More than 75,000 fans take part in the comics and games festival in the Italian Renaissance city, which has surrendered to the talent of Valencian Paco Roca
“We need to take a selfie!” The two groups of friends don’t know each other, but when they run into each other on the street and discover they’re dressed as characters from the same game, it doesn’t take long for them to get their picture taken together. They are all ‘cosplayer’, so much for video games, series and cartoons that they dress up as the protagonists of their favorite creations and try to imitate their skills and way of acting. Between October 28 and November 1, the ‘cosplayers’ are legion in Lucca, a charming Renaissance city in the Italian region of Tuscany that hosts the 56th edition of its festival on comics, games, video games, series and manga. Today, after the restrictions created by the pandemic, it has regained its massive character to the point that organizers hope to exceed the record 750,000 visitors reached in 2019. More than 300,000 tickets have already been sold, but the final number of participants will be much greater as most events are free.
The Lucca Comics & Games is on the same level as the large similar festivals held in the United States, but with an extra peculiarity that is quintessentially Italian: it is held in a large number of locations spread over the historic center of this city full of palaces from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The combination of the pop culture of the comic book world with the beauties of the cities of Tuscany offers pictures as curious as encountering a man dressed as the superhero Thor, brandishing a giant foam rubber mallet at the foot of the composer’s statue. Giacomo Puccini, born exactly in Lucca. Or, meet a legion of kids, teens and adults dressed as Spiderman to join a 60th anniversary meeting with John Romita Jr., one of the most famous cartoonists in the Marvel universe.
“Lucca is the place where contemporary creativity and new forms of entertainment and storytelling come together. Whoever comes here is not just a spectator, it is a participant who bonds with the authors and is a protagonist in a monumental city that becomes the stage of their interests,” says Emanuele Vietina, CEO of Lucca Comics & Games, with great pride on the pollution that occurs between different genres and formats. “Everything is mixed here. Young people passionate about Japanese manga arrive, discover Paco Roca and are amazed. Today’s cultural consumer has no problem with barriers and enjoys just as much a comic, a video game, a television series, a board game or a book,” says Vietina.
A demonstration of the feedback from these phenomena is in the various events associated with the ‘The Witcher’ saga, including a concert with an orchestra, a video game exhibit, and a medieval-style camp full of followers dressed as the characters who appear in the novels of the Pole Andrzej Sapkowski, also brought to the screen in a Netflix series.
The space dedicated to these great productions does not make the Lucca Festival forget the comic books that marked its beginning. It is something that is appreciated by cartoonists like the Argentine Rep (Miguel Repiso), who presents his album ‘Diego, born to last’, dedicated to Maradona. “I’ve been following what’s happening here since 1975. It’s great that the ‘cosplayer’ meets the masters of comics in Lucca, preserving the European look that comics need,” says a grateful representative.
Paco Roca is the star of this edition of Lucca Comics & Games, which awarded the Valencian cartoonist the prize for the best author of 2022 for his work ‘Regreso al Edén’ (Astiberri), a beautiful and intimate album in which he explores the history of Franco’s Spain based on a family photo. “It made me very excited, because the first foreign prize they gave me was also here, with ‘Wrinkles'”, he says before participating in a conference at this festival about comics, games and series that will be played in this city in the region of Tuscan Italian. “Lucca is always a lovely place to come back to.”
The most recognized Spanish cartoonist beyond our borders has translated much of his work into Italy, where his followers form long lines to have their copies signed. Memory and the passage of time are recurring themes on several of his albums, such as ‘La casa’, ‘Los furrows of chance’ or the aforementioned ‘Arrugas’ and ‘Regreso al Edén’. “Like all good creations, Roca’s comics are easy to understand, but difficult to master. You read them over and over and you discover something new every time, which makes you think,” explains Emanuele Vietina, CEO of Lucca Comics & Games, out.
Roca is living proof of the narrative maturity that comics have reached in our country. “In the past, the format gave little room for developing more complex stories and everything was based on action, but the graphic novel allowed us to bet on other, more relaxed themes, with more nuances and more introspective characters. In addition, you can now find comics in all bookstores and not just specialized ones. This connects the themes to a general audience and feeds back the format”, explains the Valencian cartoonist, who does not close the door to return to the issue of the passage of time.
“It’s something so broad that you always find new nuances. I am very interested in the reflection that each of us makes about our memory, how we recreate and change our past to coincide with our present. It’s something that governments also do to create false and mythological pasts,” he concludes.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
