Pop Culture Fest Lucca Comics and Games Unveils 2023 Poster

Lucca Comics & Games, Europe’s number one comic and gaming convention, kicked off the 2023 season on Thursday with the launch of the poster and festival trailer for this year’s event. The 57th Lucca festival will be held in the picturesque Italian medieval city Nov. 1-5.

This 2023 festival theme, Together, and rainbow color additions to the Lucca logo, emphasizes organizers’ focus on diversity and inclusion for this year’s edition.

The 2023 poster was designed by Israeli artists, and twin brothers, cartoonist Asaf Hanuka and The New Yorker illustrator Tomer Hanuka. The brothers develped the concept art for Air Folman’s 2008 Oscar-nominated animated documentary Waltz With Bashir, and have collaborated on several graphic novels together, including Boaz Lavie’s The Divine.

Their design for the Lucca poster mashes up Western and Eastern traditions, with an oriental dragon descending from the sky over Lucca’s historic city.

“The image captures the essence of Together in a unique and evocative way,” said Lucca festival director, Emanuele Vietina. “The characters depicted represent the multiple tribes that animate the vast community of the festival. By doing things together we come out transformed and the stories once narrated and therefore shared, begin to take on a life of their own. The heart of it is that on our own we can go faster, but together we will go further.”

This year’s event will mark the 30th anniversary of Lucca Games, the festival’s gaming sidebar. Joe Manganiello, a Lucca festival regular, will return this year as the international ambassador for Lucca Games. The True Blood and Magic Mike actor is currently working on what has been described as the “definitive” Dungeons and Dragons documentary, in collaboration with games publisher Wizards of the Coast. Wizards of the Coast creator Peter Adkison will also attend to present the Italian premiere of Kelley Slagle and Brian Stillman’s documentary Igniting the Spark.The Story of Magic: The Gathering on the history of the blockbuster trading card game. Other VIP attendees this year include The Boys writer Garth Ennis, Manga artist Naoki Urasawa, American graphic novelist Craig Thompson (Blankets, Habibi), Marvel cartoonist Jim Lee, and Rand Miller, co-creator of iconic video game Myst.

Check out the 2023 Lucca poster below.