Lucca Comics is always a sure thing Not only for comic book enthusiasts, but also for those who go to admire the many cosplayers

Not everyone is fully aware of how much Lucca Comics & Games has grown over the years, to the point of becoming a landmark for fans of comics, board games, TV series and, more generally, pop culture, in Italy and beyond. A few years ago, the famous American magazine Variety wrote that the event — called by almost everyone simply “Lucca Comics” — represents the largest nerd gathering in Europe. The festival is now considered among the most important in the world in the comics sector, on par with fairs such as Tokyo’s Comiket or San Diego’s Comic-Con. Thus, every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors crowd the streets of Lucca for the occasion, with significant consequences for the Tuscan city, which has just under 90,000 inhabitants. Many come to the city to see the numerous cosplayers walking around the streets, while just as many people attend Lucca Comics by following the paid events inside the various pavilions of the festival – recently the complete program of the upcoming edition, the fifty-ninth, has been made public, as always held on the last weekend of October. From an organizational point of view, Lucca Comics develops across a network of exhibition spaces that combines historic buildings in the center with indoor pavilions. Among these, the largest are the one focused on anime and manga and the one dedicated to board games. There are also areas dedicated to various publishing houses, which organize book signings with authors, present seasonal novelties, and sell their titles. Other, smaller spaces are instead aimed at merchandise for fans. In recent years, the area dedicated to video games has also gained increasing importance, with tournaments and competitions attracting an ever wider audience.

How Lucca Comics Was Born

What is known today as Lucca Comics was held for the first time in the Tuscan city in 1966: at the time, dedicating an event to the comics sector was considered rather unusual. Until then, in fact, this medium was not regarded on par with other cultural products, such as novels or films. The idea of organizing a festival entirely focused on comics came from a group of researchers at the University of Rome, while the credit for choosing Lucca as the festival’s venue goes to the mayor of the time, eager to finance projects capable of attracting new visitors to the city. Despite its long history and impressive numbers, just over ten years ago Lucca Comics was still seen as a niche event, intended mainly for a niche audience of enthusiasts. In recent times, however, interest in comics, fantasy, or board games, among other things, has grown significantly, also thanks to the success of Marvel films or series such as Game of Thrones and Stranger Things. Not surprisingly, today the festival collaborates with giants such as Nintendo, Disney, Netflix and Amazon Prime, among many others, who understood earlier than most the importance of capitalizing on fans. Many publishing houses and video game companies also take advantage of Lucca Comics’ huge audience to launch limited editions of their products, present upcoming releases in advance, and organize exclusive meetings between the public and authors.

But every year, many people go to Lucca Comics just to admire the many cosplayers who crowd the historic center’s streets during the festival days. The variety and creativity of the costumes are quite surprising, and often one sees original and sometimes ironic interpretations, like someone showing up with their dog dressed as a monster from a comic or TV series. More generally, the festival has played a fundamental role in promoting cosplay in Italy. Lucca Comics has truly contributed to legitimizing this form of creative expression in the country, making it one of the event’s defining features. In the past, those who did cosplay were often labeled as excessively eccentric, but today it has become a cultural phenomenon considered broadly fascinating. In this regard, the relatively long history of manga in Italy has also helped, as not everyone knows that publishers have been active for several decades. The rest was done by the ever-growing audience of fans deeply attached to these narrative universes.