Erotic horror-inspired artwork by Italian artist Alessandro Biffignandi.
Italian artist Alessandro Biffignandi passed away in January of 2017 a few short months after an incredible book chronicling his vast body of work was released by Korero Press in June of 2016, Sex and Horror: The Art of Alessandro Biffignandi. You can also thank Korero for the entertaining book which preceded Biffignandi’s, Sex and Horror: The Art of Emanuele Taglietti, another master of the genre and if I understand correctly—and I hope I do—it appears Korero intends to keep publishing other books under their “Sex and Horror” banner. This is all pretty fantastic news if you enjoy the explicit classic sleaze which defines Italian fumetti (or comics) from artists like Biffignandi, Taglietti, Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore (who created comic series RanXerox praised by director Guillermo del Toro), and Enzo Sciotti.
After developing a love-affair with comic books as a kid, Biffignandi had the good fortune become a student of Averardo Ciriello, a very busy, highly influential Italian artist (with a very dirty mind) who is historically best known for his work creating movie posters (approximately 3,000 over his career) for Italian cinema. After studying with Ciriello, Biffignandi was personally recruited by the largest movie poster production house in Italy (at the time) Studio Favalli run by Augusto Favalli. Sometime in the 1960s, Biffignandi relocated to Milan where he worked for prestigious Studio Creazioni D’Ami which provided artwork to publishers in the UK and France. Biffignandi also found work with another publisher, Edifumetto (who also widely used artwork by Emanuele Taglietti) and his horror-inspired erotica would soon be seen in magazines such as Sukia, Zora, Wallestein il Mostro, and other fumetti-style comics.
Before you start scrolling through the images in this post, I’d like to share a couple of things. First, and I’ll give it to you gently, it seems that Biffignandi had a thing for Disney characters and books as a child and his work is known to reflect this interest at times. So, you know, you just might see your old pal Peter Pan doing things that only a real boy could. Could be worse. Also important to note, especially if you are not familiar with this genre, is Biffignandi’s work is somewhat explicit and pretty much all that follows is very NSFW. YAY!
Much more after the jump…