21 — BANNERS
TEX For several years, Mauro Boselli—longtime editor of the flagship series Tex and a deep connoisseur of every aspect of its continuity—refined, in various stories published across different series, a younger version of the character. This led to the creation of a cohesive project: a parallel series that includes the protagonist’s surname in its title, […]
20 — FANDOM
01. LUCCA COMICS & GAMES Lucca Comics & Games is not a simple stage for top-down content, but a vibrant ecosystem where the boundary between spectator and creator blurs until it disappears. The festival’s mission is to transform the city into a laboratory of active participation, where the community does not merely consume stories, but […]
19 — Comic Guide
01. In 2002–2003, Gianni Bono published the monumental Guida al fumetto italiano. Comprising two volumes and a total of 2,143 pages, the work provides detailed data on series, characters, authors, published titles, and much more, covering 9,000 publications from the late nineteenth century onward. Enriched with over 8,000 color reproductions of covers from every era […]
18 — THE FABULOUS SIXTIES
Changing the world? In the fantastic, fabulous, unforgettable Sixties, everything seemed possible. Wonders such as the Moon landing and tragedies such as the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In a context of profound social renewal and a sense of carefree optimism, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones revolutionized music, and young people listened to their […]
17 — HISTORICAL DISPLAY CASES
01. In the 1930s, the presence of adventure comic strips in newspapers significantly increased sales, and publishers gave them maximum visibility by announcing their release to readers. An example is this insert from the Washington Times, produced in 1934 for the launch of Secret Agent X-9, illustrated by Alex Raymond and written by the equally […]
16 —THE GREAT COMIC BOOKS
THE FIRST MICKEY MOUSE COMIC BOOK IN THE WORLD IS ITALIAN In 1933, the Florentine publisher Giuseppe Nerbini printed Topolino contro Wolp: the first Disney comic book in the world. It was in a horizontal format, later recognized as the so-called “Italian format” (albo all’italiana). The year before, again Nerbini had published the newspaper Topolino. […]
14 — THE GREAT NEWSPAPERS
HERE BEGINS THE ADVENTURE… In 1908, Luigi Albertini—publisher and editor of the newspaper Corriere della Sera—transformed the format of Sunday supplements from American newspapers into a magazine for children, Corriere dei Piccoli. The editorial project was conceived by a woman, Paola Lombroso, daughter of Cesare Lombroso, physician, anthropologist, and criminologist. Among its contributors were Antonio […]
13 — THE GREAT MAGAZINES
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT… Who does not know the famous opening line of Snoopy the writer? It was the newspaper Paese Sera that first introduced Peanuts strips to the Italian public, but it was the magazine Linus that established their success. This monthly publication—something entirely new for the market, not only in […]
12 — UMBERTO ECO
A GROUP OF FRIENDS AT A BAR… In a famous song by the Genoese singer-songwriter Gino Paoli, titled Quattro amici, the protagonists sit in a bar with the idea—only the idea—of changing the world. The friends we would like to introduce to you, however, truly succeeded. At least in changing the world of comics. It […]
11 — WE USED TO GO TO THE NEWSSTAND…
01. We used to go to the newsstand in search of comics. And today, once again, we can return to the newsstand and rediscover—thanks to Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy’s leading sports newspaper—the comics of our childhood and adolescence. Il Grande Blek, Tex, Zagor, Alan Ford, and Diabolik are exactly the same as those we read […]