Italian BL Review
There never seems to be any one reason why BL takes the form it does in any one place. Manga or text, series based or original- every country has its own preferences. The Japanese, naturally, do everything, and do a lot of it. GW djs, text Naruto stories on the Net, Beboy manga and June novels: they have it all. Mainland China has opted for the texted original story as the form people find most congenial. Over here we do just as much text as the Chinese, but almost all with fannish characters. Original stories are such a tiny minority that we don't have a real name for it as an amateur genre. What do the Key stories count as, for instance? (Pro is where people look more for their OC m/m thrills, among the fantasy writers like Anne Rice and Storm Constantine. Fans, we seem to think, should be fans.) Compared to the Japanese, we produce very little manga or even fanart. Writing is our default, and art is reserved for those special people who somehow know how to draw. (Because they were taught in school, could it be, one wonders sardonically?)
But now we have the case of Italy, which has produced a number of zines with manga stories that involve original characters. The obvious first question for us is probably, why manga? Well, culture, for one. Manga in many European countries is a perfectly legitimate adult read that never had the American stigma of 'only for kids' (as anyone who's stepped into a French bookstore can tell you.) If you can draw them, you do, since you've got an audience able to appreciate them that doesn't need to be educated.
And why original? Culture again- the Italian attitude to authorship, which tends to devalue 'derivatory' work. Original work is considered far superior. Even in fandom. using someone else's characters is an amusement, but the serious business is to tell your own stories. Veruska has said: "Here in Italy I think we don't have a strong culture of fandom expressed as 'building new rooms in other people's houses.' Italian fandom, I think, is less 'productive', especially regarding the fan writing. Fan art we have, fan critics also, but fan writing - maybe it's just my perception - but I think it's somewhat less common."
Another possible factor to explain the prevalence of original stuff is the very active part that gay men play in the Italian BL scene. They make up perhaps half of the fans, a stunning figure when you consider the endangered-species status of the NA male yaoi fan. As always, this gay presence has a plus and a minus side. On the one hand it gives a wider market for the artists to sell to. But gay men tend to prefer original stories set here and now that feature recognizably Italian men, not transmogrified Japanese teenagers. Some gay men appreciate BL because it's softer and more romantic than the stock gay porn available. But on the other hand, the fact that female-produced BL is so very much an unreal fantasy often clashes with the desire of gay men to see something that reflects their own reality.
I read three Italian zines/ djs, with help from Veruska's summaries and my own spotty knowledge of the language. I can't look at Italian BL with totally fresh eyes. I'll always be seeing the Japanese version with one eye and American gay comics with the other. And where does Italian BL come on that spectrum? Somewhere in the middle, I'd say.
Note: The zines in this review are all stand-alone stories from Boy+Boy, a gay male publishing company. Information on the various zines produced, and ordering information, is available at the end of the article.
This is the first one I read, and turned out to be by far my favorite. The art style is a shock to the Japanese trained eye, of course- all these guys are so beefy and big. But viewed from a western gay perspective, especially if you've seen any gay manga, it soon starts looking normal. At least we're not dealing with the bizarre musculature of body-builders, just normal healthy young men.
I'll say as well, this is the one with the easiest Italian- the kind you can figure out from a passing knowledge of Spanish or opera. It's probably also the easiest picture-read, but I'm illiterate when it comes to pictures. ^_^ The plot is a good-humoured story that wouldn't feel out of place in Beboy.
Bar the little wrinkle that our mousy hero, Davide, a law student in Bari in the south of Italy, starts by being hopelessly in love with a girl. But if he wasn't, he wouldn't let Valerio, the law faculty's big man on campus, give him a make-over in order to win her. Davide dislikes Valerio, the breezy lady's man with his movie-star mannerisms who insists on calling him Dave. Their interaction rather reminds me of Japanese strips as well. Valerio's way of asking Davide out: "I've got an hour free, buy me a coffee." Davide bridles: "Enn! Oh!-- No!" "Great, let's go!!" Valerio says enthusiastically and whisks him off to a café.
Davide's makeover begins amusingly in a men's washroom, where Valerio starts undoing buttons and attacking Davide's pants while the poor guy sweats, wondering what's happening. But it's for the good cause of giving him (the young Italian notion of) a sexy look- top and bottom shirt buttons undone, waistband open, pants rolled up. We go through the stages of getting contact lenses and a good haircut and some new clothes, and our Davide is starting to look pretty dishy. And hey, it seems even Valerio has some depths to him, because Davide finds him reading a book while waiting for him before their clothes-shopping trip.
Valerio drops the book accidentally later on and Davide picks it up. It's a manual of first aid, oddly enough. D follows Val to return it, and thus discovers his secret. Valerio volunteers at a children's hospital where all the kids think he's a real doctor. The two of them spend the afternoon together delighting the kids, and then have a huge fight afterwards. "Great, really great- you come along and discover my one weakness! You've seen what's behind my image, and I feel like you'd seen me naked." Valerio wants to be a doctor, but his father insisted on law. So he cultivates the BMOC image and keeps his afternoons with the kids a dark secret. Davide on his side feels humiliated. He confesses that Valerio's 'secret' has made him see how petty his own personal problems are, and how wrong his judgment of Valerio's character was. We're within minutes of some kind of revelation as the two look into each other's eyes after opening up their hearts to each other-- then Davide shoves the first aid manual into Valerio's face and runs.
The story continues, with a few twists and turns, along the path one might expect. I'm not going to spoil. This one should be read. A few smiles, a few tears, a little lacrimae rerum, some very hunky bodies, and a happy ending.
Xel, as far as I can figure, is Anna Carboni, the sister of Zel- Laura Carboni. There are resemblances in the style, but Xel's art is more restrained than the exuberance physicality of Like U's. Reminds me, for no good reason, of 'American' drawing styles.
Also, I'm losing something in the Italian here, and even Veruska's helpful notes don't fill it in. Jamie, half English and half Italian, is in love with Umberto, lead singer with a band. Apparently they know each other in some way because there they are in a photo together as Jamie makes the trip from Perugia where he was born to Torino (Turin) where Umberto hangs out. Jamie is a photographer and every day he sends Umberto an anonymous snapshot of the city with a message on it. But his main contact with him is through the Internet chatlines, where he pretends to be a girl called Smart-y. All his approaches to Umberto are indirect, streets going nowhere or ending in dead ends, because he doesn't believe Umberto can ever care for him.
This comes to a head when Umberto demands to meet Smart-y, and Jamie sends a female friend in his place. 
The two go out together and become lovers, while Jamie curses his own cowardice. Things drag on like this for months. Then Umberto and the girl have a fight, Umberto gets drunk with Jamie, who takes him home where... the usual happens. Well, eventually happens. Cue the happi endo- oh, but no. Italian BL doesn't cut to the happi endo the way Japanese does. The girl tells Umberto that Smart-y was Jamie all along, and Umberto can't handle this. He leaves on a tour to think things over. Jamie goes back to Perugia alone, musing on what he's learned from his brief time with Umberto. For some reason there seems to be a fondness for this trope in Italian BL- the moment when the two lovers say good-bye and go their separate ways. It occurs in all three works I read here and provides some good weepy moments. But what would happen if the inevitable remeeting didn't occur, one wonders?
This book is modelled far more closely on Japanese BL styles than the others. Apparently there have been complaints from the gay male audience on that point, but female fans will have no trouble with it. The 'japonisme' of the book extends to having it drawn right to left, like a Japanese doujinshi, and printed that way, with the pages to your left as you look at the front cover. It's a nice conceit, but it has one little bug for me. Italian still reads left to right, so the sentence begins in what my Japanese-reading instincts insist is the wrong place.
But other than that we have a foursome of beautiful young men - in the Japanese style- long haired and willowy- interacting with each other amid the fateful gothic atmosphere of Venice. Manga atmosphere has strong hints of early shounen ai as well- fate, the road one must travel, 'illuminated by the cold rays of the Moon, reflected in the water of Venice that conceals one's greatest dreams and one's worst demons.' We're a world away from Like U here.
Blond Alex is in love with the theatre. One night he interferes in a fight at a bar to stop what he thinks is the bad guy, which lets the real bad guy get free after delivering another punch to his victim. Alex is trying to apologize to the man, whose name is Luca, and gets a punch of his own for his pains. Next day he meets the young man who's answered Alex's ad for a roommate. It's Luca, who turns out to be a writer. The two move in together, but their relationship rather resembles their first encounter.
Meanwhile we have Adrian Hoeg, Scandinavian director of the theatre, who guides Alex's career. Though over 30, Adrian has a young boyfriend, Marco, aged 19, who also follows Alex's career and thinks his own thoughts. Because of their age differences, Adrian has told Marco he can have other lovers if he likes, an attitude Marco is ambivalent about.
One day a woman comes to the house, saying she's Luca's fiancée. Luca is the son of a rich man who sent him to study economics at university, but Luca left in order to write his books. 
Luca has a fight on the phone with his father and spends the night out, which makes Alex furious. After yelling at each other a bit, they finally talk and Alex learns about Luca's past-- and learns that Luca is intending to leave Venice. To keep him there, Alex suggests he write a play for Adrian's theatre. The play is a success, the two go to a masquerade to celebrate, and this is where the sexual and the tragic action of the piece begins. (There's a lot of classic shounen-ai ethos happening here too. Sex changes everything in shounen-ai, and not for the better.)
There are plans to translate this story into English, which is a good thing. The story has a narrator, and a lot of the atmosphere and action gets missed when you can't understand what's being said. Even with a dictionary, I was getting lost. (And a nit-pick about the lettering: I know the length of Italian words often mean they don't fit happily into a bubble, but four hyphenations in one bubble strikes me as a bit excessive. Shorter dialogue or larger bubbles, guys.)
Further notes on Italian zines and ordering
Boy+Boy
Each issue contains one complete story. Printed, published. Pgs from 96 to 112. A5. (4x a year) Each year we plan to publish (if we sell enough to cover the expenses, that is)- 3 issues with one original manga story each + one anthology of complete manga and text stories with illustrations.
In Europe, Asia and NAfrica, 1 copy costs 7.70 Euros
In America and the rest of Africa, 1 copy = 8.50 Euros (= AM$7.80)
Oceania 1 copy = 8.70 Euros
For multiple copies the prices are the same in all regions:
2 issues for 16.00 Euro (= AM$14.69)
3 issues for 22.00 (= AM$20)
4 issues for 28.00 (= AM$25.70)
Payable by International Money Order, bought at the post office. Write which comics you want and your return address on the money order, and send to:
Andrea Ferrari, c/o Echo Communications, Via San Nicolao, 20123 Milano.
Other Italian BL publications appearing regularly
- Bianco&Nero.
Publishes special text-slash and original manga stories, as well as gay comics. Xeroxed. Pgs, from 36 to 104, depending. A5. Random (more or less 4x a year?)
- Cultur Club
Has serialized manga only. Each issue contains a single ongoing story, like tankoubons. Prozine, printed. Pgs. 96 to 112. A5 (small-size dj format)(twice yearly)
- [K2C]
Outside runs serialized manga (original) and illustrated june novels. Each issue contains an episode of all the ongoing stories, just like JP telephone books. Fanzine, Xeroxed. Pgs, approx 100. A5. (Random, more or less 3 times a year)
- Cut for G,
Serialized manga (original) + illustrated june novels + articles. Magazine of the italian YSAL (yaoi-shounen ai lovers) cultural association. Each issue contains an episode of all ongoing stories. Prozine, printed. Pgs maybe 96? Format...about same as A5. (Bimonthly)