At the end of October, around the time we realized that this year’s edition of Lucca Comics & Games was going to be soaked by rain after a long run of warm, dry and comfortable editions, a sudden bolt of lightning struck the biggest Italian comics event.
Lucca Comics & Games is the second-most attended comics show in the world, after Japan’s Comiket. This year’s edition, held from November 1-5, sold 314,220 tickets in total, only 5,000 or so less than the 2022 all-time record of 319,926. In the days before the festival, it was the usual carousel: waiting for some of the most anticipated new books of the year, with hype building for the guests. That is, until Michele Rech, aka Zerocalcare—arguably the single most popular and bestselling author in the Italian comics landscape (check out this profile at TCJ to learn all about it)—announced that he would not be attending this year’s edition.
The reason given was this: in light of Israel's response to Palestine after the Hamas attack of October 7th, Zerocalcare disapproved of the Israeli embassy's patronage of the festival, which was related to the presence of Tomer & Asaf Hanuka, artists of the show poster. Zerocalcare further stated on social media that he had nothing against the Hanuka brothers; his only purpose was to remain coherent in his ongoing boycott against the state of Israel (rather than against its citizens), per the BDS movement. Before he was a cartoonist—though many may not know, given the great increase in his popularity thanks to his animated Netflix series Tear Along the Dotted Line (2021) and This World Can't Tear Me Down (2023)—Zerocalcare was an activist. He has always been involved in political movements, and several of his books and short comics, such as Kobane Calling (Bao Publishing, 2016; currently in English from Magnetic Press), have recounted visits to politically fraught regions. He is not new to the issues of the Middle East, as he explained in his boycott announcement, shared on October 28th, three days before the beginning of the festival. What follows is a translated excerpt from that statement (if you wish to read it in full, you can visit Zerocalcare's Facebook page):
Unfortunately, the Israeli embassy patronage to Lucca Comics poses a problem to me.
In this moment, when two million people are trapped in Gaza not even knowing if they will survive the day, after over 6,000 civilians casualties [...] Being there [at Lucca Comics] to celebrate the event creates a short circuit that I would not be able to manage.
I feel sorry for the publishing house, for the readers who spent money on trains and accommodation perhaps to be there to meet me, and I feel sorry also for myself, because Lucca for me has always been a gigantic burden but also a moment of warmth and sharing.
I know that that logo [of the embassy] on the poster is just a symbol, but for many people dear to me that symbol currently represents the fear of not seeing the sun rise tomorrow. [...]
I’ve been to Gaza several years ago, I know people who still live there, and people who went there to build solidarity projects and sport, hip-hop, street art activities. When these people ask me how it is possible that such an important cultural event does not question the opportunity to collaborate with an organization of a government that is perpetrating war crimes in defiance of international law, honestly I am not able to give an answer.
It is not a competition of radicalism, and on my part there is no lesson or moral judgment towards those who will go to Lucca and will do it in the way they deem most appropriate; above all it is not a protest to the presence of the two authors of the poster, Asaf and Tomer Hanuka. [...]
The post quickly gained the attention of fans and the media, sparking divided reactions. Some showed respect for the personal decision of an artist who, it needs to be emphasized, has always made his political and social positions clear in both his art and his life. Of those who felt that Zerocalcare was wrong, some questioned whether attending the show couldn't be a form of protest too, while others accused him of standing against Jews and Israel. And then there was the position of those creators who felt like they needed to do something, or at least speak their minds, but at the same time could not afford to miss such a huge event. As a result, Zerocalcare’s decision brought many artists to a crossroads, and some publishing houses too. Eris Edizioni, publisher of books by Jesse Jacobs, Anders Nilsen, Danijel Žeželj and Joyce Farmer, among many others, and whose political views and activism has always been clear and close to Zerocalcare's, nonetheless chose to attend: "Unfortunately we cannot avoid being at Lucca, we don't have that chance, because for independent and small publishers like us the investment made during the year would not allow us to recoup the expenses made and consequently to pay for the work of all the people who work with us, not to mention the risk of not being able to continue our work in the future."
These words frankly and explicitly describe what Lucca means in the ecosystem of the Italian comics business.
On the same day Zerocalcare announced his absence, Lucca Crea (the company that manages and curates Lucca Comics & Games) responded with a press release that explained how their work has always been focused on respect, a sense of community, inclusion and participation, specifying that the patronage in question was the result of months of work in order to host Tomer & Asaf Hanuka at the festival, and to have a poster illustrated by them and an exhibition focused on their art. This response also mentioned the 2023 tag line of the festival: "TOGETHER," a motto for an event that cares for diversity and aims to unite people. A similar message was later expressed on the stage of the Gran Guinigi awards during the festival by the president of Lucca Crea, Emanuele Vietina.
Zerocalcare’s boycott was joined by Fumettibrutti, a bestselling artist known for trans/feminist activism. Many other cartoonists expressed solidarity, while announcing their (regretful, in some cases) presence at the festival; a petition was circulated demanding further explanation from the festival while announcing a sit-in for the Saturday of the show.
But reactions came from well beyond the comics scene. In fact, what happened after Zerocalcare’s announcement was something never before seen in Italian comics. As big (in terms of visitors) and important (for the whole entertainment industry) as the Lucca festival is, it has never attracted so much attention from the media. The day after the boycott's announcement, the story was all over the newsstands and on TV. People who never spoke before about the festival were compelled to share their opinion. Ministers of the Italian government tweeted about Zerocalcare, and journalists from some of the most mainstream Italian newspapers—often elderly commentators who had probably never read any of Zerocalcare’s books, and didn’t know about his activism—weighed in with columns and social media posts.
To name one example, just hours after Zerocalcare’s decision, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure & Transport Matteo Salvini (leader of the right-wing party Lega) tweeted a screengrab of the artist's statement, remarking, "I think exactly the opposite. I will do my best to be at Lucca Comics." For the record, I don’t think he made it.
Then, on the night before the festival began, quite unexpectedly, Tomer & Asaf Hanuka issued a statement announcing that they would not attend the festival: "We don't feel like moving from a real war zone to a media conflict zone."
Discussion in the wider media continued after the festival began. On November 2nd, in la Repubblica—one of the two main Italian daily newspapers, alongside Corriere della Sera—journalist Francesco Merlo wrote, "Zerocalcare don’t even realize that he looks like Hamas," while referring to Lucca Comics as "the supermarket of comic books." After being criticized by many others, sometimes not exactly in respectful tones, and his decision being reported and discussed by the news for days, Zerocalcare issued his own response in the form of a comic. On November 3rd, the third day of the festival, he published a short piece on the website of Internazionale (a weekly magazine that has frequently hosted Zerocalcare's short stories, usually his most politically and socially committed), which was later published in an edition of the print magazine:
"I know it is grotesque to talk about Lucca while in Gaza there is a massacre going on, but after the thousands of articles full of lies about me, I have to do a comic about this or I’ll end up in the crime section."
The comic describes what happened before and after his decision, his reactions to what journalists said, and, most importantly, his respect for both Palestinian and Israeli people: "To me, [coherence] means saying [what I have said] precisely because I think that the massacres suffered by the Israeli people are atrocious, I can only consider equally atrocious the collective punishment to which Palestinian civilians are subjected."
In the days after the festival, Zerocalcare’s publisher, Bao Publishing, in a post on Facebook, lamented a "deafening silence in which [the Lucca Comics organization] left us alone, without stopping by the stand even once." Roberto Recchioni (writer and former editor of Dylan Dog), who worked in favor of a possible understanding between the festival and Zerocalcare, later shared a post on Instagram stating, "I come back home with a heavy heart very disillusioned [...] This was not everyone’s edition and certainly was not 'together.'"
Although Zerocalcare's choice was a personal one that deserves to be judged as such, and therefore respected, what I found most noteworthy about the debate that followed was perhaps how it led some commentators to address not only the artist, but also the medium of comics in a disrespectful way. Aldo Cazzullo, vice director of Corriere della Sera, in response to a reader query, likened comics to cinema as “a minor art” in diminishing Zerocalcare’s role as an intellectual. But as the comic artist Igort wrote on Facebook: "Umberto Eco or Oreste Del Buono [two intellectuals who did so much for comics culture in the second half of the past century] would not even have considered them worthy of debate." I’d also like to quote Luca Sofri, director of the online paper Il Post, who put things in order by stating that "the minimizing use of the category of cartoonist would be ridiculous," and "Zerocalcare puts in our heads—of us who read, who want to understand and think—more useful and intelligent things (more doubts!) than those which, despite their daily efforts, we receive from several of its critics."
I am not here to say if Zerocalcare was wrong or right, and, frankly, I don’t enjoy seeing personal and professional choices questioned by those who do not know the person who made them. But above all, in this case, I value the importance of acknowledging how Zerocalcare’s choice was coherent with everything he has done as an activist, not just as an artist. Some, like HuffPost Italia, felt that Zerocalcare's absence was a lost opportunity to speak from the stage. But at the end of the day, you must admit that he got the message across - a message more important than selling and signing copies at his publisher’s table. Whether one agrees with Zerocalcare or not, or whether or not one thinks Lucca Comics did enough to justify or explain the Israeli patronage, or to defend its guests (both Zerocalcare and the Hanuka brothers)—or even if you think political and international issues should not intrude upon a pop culture event—this year’s edition of Lucca Comics & Games received attention like never before, and for days was at the center of cultural and social debate in Italy.
But then, what else happened at Lucca? It rained like I haven’t seen it rain in a long time, which made me rediscover what a meteoropathic type I can be (which is still better than being COVID-19 positive like last year). Due to being sluggish and wet—and, okay, because I was also working for the web magazine Fumettologica and for the publisher Edizioni BD—I missed some interesting events, and therefore will spare you a recap like the one I did last year. I regret missing the Naoki Urasawa showcase, where the author of Monster and 20th Century Boys played the guitar and sang (looking exactly like Kenji, the main character from 20th Century Boys), and then drew after sampling his own guitar sounds. Among the other special guests were Don Rosa, Frank Miller (named Maestro del Fumetto, which means his self-portrait will be exhibited at the Galleria degli Uffizi among other such portraits), Keigo Shinzō (author of some of the most captivating manga around today, like Tokyo Alien Bros. and Hirayasumi), Korean webtoon creator Mingwa, and Irish/American writer Garth Ennis (accompanied by a fascinating exhibition with comic pages from many of the great artists he has worked with). Here are some pictures:
See you next year in Lucca!
