From Linus to the crisis of newsstands.
Comics magazines in Italy (1965–2000)
Quaderni D’Italianistica
Échéance des propositions : 1 May 2026
Edited by Manuela Di Franco, Giorgio Busi Rizzi and Dario Boemia
Call for paper
Periodicals of various types and formats—daily newspapers, weekly magazines, specialized journals, Sunday supplements, and special inserts—have long played a crucial role in the crossmedial circulation of news and imaginaries. From their very emergence, comics have found a privileged space within periodicals, shaping reading habits and literacy, particularly within the middle class.
From the 1960s onward, comics magazines were instrumental in defining the cultural and artistic landscape of the medium, particularly in key Western traditions such as the US, Franco-Belgian, and Italian contexts. In Europe, publications like Linus (Italy) and Charlie Mensuel (France) broadened the scope of comics, positioning them beyond children’s entertainment and into the realms of adult readership, political satire, and artistic experimentation. In the wake of the late 1960s protest movements, comics magazines in France and Italy became integral to subcultural and countercultural avant-gardes. Titles aimed at educated audiences proliferated, engaging with more mature, ambitious, and often controversial content, characterized by experimentalism and hybridization with other media.


Margaret Flinn (dir.), 

Benoît Peeters,
Benoît Crucifix,
Benjamin Patinaud,