radically changes the structure of the weekly, transforming it into «Albogiornale». And where does he find the material to publish? He uses the one prepared for «Robinson» that remained unpublished after the closure of the magazine. Bonelli takes his story "I Falchi Grigi" (The Gray Hawks), which was interrupted at the thirteenth episode, and proposes it revised, corrected, “modernized” and designed from scratch by Raffaele Paparella, on the pages of his new creature, with the title changed to "I Conquistatori dello Spazio" (The conquerors of space).

The first issue of "Robinson" presents in addition to the aforementioned Jim Alaska, drawn by Carlo Cossio, a detective comic set in London "Il detective X.Z.-5" (The detective XZ-5), where the secret agent XZ-5 must find a gang of counterfeiters that rages on the city . The subject is really of little consequence and so are the drawings by Gino Cossio, to whom his brother Vittorio gives a hand from time to time. The story of "Franco di Portovenere" drawn by Carlo Cossio based on texts by Agostino Della Casa, aka Nino Della Vega, which occupies the two central pages of the Robinson weekly. The very long novel, already published in handouts by the Editoriale Vecchi from 1932 to 1934, is re-proposed in a comicbook version.

The closure of «Robinson» interrupts the adventures of the pirate whose adventures recall the novels of the pirate cycle by the great Veronese writer Emilio Salgari. The character of the brave Italian reappears a year later, in 1938, in three albums of the series "The Tales of the Sea and Humor", published by the Juventus Editions of Milan. The titles Franco di Portovenere, Il Tesoro del Galeone and I naufraghi del Providencia, whose subtitle “with Franco di Portovenere” informed the readers of the presence of the character, seemed to want to propose a continuation of the story interrupted in «Robinson». The presence of Carlo Cossio as the author of the drawings could suggest a reprint or the continuation of the adventure that remained interrupted on "Robinson", in reality the three books had nothing to do with the story by Nino Della Vega.

In 1939 the "Albogiornale Juventus" series, which in fact took over from the "I Racconti del Mare e Umoristici" (Tales of the Sea and Humor) series and which later, in yet another transformation, will change into "Albi Juventus", presents three other books I leoni di Maracaibo, La tigre del Darien and La palude nera, designed by Carlo, Vittorio and Gino Cossio. Even if all three books bear the subtitle “with Franco di Portovenere”, there is no connection with the story published in «Robinson» nor with the three previous books of the Juventus Editions. Simply the Cremona Nuova Publishing House continues to re-propose the character in autonomous adventures completely unrelated to each other.

Another comic on "Robinson" is "Orlando furioso", a reduction of the Ariosto masterpiece made by Alberto Bissietta, a name not too well known among the designers of the time and remembered many years later as part of Italian Disney having illustrated the first Mickey Mouse and co. albums in Italy. Bissietta does not have a pleasant trait, therefore his work, moreover devoid of the ballons to which the now stale captions are preferred, fails to give any benefit to the magazine. This comic is also interrupted due to the closing of the newspaper.

"I Falchi Grigi": the story scripted by Gianluigi Bonelli and drawn by Vittorio Cossio tells the story of an expedition that wants to attempt the climb of Everest, but runs into strange beings who came from space. Bonelli writes a beautiful subject using a very personal way and original ideas with situations taken from the tables of the Raimondian Flash Gordon, who on the pages of the "Avventuroso" is enjoying enormous success.

With the number nine "I Falchi Grigi" go to the honors of the first page in color and therefore the visual impact improves considerably. Jim Alaska leaves the weekly and in its place takes place another story drawn by the Carlo Cossio: "Terre insanguinate". This is the umpteenth revival of the myth of the brave, honest Italian in a foreign land. Here the protagonists, two engineers engaged in the construction of truckable roads in Abyssinia, are grappling with the rebels. This adventure will also remain unfinished due to the closure of the magazine.

In the thirteen issues "Robinson" will also present a serial novel The Emperor of the Pacific by GinPes. The story, which was interrupted, told the vicissitudes of an Italian young man hired as an actor to shoot a film struggling with a series of intrigues and murders.

The newspaper was completed by a post column, a crossword puzzle and a series of episodes on the history and techniques of aviation.