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Lucca Comics And Games 2025 Yellow Kid And Gran Guinigi Awards

Last night saw Lucca Comics And Games 2025 in Italy give out their comic book awards, including The Yellow Kid and the Gran Guinigi

Last night saw Lucca Comics And Games 2025 in Italy give out their comic book awards, including The Yellow Kid Awards and the Gran Guinigi Awards, among others. Recepients include Tetsuo Hara and the Italian translation of Bryan Talbot's The Legend Of Luther Arkwright.

• Yellow Kid Master of Comics: Tetsuo Hara "for his extraordinary career and for creating an icon of manga like Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star). His unmistakable graphic style, characterized by exceptional attention to anatomical detail, powerful muscles, and strong chiaroscuro, redefined the post-apocalyptic action genre and influenced entire generations of artists. Through epic works, Hara elevated comics to a mythical language, leaving an indelible mark on the global collective imagination."
• Yellow Kid Comic of the Year: The Horizon by JH (ReNoir Comics / Gaijin) with translation by Valerio Stivé. "A world where everything has been lost. A boy and a girl alone together. All they can do is move forward. But against broken adults and devastating despair, how long will they be able to keep going …?"
• The Yellow Kid Author of the Year: Alessandro Tota for La magnifica illusione (Coconino Press) and Lo specchio (Canicola) "with a style perfectly balanced between the grotesque, the realistic, and the tragicomic, Alessandro Tota, through his comics, teaches what it means to tell stories through images. This is demonstrated by his two works nominated for the Lucca Comics Awards 2025: La magnifica illusione. New York 1938 (Coconino), a powerful and visionary work that places the Golden Age of American comics at the center of the narrative, and Lo specchio (Canicola), in which the true protagonist is the choreography of the bodies that narrate the feelings of the two protagonists. Both La magnifica illusione and Lo specchio are constructed with solid narrative realism and an unparalleled technique that combines the freshness of the Franco-Belgian style, the experience of independent American comics, and the viscerality of the Italian authorial scene of the 1970s and 1980s."
• The Gran Guinigi Award for Best Drawing: l figlio di Pan or The Son of Pan, by Fabrizio Dori, published by Oblomov Edizioni. "That his training as a painter has given Fabrizio Dori a whole series of interesting peculiarities to his way of telling stories through comics was already evident in his previous works Gauguin (Tunué, 2018) and The Wandering God (Oblomov 2018), but it is with the two volumes of the saga The Son of Pan that the author gives life to a visual magic that brings together myth and contemporary, burlesque and lyricism, in a visual mixture that alternates realistic registers and decorative stylizations. His books are read and "looked at" like breathing paintings, the color does not "fill", does not decorate, but builds the sense of the scene, with symbolic accents and playful references to the history of art (from ancient ceramics to modernism). Fabrizio Dori's color palette is made of Dionysian sunsets, forest greens, Starry Nights is full-bodied and textured, conveying tactile sensations without ever overwhelming the soft, supple design, which moves between the realistic and the grotesque, reminiscent of the great masters of animation and comics."
• The Gran Guinigi Award for Best Script: La seconda vita di Sander or The Second Life of Sander – Book One by Stepan Razorёnov, published by Hollow Press and translated by Salvatore Privitera,"In his biography, artist, illustrator, and designer Stepan Razorёnov lists both his birthdate (09/21/2002) and his deathdate (09/21/2093). He describes himself as Tolkienian, calm, responsible, antisocial, and of strange principles, and says that since the summer of 2021 he has been writing a story about the afterlife that has grown to fill three volumes. What he will now have to add to his biography is also the word "Screenwriter" because The Second Life of Sander (his first comic, drawn "one page a day," for nine months) is indeed a beautifully drawn comic, but it is above all a work that makes use of majestic and incredibly self-aware writing for a debut work ." And among the reasons: "Razorёnov doesn't just tell the story of Sandre's post-mortem desire to build a city for all the creatures who ended up in hell, but he does such a masterful job of world-building that he makes every supporting character, every setting, every little extra feel alive and interesting. By addressing the corrosion that power brings with it, the importance of the concept of community and individual responsibility, Razorёnov creates the first chapter of a philosophical dark fantasy saga, whose heart lies in its morally ambiguous protagonist, but whose soul lies in the questions relating to the concepts of death and rebirth, personal and collective memory, which it poses to readers ."
• The Gran Guinigi Award for Best Serial Comic: Veil, volumes 1 and 2, by Kotteri!, published by J-POP Manga, translated by Dario Rotelli, with the following motivation: "It's a manga, but it's also an artbook. It's a prose story but also a sketchbook. It's a reflection on the bizarre reasons that lead two people to share a life path together, a collection of small daily rituals suspended between courtship and distance, but also a very stylish fashion design book. For these reasons, Veil , written and illustrated by Kotteri!, born on social media and then published around the world in different ways at the discretion of the various publishers, is the most interesting and stimulating serial comic of 2025. An "object" to read, look at, browse through and browse through again, choosing each time which of its thousand aspects you want to be captivated by . Choosing each time which veil to browse through."
• The Gran Guinigi Best Short Comic: Animali domestica, by Bianca Bagnarelli , published by Coconino Press. "Thirteen graphic novels published between 2013 and 2024, thirteen fragments, which portray the anxieties, nostalgia, confusion, friendship, wonder, anguish, and sweetness of a generation on the edge, demonstrating the evolution of a clear and clean style that searches for itself without losing itself, but rather, demonstrating a great sense of control and a unique and highly personal taste for color. But in these stories of pets, which are none other than us humans, suspended between our intimate solitude and so many small daily cruelties, Bagnarelli (a talent, let's not forget, recognized and appreciated both in Italy and abroad) demonstrates that she is not only an extraordinary artist, but also a thoroughbred writer, capable of playing with a storytelling style that expands and accelerates narrative moments, paying great attention to the unsaid, the pauses, the restarts, in a continuous interplay of full and empty spaces that characterizes unequivocally, each of his tables".
• The Gran Guinigi Award for Best Newcomer: Bestie in fuga or Beasts on the Run, by Daniele Kong (Coconino Press). "The late 1950s. On the fictional Tyrrhenian island of Dieci, left on the fringes of the economic boom, the routine of Franco and Marcello, young men destined for fishing, is upended by the arrival of a film crew led by the faded neorealist director Augusto Campagnoli and his daughter Claretta. Their goal—to make a film about the life of Jesus and transform Dieci into a 'new Capri'—triggers collisions between desires, rituals, beliefs, modernity, and the island's traditions." " The tradition of the great Italian comedy filtered through the language of arthouse comics; a family epic and a critical look at the mirage of progress, a satire of mass tourism and development models that fuel unrealistic desires, but also a great novel about the epochal transition of postwar Italy that takes us by the hand and leads us to the contradictions of our contemporary world. Cinema, prose, music. All this, in the 600 pages that make up the surprising debut work of Daniele Kong, an author already fully aware of how to utilize the elements that compose the architecture of comics, from the composition of the panels to the use of dialogue, from the pace with which to punctuate the reading, to the rich, complex, yet fresh and dynamic artwork."
• The Gran Guinigi Editorial Award – Stefano Beani Prize: Tutto un altro Lupo Alberto edited by Silver and Lorenzo La Neve (Gigaciao). "Born within the classic magazine "Lupo Alberto," Tutto un altro lupo is a laboratory, a factory, a happening, a virus injected into a very healthy system to make it bloom with colorful flowers from planets light-years apart. It was conceived, written, and curated with passion and respect by Lorenzo La Neve, under the supervision of the brilliant creator of Lupo himself, Silver. To infuse it with body and further madness, a team of extraordinary artists: Matilde Simoni, Francesco Guarnaccia, Matteo Corradini, Mattia Di Meo, Nova, Cecilia Petrucci, Andrea Boscolo, Fran, Valeria Appendino, Gaia Magnini, The Sando, Lorenzo Palloni, Martoz, Roberto "Dano" D'Agnano, Mitja Bichon, Leonardo Mazzoli, Federico Gaddi, Eleonora Simeoni, Alessandro Santoro, Maria Letizia Mirabella, Maicol&Mirco, Alex Comandatore, Lorenzo Mò, Dottor Pira, Davide Minciaroni, Spugna, Mattia "Drugo" Secci, Davide "Dado" Caporali, Silvia "savuland" Landucci, Simone "Sio" Albrigi, Stefano "TheSparker" Conte, Giacomo "Keison" Bevilacqua. Originally a 16-page insert in every issue of the historic magazine, created to blend tradition and avant-garde, thus also broadening the character's audience, in 2024 Tutto un altro lupo was collected in a volume by Gigaciao to celebrate Lupo Alberto's 50th anniversary. The anthology, which reassembles the original materials in a unique way, enriching them with unpublished works, tributes, and graphic reinventions, paints a powerful and diverse picture of the great quality of the current Italian art scene, launches the comics superstars of tomorrow, and also functions as a manifesto: Lupo Alberto can still impact the present, changing languages ​​​​but without losing his precious identity."
• Special Mention: Compagna Cucolo by Anke Feuchtenberger (Coconino Press), translated by Mariagiorgia Ulbar. "In over ten years of work, through inner exploration and relentless exploration of the forms of drawing, Anke Feuchtenberger has created her definitive work: a visionary and poetic novel of over 400 pages, where the themes of denied affection and the violence of reality are balanced by an unbridled imagination, an almost mystical love for nature, and a subtle irony. The author tackles complex issues such as the condition of women, political oppression, abandoned and offended childhood, and the cruel grind of history, but she does so with the intimate voice of someone whispering a secret in your ear. With Compagna Cuculo , Anke Feuchtenberger renews the language of comics, pushing it beyond its boundaries, between visual art, poetry, and symbolic narrative. Her work defies definition, intertwining memory, word, and image in a radically personal language that brings intimacy and history, dream and matter, into dialogue."
• The Self Publishing Area Award: Ragdoll Fumetti Scomposti with Cadaveri squisiti by Veronica Ciancarini. "In addition to being Guest of Honor at the next edition of the festival, with a stand provided by Lucca Crea, the group will also have the opportunity to create the advertising artwork for Self Publishing Area 2026 and an exhibition of the winning book."
• Gran Guinigi – Generazioni Award: Split between Al di là del fiume. Il cavaliere doppio by Giuseppe Ferrario (published by Terre di mezzo) and I misteri di Strambopoli by Tor Freeman ( Diabolo Edizioni ), for readers between 6 and 12 years old
• The Gran Guinigi Pro Award for Best Translation from English: Fabio Gadducci and Mirko Tavosanis for The Legend of Luther Arkwright, by Bryan Talbot, published by Tunué "for its marked linguistic sensitivity and solid cultural competence demonstrated in tackling a dense text, which required inventiveness in reproducing the author's often unconventional solutions, the balance found in the difficult rendering of dialectal speech and some gender-neutral expressions, and the rigor in the dialogue with the translations of the previous parts of the saga ."
• The Gran Guinigi Pro Best Translation from French: Francesco Favino for The Grocery, by Aurélien Ducoudray and Guillaume Singelin, published by Bao Publishing . "Francesco Favino has succeeded in giving voice to the composite fresco of lizards, birds and anthropomorphic lizards that move in guerrilla gear through the streets of a pulp and extremely violent Baltimore. For over four hundred pages, the translator has managed to convey the aesthetics, tone, intentions and emotions of the characters in Italian, always maintaining the biting irony, the heart-pounding tension and the very harsh atmosphere of the original ."
• The Gran Guinigi Pro Award for Best Translation from Japanese: Valentina Vignola for Riyoko Ikeda's Claudine, published by J-POP Manga. "a comic book packed with text, consistently elevated in tone, translated while maintaining the author's refined style and delivering a compelling result."
• Gran Guinigi Pro Best Editorial Packaging went to Le storie dell'orrore di Mimi – Edizione Deluxe or Mimi's Horror Stories – Deluxe Edition , by Junji Ito, published by J-POP Manga
• Gran Guinigi Pro Best Lettering: Andrea Accardi for (I Wanna Live Like) Common People, by Marco Rizzo and Lelio Bonaccorso, published by Panini Comics
• Gran Guinigi Pro Best Cover went to Ai Weiwei for Zodiac, by Ai Weiwei, Elettra Stamboulis and Gianluca Costantini, published by Oblomov Edizion
• Gran Guinigi Pro Best Colour was awarded to Laura Zuccheri for Kamasutra di carne e di sangue or Kama Sutra of Flesh and Blood , written by Sudeep Menon, published by Segni d'Autore.
• Lucca Project Contest 2025: First prize to the Montagna project by Luca Peverelli and Chiara Milano. Two special mentions were awarded to Yellow Jazz by Enrico Figliola and Gli Attaccabrighe by Luigi Caggiano.
• Lucca Project Contest 2025 Manga: Il rapimento di Ila by Debora Longo and Erica Longo. Honorable mentions went to Arcane's Day by Monique Sheridan (aka Moonsherry) and Turning Human by Alessio Menghi, Maria Cristina Menghi , and Claudia Cocci .

Lucca Junior Competition – 2025 "Livio Sossi" Editorial Illustration Award

• Lucca Junior Competition – "Livio Sossi" Editorial Illustration Award 2025: Elisa Codutti (Basaldella – UD) for "What is a book?" written by Lucia Stipari.
• Special Image Authors Prize: Sara Brienza (Milan)
• Book on a Tree Prize: Federica Vissio (Fossano, Cuneo)
• Wacom Prize for Best Digital: Elanor Borgyan (Lugano, Switzerland).

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