Lucca Comics & Games is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary, together with its legendary community, from Wednesday 28 October to Sunday 1 November 2026.
Sixty years of history and creativity, diversity and inclusion, evolution and, above all, community. The “diamond” anniversary is not only a chance to celebrate the past, but a moment to understand what the festival has built with those who have lived it – and to discover, together, what comes next. For six decades, comics, gaming and the culture of the fantastic have been a gymnasium of the imagination for entire generations; that heritage of values, stories and dreams is the LEGACY of Lucca Comics & Games, the theme of this edition.
Legacy means heritage and the passing of the baton – but also, as in those board games where every move permanently changes the board, the idea that those who play today change how everyone plays tomorrow. Born in Italy in 1966 and now an excellence of Made in Italy, the festival has expanded beyond its borders into a place to meet, grow and play, united in diversity. It shares that ideal with the motto of the European Union: this edition is held under the patronage of the European Commission, placing Italy and Lucca’s global resonance at its centre. The 60th anniversary was presented this morning at a press conference at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence.
THE META-POSTER AND THE PASSING OF THE PENCIL
The official 60th-anniversary poster is signed by Claudio Castellini, an absolute master of international comics and a living embodiment of the festival’s history. Born in Rome in 1966 – the very year Lucca began – he made his name at Sergio Bonelli Editore on Dylan Dog and Nathan Never, before becoming the first Italian artist to work from Italy for Marvel USA, a pioneer of the so-called “Italian Invasion” and a winner of the Yellow Kid, Italy’s most important comics award. His poster is the first and only meta-poster in the festival’s history: a single, detail-rich image, full of symbolism, references and Easter eggs, that brings the protagonists of Lucca’s historic posters back on stage together.
Among them are Zerocalcare’s golden heroine “Lu”, who represents the community; Don Maitz’s Sandokan, a symbol of classic adventure; Phil Hale’s gorilla with a robot, standing for transformation; Ted Nasmith’s Lady Hope, a hopeful gaze toward the future; and Ciruelo’s dragon, which turns the city into a place of fantasy. At the centre, a giant superhero supports a little girl – the luminous protagonist of Michael Whelan’s poster – who raises her pencil: she is the new generation, the one who will draw what comes next.
With his Michelangelo-Esque touch for hands, Castellini also draws the gesture at the heart of this edition: an adult hand placing a pencil in a young hand – not an inheritance to be preserved, but a tool to be used. During the press conference he passed his pencil to Louise Stéphant, a ten-year-old French talent and two-time winner (2024 and 2025) of the Petit Fauve at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême, the competition that for decades has discovered new BD talents. She will sign the variant cover of the 2026 poster, to be unveiled at the opening on 28 October on the stage of the Teatro del Giglio Giacomo Puccini.
AN EXHIBITION DEDICATED TO CLAUDIO CASTELLINI: MASTERSTROKES
Renowned for his dynamic style and the extraordinary anatomical power of his figures, Castellini redefined the aesthetics of modern superhero storytelling. Held at the exhibition palace of the Fondazione Banca del Monte, Masterstrokes traces the key stages of his career through original pages: from his Bonelli beginnings on Nathan Never and Dylan Dog, to his historic Marvel and DC work on Silver Surfer, Conan and Batman, and the legendary Marvel vs. DC crossover. The show focuses on his study of chiaroscuro and the muscular plasticity that have made his work a global benchmark.
