Kriminal
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Kriminal is a fictional character created in 1964 for Italian comics by Magnus and Max Bunker, also authors of Alan Ford, Maxmagnus and Satanik.
Kriminal is an English master thief, Anthony Logan, who dresses in black and yellow costume with a fearsome skull face for his adventures. The character was directly inspired to the contemporary (and more successful) Diabolik, with whom he shares the ability to use masks permitting him to assume any identity. In its first adventures Kriminal was an almost sadistic killer fighting for revenge against the criminals who had pushed his father to commit suicide. Having lost his mother and sister too, Logan spent his youth in a reformatory, from which he managed to escape, eager of vengeance.
Kriminal has one feminine companion, Lola Hudson, who had once been wife of Scotland Yard Inspector Patrick Milton, his main enemy. Gradually over time, Kriminal's absolute villainous features lessened, assuming in the late stories more positive and heroic connotations.
The series was also notable since it made one of first uses of continuity in Italian comic books, as any new story began exactly from the point the last one had ended, and characters' lives evolved (differently than in Diabolik). Logan himself married and had a child, who soon died.
The series ended in November 1974, after 419 episodes.
[edit] Censorship
Due to the violence and the proto-erotic scenes in the comic book (as well as in Satanik), Bunker and Raviola had problems with Italian censorship. Bunker was prosecuted several times, but never condemned. The panels depicting semi-nude girls were often censored by the publisher itself.
[edit] Cinema
Kriminal has been adapted for the big screen at least a couple of times. The first movie, Kriminal was released in 1967 by Umberto Lenzi, starring Dutch actor Glenn Saxson in the lead role. The skeleton costume was slightly altered. A sequel, Il marchio di Kriminal ("The Sign of Kriminal") directed by Fernando Cerchio, followed in the summer of 1967.
