The "Fumetti neri" name comes from "cronaca nera", the Italian name for crime news. Among the inspirations of the genre were the
film noir, the French
feuilleton and Italian
horror films. In a local market dominated by comics devoted to a young audience, the immediate commercial success of
Diabolik revealed a niche of adult readers interested in adult and sometimes exploitive themes, characterized by violence and sex references. The heroes of
fumetti neri were more
anti-heroes or
villains than traditional heroes, and Diabolik himself was very loosely based on the French
Fantômas character. The subsequent main characters in these comics were all inspired by Diabolik and often had a
K in their names. They included
Kriminal (a more violent version of Diabolik by
Magnus and
Max Bunker),
Satanik (a female version of Diabolik by the same authors but with supernatural and horrific elements) and
Sadik. In
France, these comics were published in
digest size editions by the likes of
Elvifrance. In the
Netherlands vast amounts of the erotic comics were published by Schorpioen, Nooitgedacht and Vrijbuiter during the 70s and 80s. ==Legacy==