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The erotic-horror fumetti published in Italy through the seventies and eighties may seem arcane to outsiders. The plots of these comics are built around sex, violence and combinations of the two, depicted in such graphic detail that any discussion – this very article included – requires a severe content warning: do not read any further if you are liable to be disturbed by comic-book depictions of sexual violence.
Those who press on, meanwhile, will find themselves in a carnivalesque world where any sense of taste or decorum has simply ceased to exist. If there is any one character who sums up this love of misrule, that must surely be Belzeba, a daughter of Satan sent to Earth to sow strife. [Press On]