Lucca Comics & Games


Lucca Comics & Games is an annual comic book and gaming convention in Lucca, Tuscany, traditionally held at the end of October, in conjunction with All Saints' Day. It is the largest comics festival in Europe, and the second biggest in the world after the Comiket.

History

The Salone Internazionale del Comics was launched by a Franco-Italian partnership, consisting of Italians Rinaldo Traini and Romano Calisi and Frenchman in 1965 in Bordighera.
In 1966 it moved to a small piazza in the center of Lucca, and grew in size and importance over the years.
Funding issues reduced the frequency of the festival to every two years, beginning in 1977. In the 1980s, the festival was moved to a sports center outside the city walls, where it remained until 1992, when it was moved to another city.
After the Salone internazionale del Comics ended in Lucca, city leaders launched a new convention called simply Lucca Comics that was a reprise of the old one. In 1996 it changed its name to Lucca Comics & Games. The festival attracted 50,000 attendees in 2002.
Meanwhile, the Salone internazionale del Comics was held in Rome from 1995 to 2005. In 2006, for the festival's 40th anniversary, the Salone merged with Lucca Comics & Games and moved back to Lucca's city center, with numerous tents and pavilions arranged in different squares within and outside the walls of the medieval city.
In 2016, the festival attracted 270,000 attendees.

Awards

Comics awards

From 1970–2005, the festival presented the — named in honor of Richard F. Outcault's seminal comic strip character The Yellow Kid — in such categories as Best Cartoonist, Best Illustrator, Best Newcomer, Best Foreign Artist, and Lifetime Achievement. Yellow Kid Awards were also presented to publishers, both domestic and foreign.
The festival also presents a special award called the .

Yellow Kid Award recipients