Lucca Comics & Games

Lucca Comics & Games is an annual comic book and gaming convention in Lucca, Italy, traditionally held at the end of October, in conjunction with All Saints' Day. It is the largest comics festival in Europe, and the second biggest in the world after the Comiket.

Lucca Comics and Games
A Lucca Comics pavilion, near the San Michele in Foro basilica, in 2007.
Statusactive
Location(s)Lucca
CountryItaly
Inaugurated1965
Attendance271,000 by 2016[1]
Organized byComune of Lucca, through the limited company "Lucca Comics & Games Srl"[2]
Websiteluccacomicsandgames.com

History
Crowd in Vittorio Veneto street during the Lucca Comics and Games 2012
Entern of a pavilion

The Salone Internazionale del Comics ("International Congress of Comics") was launched by a Franco-Italian partnership, consisting of Italians Rinaldo Traini and Romano Calisi and Frenchman Claude Moliterni (forming the International Congress of Cartoonists and Animators) in 1965 in Bordighera.[3][4] In 1966 it moved to a small piazza in the center of Lucca, and grew in size and importance over the years.

Funding issues reduced the frequency of the festival to every two years, beginning in 1977. In the 1980s, the festival was moved to a sports center outside the city walls, where it remained until 1992, when it was moved to another city. (Funding issues also forced the cancellation of the 1988 festival.)

After the Salone internazionale del Comics ended in Lucca, city leaders launched a new convention called simply Lucca Comics that was a reprise of the old one. In 1996 it changed its name to Lucca Comics & Games. The festival attracted 50,000 attendees in 2002.

Meanwhile, the Salone internazionale del Comics was held in Rome from 1995 to 2005. In 2006, for the festival's 40th anniversary, the Salone merged with Lucca Comics & Games and moved back to Lucca's city center, with numerous tents and pavilions arranged in different squares within and outside the walls of the medieval city.

In 2016, the festival attracted 270,000 attendees.

Awards
The stage of cosplay.
The italian actors Herbert Ballerina and Maccio Capatonda at Lucca Comics & Games 2016

Comics awards

From 1970–2005, the festival presented the Yellow Kid Award — named in honor of Richard F. Outcault's seminal comic strip character The Yellow Kid — in such categories as Best Cartoonist, Best Illustrator, Best Newcomer, Best Foreign Artist, and Lifetime Achievement. Yellow Kid Awards were also presented to publishers, both domestic and foreign.

The festival also (since 1967) presents a special award called the Gran Guinigi Award (named after Lucca's Guinigi Tower).

Yellow Kid Award recipients

Gran Guinigi recipients

Games awards

References
  1. "Comics: 271.208 biglietti venduti. E' il record di sempre". La Nazione. 1 November 2016.
  2. Lucca Comics & Games Srl - Chi siamo
  3. "Lucca 9," Bang! #11 (1974), p. 55.
  4. Pasamonik, Didier. "Disparition de Claude Moliterni, fondateur du Festival d’Angoulême ,"ActuaBD (Jan. 21, 2009). (in French)
  5. Nordling, Lee. Your Career in the Comics (Newspaper Features Council (U.S.)/Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1995), p. 235.
  6. "History of the Lucca festival". 1972. Retrieved 15 July 2006.
  7. "11° Salone Internationale del Comics, del Film di Animazione e dell'Illustrazione" (in Italian). immaginecentrostudi.org.
  8. Clute, John and John Grant. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (Macmillan, 1999), p. 621
  9. "13 Salone Internazionale dei Comics" (in Italian). Centro Studi Iconografici.
  10. Traini, Rinaldo (1982). "15° SALONE, 1982" (in Italian). Immagine-Centro Studi Iconografici. Archived from the original on 2011-02-11.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  11. Gilbert Hernandez entry, Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928-1999. Accessed June 15, 2015.
  12. "Hernandez Brothers Win Award," The Comics Journal #95 (Feb. 1985), p. 21.
  13. Immagine-Centro Studi Iconografici. "16° SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEI COMICS, 1984" (in Italian).
  14. "Bill Sienkiewicz Awards, Exhibits". Wordsandpictures.org. Archived from the original on February 7, 2012.
  15. "17° SALONE, 1986" (in Italian). Immagine-Centro Studi Iconografici. Archived from the original on February 7, 2012. Retrieved June 16, 2015.
  16. "Awards and Honors," NeilGaiman.com. Accessed June 16, 2015.
  17. Origa, Graziano. "Lucca Exhibition is Un Grande Successo: Yellow Kid Awards for John Byrne, François Boucq, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston," The Comics Journal #156 (Feb. 1993), p. 41.
  18. Duncan, Randy, and Matthew J. Smith. Icons of the American Comic Book: From Captain America to Wonder Woman, vol. 1, (ABC-CLIO, 2013), p. 98
  19. Centro Studi Iconografici. "5 Salone Internazionale dei Comics" (in Italian).
  20. O'Neill entry, Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928-1999. Accessed Oct. 8, 2016.
  21. "Best of Show: i vincitori". Lucca Comics & Games 2011 (in Italian). Retrieved August 26, 2019.
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