[NSFW] Fumetti Nightmares: Belzeba, Italy's Intersex Imp

By Doris V. Sutherland

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.

Debuting in 1977, Belzeba was drawn by an illustrstor named Sandro Angiolini (1920-1985). Angiolini had previously been the original artist on Isabella, a comic of swashbuckling and sado-masochism that ran from 1966 to 1976 and helped to shape the field of Italian erotic comics. He subsequently went on to draw similarly spicy takes on other genres, including the Western (Vartan), the police procedural (La Poliziotta) and historical farce (Una).

Branching out into erotic horror with Belzeba was a logical move for Angiolini. The horror heroine Jacula – introduced as a side character in Isabella before getting her own series in 1969 – had been a success with readers. Her popularity gsve rise to a set of similar supernatural sex-kittens including Zora the vampire, Maghella the witch and Lucifera the succubus, making devil-girl Belzeba a thoroughly in-vogue creation.

At first glance, Belzeba may seem little different from any number of other raunchy comic heroines. Large-eyed, round-cheeked and so busty that she is forever poised to burst from her bodice, she looks as though she could have stepped straight out of a pornographic Disney parody. However, once she lifts her skirt to reveal a sizeable penis, there should be no doubt that Belzeba does not adhere quite as close to the norms of comic-book womanhood as might be expected.

But before we acquaint ourselves with Belzeba's genitals, let us take a trip through her origin story...

The tale in the first issue of Belzeba, “Figlia del Diavolo” (“Daughter of the Devil”) begins in Spain, 1483. While Ferdinand and Isabella personally oversee the burning of a witch, Tomas de Torquemada exorcises a woman who is possessed by Beelzebub himself. “Begone, Torquemada!” says the unclean spirit. “This girl is mine!”

“Nature has given me a great tool with which to drive the devil from the woman’s belly,” says Torquemada before raping the possessed woman; sure enough, a caption tells us that she is “miraculously placated”. While Torquemada is thanked by the victim’s parents, the demonic spirit returns to the underworld: “Beelzebub, humiliated by Torquemada, goes to see Satan, the Prince of Hell.”

In popular imagination Beelzebub and Satan are one and the same, although demonological tradition has them as two distinct entities: sixteenth-century theologian Peter Binsfield named Beelzebub as the demon of lust and Satan as the demon of anger, for example, while the later occultist Francis Barrett identified Beelzebub as the chief of false gods and Satan as the sorceresses. The comic never makes clear exactly what place Beelzebub has in the demonic hierarchy, although there is no indication that he is a particularly high-ranking devil.

On the way to his Infernal Majesty, Beelzebub travels past condemned sinners: the lustful are left suspended by their genitals, while sodomites cry out “Ohi! Ohi! Ohi!” as stalactites pierce their backsides. “I hope Satan’s in a good mood,” says the apprehensive demon.

Satan is introduced surrounded by an equal-opportunities harem that includes men and women, demons and humans. He pays little attention to them, however, being too busy tucking into an infant. “This newborn baby offered to me by witches in Lisbon was really delicious,” says Satan as he spits out the baby’s head. He then turns his attention to Beelzebub’s grievances…

“It would take a special creature to go against Torquemada,” he says. “Beautiful, intelligent, able to hide their demonic nature…” So saying, Satan vanishes from hell, leaving Beelzebub behind him. “Without Torquemada, it would be easy to win the souls of Ferdinand and Isabella,” ponders the lesser devil.

Walking the earth, Satan sees a field of cows (“One of those will do!”) and transforms into a bull. He mates with one of the cows before resuming his true form: “And so, Satan leaves his seed in the womb of a female of the Earth.”

A few months later, a farmhand runs to his master with news that their pregnant cow is about to give birth: “It looks like it has an enormous calf in its belly!” The bloated cow dies before it can calve, and so the farmer decides to cut it open and retrieve its prize offspring. They are surprised to find not a calf, but a young woman…

…a young woman who turns out to have a penis. “This is the Devil’s work,” exclaims the boy.

There is a certain precedence for depictions of intersex devils. Occultist Eliphas Levi’s famous 1856 illustration of Baphomet has both male and female characteristics – although Levi associated this figure with Pan more than Satan. Indeed, Belzeba’s origin story actually evokes Greek mythology more than medieval demonology: Satan’s bovine encounter recalls Zeus’ various shapeshifted copulations, while the birth of the anti-heroine suggests Athena springing fully-formed from Zeus’ head, or Aphrodite rising from the seas – Venus with a penis, perhaps. Intersex imagery can also be found in classical literature, including Ovid’s account of Hermaphroditus and Pliny’s description of the Machlyes.

The lad runs off to alert the Inquisition (“Only Satan could have created that woman… or man!”) while the farmer tries to keep the newborn devil-person at bay with his pitchfork. Unperturbed by this, the demon fondles her body with curiosity. “I am happy to be born,” she thinks to herself. “Am I a woman? Am I a man?” She lifts her genitals, and finds a vagina tucked away behind her testicles. “They’re everything,” she exclaims, with a wicked grin.

The farmer continues to brandish his pitchfork at her, and she responds with seduction. “Why be afraid of a woman, alone and naked?” she asks. “Don’t you like a woman? Don’t you know how to love her? I have a woman’s little slit, too.”

“But you also have a man’s genitals,” protests the farmer.

“I’m for everyone who’ll have me in his arms,” she replies. “All men are a little homosexual, don’t you know? Haven't you never dreamed of having a naked boy beneath you?”

“Y-yes… sometimes,” he admits.

Her seduction technique pays off, and the farmer submits to her advances. “You like me?” asks Belzeba. “I am a woman, I am a man, I am gay, I am a lesbian… with me, everyone will have enjoyment without limits!”

She then pushes him over and impales him with his own pitchfork. “I am also cruelty! I am also death!”

As the nude devil-woman changes into her victim’s clothes, the farmboy fetches a priest -- only to be blamed for the murder himself. The Inquisition proceeds to brand the unfortunate lad’s genitals before hanging him naked until dead.

But the boy’s account of the demonic birth is nonetheless recorded by the Inquisition and eventually reaches Torquemada. “Interesting,” he says. “A man-woman born from a cow, supposedly the daughter of Satan…. Interesting, but too fantastic. I think the groom was really the murderer.”

“Torquemada got it wrong this time,” comments a narrative caption.. “The daughter of Satan was born specifically to fight him!”

As she walks through the woodlands, Satan’s daughter picks a name for herself: Belzeba. She then spots a young woman passing by, wearing clothes that are more to her taste than the farmer’s duds…

Belzeba knocks the girl unconscious and steals her dress. Looking down at her naked victim, the devil-woman gets a prominent erection. “Why not?” Belzeba thinks to herself, before raping the girl.

A man on horseback comes by, and the girl runs to him for help.
“That woman has sodomised me!”

“So… sodomised?” asks the bemused horseman. “But to sodomise someone, you have to have a male member.”

“She has a member,” pleads the girl. “And it’s huge!”

The rider tracks down and apprehends Belzeba, ordering her at knifepoint to expose her nether regions to him. She does so.

“You really do have a broadsword!” exclaims the man.

“And I have a scabbard too,” replies Belzeba. “Want to feel?”

He is tempted, but fear of ending up at the stake prompts him to instead capture Belzeba and take her to the Inquisition. Before he reaches his destination, however, he is suddenly shot dead by bandits. The robbers strip the man’s corpse of his belongings and take Belzeba as their prisoner.

“Let’s try and sell her to the hunchback,” says one of the bandits. “He’s always hungry for women. Maybe he’ll give us a couple of silver shields.”
It turns out that the hunchback, Victorio, is something of a stickler: when he learns that Belzeba has already lost her virginity, he offers them single silver shield in exchange for her servitude. She is understandably displeased: “I look forward to having my hands free,” she says as she is winched up to Victorio’s treehouse.

“They have no use for you,” Victorio tells Belzeba after his partners in crime depart. “The guards castrated them when they were fifteen, after they were caught stealing fruit from the royal palace!”

Victorio then begins eagerly molesting his new purchase. “It’s been months since I had sex with a woman,” he says. “My last time was with a wild turkey.”

Belzeba is initially intrigued by this anecdote, but escape is the first thing on her mind. When Victorio is frozen with shock at the sight of her genitals, she takes the opportunity to kick him in the groin before cracking his skull open with a metal bar.

She then resumes her journey to confront Torquemada. But as she makes her way through the forest, she catches sight of a hunting party and deduces that the authorities have learned of her activities. The first issue ends on a cliffhanger, with Belzeba fleeing the hunters.

The second issue is entitled “La seta degli eretti” (“The Sect of the Erect”) and starts off with the revelation that the riders are merely deer-hunters, who save Belzeba from their dogs. She takes a fancy to the good-looking leader of the party, who turns out to be the historical figure Gonzalo de Córdoba, but is left forlorn when this “bellissimo giovane signore” departs without so much as asking her name. She has to remind herself that the such a personage would have little interest in a commoner he met in the forest.

Despite this disappointment, Belzeba continues to fantasise about de Cordoba: “I would like to have him in my arms; let me penetrate and then sodomise him!”

Coming to a clearing in the woods, she stops for a nap, only to be awoken at night by the sound of chanting. It turns out to be coming from a procession of hooded men, each with a long protrusion emerging from between their legs. “We are the select of the erect… the men of the elect”, they chant. “We fight the devil by slapping him in the anus… long live Torquemada, the leader of the Inquisition!”

“Our sect was founded to fight demons,” proclaims the group’s chief, “but until now we had not even found one!” However, they have heard of the rape committed by Belzeba, and are now on the lookout for her. “I’ve only been born for a few hours, and already I have a lot of enemies” thinks Belzeba to herself as she watches from the foliage. The hooded men resume their chanting; “We are ready for action, soldiers of the eternal erection; our blood grows hot, and hard are our cocks!”

Belzeba is curious about these men’s endowments, so she sneaks up behind the leader when he is alone, coshes him with a rock and removes his robe. It is revealed that he is merely wearing a wooden pole strapped to his groin: “his stimulation is a simulation” quips Belzeba in a pun that translates remarkably well into English.

She decides to play a prank on the man. When he comes to, he finds a stone on his chest, with a rope tied around it and the phrase “a devilish jest” scratched onto the surface. He then throws the stone away… without noticing that Belzeba had tied the other end of the rope to his testicles. The consequences are painful for him.

By this point Belzeba has made it to the nearest city, where she learns that Torquemada is in town. “This is fortunate,” she thinks. “Now I can finally meet my father’s enemy!” Unfortunately for her, however, Torquemada turns out to be too heavily-guarded for her to get up close and personal.

While loitering about the town, the disappointed Belzeba runs into another member of the Erect Elect. He orders her to kiss a a crucifix to prove that she is not a demon: “I’d rather kiss your cock”, she replies. Having successfully seduced the man, she lures him into a secluded area. “Tomorrow I confess,” he thinks to himself as he prepares to get busy, “but tonight I want to get as much done as possible!”

Belzeba lets the man suck her breasts, but things go a bit wrong when he notices her erection. She reacts to his shock by stabbing his eyes out with her fingernails and then ramming his wooden erection down his throat.

She continuees to explore the town, but walking the mortal world is not a comfortable experience for Belzeba: “the earth burns beneath my feet”, she complains, evoking the Little Mermaid feeling knife-blades with each step of her new feet in the Hans Christian Andersen story. But Belzeba at least has plenty of male attention to distract her from this pain.

A man introducing himself as a page from Castile announces that a prince wants her for his concubine; she agrees to this offer, on the grounds that that she need only perform handjobs and oral. Before she can adapt to courtly life, she needs to learn the ways of polite society, and so the page takes her to a new home in the capital where she begins her learning: “You will spend a few days with my sister, a widow who knows a lot about courtly customs and etiquette”, explains the page.

Bezleba – or Manuela Camacho, as she takes to calling herself – meets her new tutor, Maria Vinocha y Fichon, who turns out to share Belzeba’s fondness for outrageously low necklines. With breasts spilling in all directions, the atmosphere quickly becomes Sapphic: “She’s already got her hands on me,” thinks Belzeba, as Maria fondles her hips and shoulders; “she’s a lesbian!” Indeed, Maria also happens to have a voyeuristic streak: she spies on Belzeba and sees her urinating while standing up. Maria theorises that her new guest must have grown up in a poor peasant family with lots of brothers, and never learnt to use the toilet in a more ladylike fashion.

While staying, Belzeba is granted a new, fancier dress (albeit one still incapable of covering her nipples) and undergoes the My Fair Lady ritual of learning table manners, dance moves and the ability to walk with a book on her head. “Do I get a reward?” asks Maria when the lessons are complete. Taking the hint, Belzeba begins having sex with her. The devil-girl stops things short before Maria can see her genitals, however: “Don’t forget that I’m the promised concubine of the prince!”

Maria’s brother arrives and escorts Belzeba to the prince’s palace. The two are noticed by Torquemada, who becomes the latest in a long line of people to be infatuated with the Devil’s daughter. He asks a monk to procure an item of the new concubine’s clothing for him, preferably an undergarment: sniffing a woman’s underwear is a good way of finding out of she is a witch, he asserts.

Just as she is expressing impatience with being cooped up in her new lodgings until she is allowed to meet the royal family, Belzeba is visited by the monk, who politely requests her underthings. “Take this handkerchief,” she says. “I don’t wear undergarments.”

“I’m sure Torquemada wants to find out if I’m a witch,” thinks Belzeba to herself once the monk has left. “That man really is a dangerous opponent!” And on this tense moment, the second issue of Belzeba ends.

Hard as it may be to believe, this saga of murder, molestation and ripped-off testicles actually constitutes the softcore edition of the comic.

Unexpurgated versions of the first two issues can be found in the omnibus Figlia del Peccato: Maschio e Femmina (“Daughter of Sin: Male and Female”) published in 1982 as part of Edifumetto’s “serie gigante”. Here, each sex scene is longer by a few panels, with every penetration being depicted in about as much detail as a reader could conceivably ask for.

In both the softcore and hardcore versions of these first two issues, Belzeba was just getting started. Her comic lasted for thirty instalments in all, and a simple look through a cover gallery will give an indication of Belzeba’s subsequent exploits: encountering the undead in “Contro il Vampiro”, joining a swashbuckling adventure in “Il Pirato Nero”, and even causing trouble for the royal court of Spain in “Isabella di Castiglia”.

As far is Italy’s intersex imp was concerned, all of this was merely the beginning.