Corriere dei Piccoli

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The Corriere dei Piccoli (Italian for "Courier of the Little Ones"), nicknamed Corrierino ("Little Courier"), was an influential weekly magazine for children published in Italy from 1908 to 1995. It was the first Italian periodical to publish comics.

In 1972, part of the contents was split off to new magazine, the Corriere dei Ragazzi ("Courier of the Boys").

Contents 1 Publication history 2 Contents 3 Influence 4 See also

[edit] Publication history

The first issue (24 pages, 80,000 copies) was published on December 27, 1908, with Silvio Spaventa Filippi as editor-in-chief. It was formally a supplement of the magazine Corriere della Sera, but was sold separately for 0.10 lira. At its acme, the magazine sold 700,000 copies.

By 1970 the magazine started having difficulties due to rising costs and competition by other magazines and comics books. Feeling that the quaint name was partly to blame, on January 1, 1972 the publisher renamed the bulk of the magazine Corriere dei Ragazzi, which hopefully would be more appealing to teenagers. The name Corriere dei Piccoli still survived a thin supplement of that publication, aimed at the younger readers.

The last issue was dated August 15, 1995.

[edit] Contents

Throughout its history, the Corrierino published material of many genera --- from comics stories and illustrated tales and novels (usually in half-page to two-page weekly installments), educational material, feature columns, humor, news, reviews, readers' letters, puzzles, board games, and more.

A typically Italian comics format was introduced by the Corrierino already in its first issue. The full page was divided into six equal panels, in three rows. Instead of text balloons (which were already used in the US, but were considered "un-educative" by the Italian editors), the narrative and dialogue were provided by rhymed couplets underneath each panel, e.g.:

Qui comincia l'avventura		"Here begins the adventure
Del Signor Bonaventura ...		of Mr. Bonaventura ... "

This format soon lost space to balloon-captioned comics, which, besides being the universal norm outside Italy, made for more lively action and dialogue, and gave more freedom to the artists in the choice of panel size and layout. Nevertheless, comics in this "Italian format" continued to make sporadic appearances throughout the life of the magazine, generally aimed at younger readers.

[edit] Influence

Besides introducing comics to Italian public, the Corrierino greatly infuenced four generations of Italians, and played a significant role in the career of many Italian artists and writers, such as Giana Anguissola, Mino Milani, Hugo Pratt, Lino Penati, Dino Battaglia, Aldo Di Gennaro, Sergio Toppi, Mario Uggeri, Benito Jacovitti, and many more.

[edit] See also

• Spirou (magazine), a famous Belgian magazine for children.
• Tintin (magazine), another one.
• Il Vittorioso, a Catholic children's magazine from Italy.