Fumetti (or photo novels) are a genre of American comics illustrated with photographs rather than drawings. The term comes from the Italian word for all comics, "fumetto". Comics (or, less commonly, sequential art) is a form of visual art consisting of images which are commonly combined with text, often in the form of speech balloons or image captions. ...

Historically

In the Italian language, fumetti are all comics, not just photo novels. Italians call photo-illustrated comics fotoromanzi. Fumetti are noticeably popular in Spain and Latin America, where they are called fotonovelas, and have also gained popularity in France. Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people,[1] primarily in Italy and Switzerland. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ...

Fumetti have never been successful in North America. From 1966 to 1969, Rocket Robin Hood, a children's cartoon was produced and aired in Canada in the fumetti style. In the United States, there were fumetti adaptations of several popular films of the late 1970s, including Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Rocky II, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The adaptations were usually abridged and were composed of stills from the motion pictures. However, with the advent of video , these adaptations no longer had a market and they quickly disappeared by the early 1980s. World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... Rocket Robin Hood. ... Grease (1978) is a film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Jim Jacobs and Warren Caseys musical, Grease. ... Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 movie starring John Travolta as Tony Manero, a troubled Brooklyn youth whose weekend activities are dominated by visits to a Brooklyn discotheque. ... Rocky 2 is also a nickname for Sergei Rachmaninoffs Second Piano Concerto. ... This article is about the film; for the a definition of the UFO related phenomenon, see Close encounter. ... Battlestar Galactica is the pilot for the American science fiction television series which was produced in 1978 by Glen Larson starring Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict. ... Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Paramount Pictures, 1979; see also 1979 in film) is the first feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series and is released on Friday, December 7. ... Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is the title of an American motion picture produced by Universal Studios and released in 1979, and is also the title of a television series based upon the film that was aired by NBC for two seasons between 1979 and 1981. ... The home video business rents and sells videocassettes and DVDs to the public. ...

More recently, webcomics have brought fumetti to more Americans, with photocomics such as A Softer World and Alien Loves Predator gaining attention in the webcomics community. In 2007, the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards gave the first award for "Outstanding Photographic Comic", denoting a new acceptance of the genre.[1] Web comics are comics that are available on the web. ... A Softer World is a weekly webcomic by Canadians Joey Comeau and Emily Horne. ... Alien Loves Predator (ALP to fans) is a webcomic written by Bernie Hou. ... The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards (WCCA) is an annual event, since the summer of 2001, in which online cartoonists nominate and select outstanding webcomics in a variety of categories. ...

There are a number of fumetti newspaper strips in the UK and the form was popular in girls comics in the 1980s. Boys comics of the early 1980s such as Load Runner and the relaunched Eagle also experimented with fumetti but without much success. When the Eagle was revamped, fumetti strips such as Doomlord continued as more traditional illustrated strips. Doomlord was a comic strip (and the shared title name of the central characters) published in the British comic book Eagle (comic) during the 1980s, from Issue 1 on March 27, 1982, and nearly continuously until 1991. ...

Categories of Fumetti

Fumetti comes in several traditional formats. A Softer World [2] is in traditional comic strip form - three panels with commentary. Alien Loves Predator [3], Reprographics [4], and Twisted Kaiju Theater [5] are continuous comics updated regularly with a definite punchline for each page. Transparent Life [6] and The Anomalies [7] are short story form comics. A Softer World is a weekly webcomic by Canadians Joey Comeau and Emily Horne. ... Alien Loves Predator (ALP to fans) is a webcomic written by Bernie Hou. ... Reprographics is a photocomic posted on the website of Christopher R. Yates, a sculptor and toy maker from Boulder, Colorado. ... Twisted Kaiju Theater or TKT is a humorous photo-based webcomic by Sean McGuinness created on August 11, 2000. ... Transparent Life Logo Transparent Life is a fumetti or photo-comic scripted, designed, and shot by Charlie Beck. ... The Anomalies, published as The Freaks outside of the US, is a novel by Joey Goebel published in 2003. ...

Toys in Web Fumetti

Many fumetti artists have discovered the versatility of toys and action figures in their webcomics. Instead of photographing human actors, such artists place and pose toys for their "actors". The most commonly used toys are usually action figures such as Stikfas, Godzilla, Lego, GI Joe, Transformers, et al. Toy fumetti artists have developed three distinct styles to address the worlds in which the toys exist: toy dioramas, toys as toys, and toys personified. Trinomial name Homo sapiens sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin: wise man or knowing man) in the family Hominidae (the great apes). ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke while waiting between takes during location filming An actor or actress is a person who acts, or plays a role, in a dramatic production. ... STIKFAS are 3. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Lego Group logo. ... G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero is a military-themed action figure (3 3/4 inches tall) that was supported by a Marvel Comic and a popular cartoon television show that ran in the 1980s. ... Photo of a Jetfire Transformers toy, from the Classics range. ...

Toy Dioramas

The toys exist in their own world, do not usually know they are toys, and do not interact with real people. The toys are a substitute for real people – although sometimes they might make tongue-in-cheek jokes about their status as toys. The artist creates miniature sets, props, and furnishings to create the world. These are usually scratchbuilt from clay, paper mache, and other craft supplies. Manufactured toy or doll pieces might also be used. The dioramas range from abstract battlefields (such as that used in Stuck), to simple apartments and locales (Depth-of-Field), to extensive dungeons, caverns and wilderness (Perils of the Bold). Some comics (Paradise Bar & Grill) include pre-made dioramas and scale playsets alongside custom built environments. Not all toy fumetti artists create practical dioramas. Some use digital environments (Ask Dr. Eldritch).

Toys As Toys

Many webcomics follow the adventures of toys in the human world. The toys know they are toys, and interact with human props and furnishings (but only infrequently with real people). Such comics are usually set in the artist's living room or workplace, occasionally venturing out on field trips to parks and other outside environments. Notable examples of this style include Nukeland Cinema and Misplaced.

Toys Personified

Other webcomics use toys as stand-ins for real people, digitally placing the toys as life-size participants in real-world locations and situations (for example, Alien Loves Predator and Twisted Kaiju Theater).

Other Examples of Fumetti

• occasional pieces in Weirdo magazine
• pieces in Help! magazine
• The Marvel Fumetti Book
• Nickelodeon Magazine's Roughin' It
• Leisure Town by Tristan A. Farnon, with photographs of bendable toys digitally added to photographed backgrounds.
• Twisted Toyfare Theater, a featured strip in Toyfare Magazine
• Dorothy a comic based on the Wizard of Oz
• Fuzzy Knights, a comic strip created by Noah J.D. Chinn and published by Kenser and Company.
• Making Masti a continuous comic based on Loin, a recurring villianous character in the Indian film industry

Weirdo #1, with cover art by Robert Crumb, spoofing the famous Kilroy was here design. ... Help! Harvey Kurtzmans longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad Magazine and EC Publications, Help! (1960-1965) was a chronically underfunded but innovative magazine published by James Warren, who was also publishing successful monster-movie and horror comics magazines simultaneously. ... Nick Magazines current logo. ... Leisure Town is a comic strip for which the creator, Tristan A. Farnon, photographs bendable toy figures and digitally places them in photographed backgrounds. ... Tristan Farnon Tristan Alexander Farnon is a cartoonist for Leisure Town, webcomic Jerkcity and a part-time contributor to Rotten. ... Cover to the first collected volume of TTT. Twisted Toyfare Theater is the most popular feature in the monthly magazine Toyfare. ... ToyFare is a magainze published by Wizard Entertainment. ... Fuzzy Knights is an online comic created by Noah J.D. Chinn and published by Illinois-based Kenzer & Company. ...

External links

• Some early examples of fumetti