L'Idolo roso

Mario Foscari, the only man saved from the wreck of the schooner Alcione, has been out of a berth for months, and spends his mornings in a harbour tavern hoping one of its shady regulars will offer him work. A brawl over a card game ends with a bottle across the back of his head and he comes round at sea, signed on as helmsman by a captain who claims to sail for the police, and who is in truth running for the Red Idol and for the archaeologist who can find it. In the fighting Mario floors a sailor who turns out to be a girl: Franca, searching for her father. Betrayed, marooned and left for dead, the two go after the idol aboard the cutter Croce del Sud, towards an island of high priests, silver-robed dancers and sacrificial poles.

L’idolo rosso (reprint of Il mistero del Budda di Giada) originally published in Argentovivo! (not a Bonelli), from N. 8 (6 February 1937) to N. 16 (3 April 1937) in 9 black / white plates. It was Franco Caprioli’s first comic story, and he both wrote and drew it.

Reprinted three years later as L’idolo verde in Albo Mundus, N. 11 (1940), re-laid out into 16 plates of two strips each, with 3 strips eliminated to make the pagination work.

Then Bonelli reprints it in Audace from N. 341 (12 April 1941) to N. 355 (19 July 1941) half plate per number, and under the third of its titles, L’idolo rosso. Compared to the original edition, 8 cartoons are missing.

The idol changes colour with almost every edition: a jade Buddha in Argentovivo!, green in the Albo Mundus, red from Audace onwards.

Reprinted in:

• Albo d’Oro Audace, N. 13 (April 1944), with the elimination of 7 cartoons and the addition of others.
• Albo d’Oro Audace, N. 13 (13 February 1945), the reprint edition, with the same characteristics as the previous one.
• Lo Sparviero, ed. Fratelli Voltolina, N. 1 (1 January 1982); N. 4 (16 February 1983) (Newspaper with the tables of the Audace and cover page from the Albo Mundus)
• Exploit Comics, N. 40 (May 1987), together with the two other stories Caprioli published in Argentovivo!
• Collana Argento, ed. Fratelli Voltolina, N. 116 (1996) (reprint with different cover)

It is an important story both because its creation dates back to 1936 and is the first story ever made by Franco Caprioli, and because it is a kind of "archetype" of his future stories. In fact, it already contains the main themes and characters on which all (or almost) of his tales of the sea will then be based: the islands, the South Seas, the shipwrecks, the protagonists - usually, or two friends, or a boy and a girl - the untouched nature, the tribes that populate the islands, the idols and the mysteries.

The week after the story ended, Argentovivo! N. 17 (10 April 1937) carried a single-plate story by Caprioli titled L’ammutinamento dell’Alcione named for the schooner whose wreck the protagonist Mario Foscari survives in the opening caption. It is unknown if this is sequel, but Exploit Comics reprinted them together in 1987.