It starts with Eptadone by Skiantos, the documentary realized by IUTER and No Text Azienda that tells the story of the underground magazine that more than any other has represented a reference point for the counterculture all over the world, we are talking about Frigidaire.

To tell the origins of Frigidaire it is necessary to go back to the end of the ’70s, when Stefano Tamburini founded Cannibale in 1977. Cannibale was a magazine dedicated to the Italian underground comics of humorous and satirical genre and some of the most influential characters of the Italian comics of all times were part of it: Andrea Pazienza and Tanino Liberatore. Distributed by Il Male for 6 issues in two years until economic issues led to its closure in 1979. Here was born the desire, and perhaps the need, not to let the work done in those years be lost.

Vincenzo Sparagna, integral and fundamental part of Il Male and Cannibale, together with Tamburini and Filippo Scòzzari, founds Frigidaire. 

After a year of joint work, in November 1980 Frigidaire made its debut, a magazine that went beyond the logic of sectorial information, mixing comics and assault journalism but also art, satire, politics, music, literature and philosophy.

A unique and unrepeatable cultural project that has delivered to all of us “Frigidaire. The incredible history and surprising adventures of the most revolutionary art magazine in the world”. 

Frigidaire has made the history of Italian illustration all over the world, from the despotic comics of RanXerox, created by Liberatore and Tamburini of which we told you here, to the articles with Ilona Staller up to the investigations on the worst methamphetamine in South East Asia. 

Thanks to IUTER and No Text Azienda, we retrace the history of Frigidaire and Frigolandia – a ludo nation founded in 2005 in Giano dell’Umbria but already thought and conceived in 1985 by Sparagna and Andrea Pazienza – through the words of Vincenzo Sparagna, a cross-section on a fundamental and often forgotten part of the history of Italian culture.

Below you can watch the documentary with the narrating voice of Francesco Mandelli.