In 2020 the Italian publisher Coconino Press published the third in a complete collection of Buzzelli’s published work. They gave it the title Buzzelliade, which had been used by Buzzelli and his clients to include the mildly erotic ‘big pages’ he created for the magazines Charlie, Playmen, and Glamor International, but particularly for Menelik, a weekly founded by Adelina Tattilo, the entrepreneur who between the 1960s and 1970s contributed with her publications to a revolution in Italian customs.

In these double-page spreads, usually signed with the pseudonym Blotz or with the initials GBZ, we find all of Buzzelli’s ironic wit and satirical verve. Sometimes he makes fun of the hypocrisies, rituals and taboos of Italian society, drawing in his own way the beaches and seaside holidays, the fans at the stadium, the studios of famous television programmes of the time, crowding every scene with sensual women wearing little or nothing, face to face with bizarre and monstrous creatures. In other times Buzzelli enjoys parodying the classics of American comics, from Flash Gordon to Mandrake and Tarzan.

There is no doubt that it helps if you have at least a smattering of Italian, but even without understanding all the words the wit and imagination are crystal clear. Buzzelli rarely includes anything explicitly sexual, but the erotic titillation is ever-present.

As well as the ‘big pages’, Coconino’s Buzzelliade also includes three complete comic stories – Il mestiere di Mario (Mario’s Job, with text by Alexis Kostandi), I love you, Helza!, a daring adventurous-erotic thriller with strong elements of social criticism, and the unpublished short story Diamonds.