Poster

Born on March 3rd, 1966 in Rome, Claudio Castellini is a veteran of the international comic. He started under Sergio Bonelli Editore by drawing Dylan Dog and not long after Nathan Never, of which he was the graphic creator. In 1993 he started his collaboration with Marvel by creating the covers for Fantastic Four Unlimited and Dangerous Artifacts, a graphic novel of Silver Surfer written by Ron Marz, which has won a Yellow Kid, the most important Italian prize for comics. After that, he became the first Italian artist to work in his country for Marvel USA, pioneer of the Italian “invasion” of the following years. His career continued with the ultimate crossover, Marvel vs. DC, but also with Spider-Man and Conan stories. He also collaborated with Dark Horse for the creation of Predator: Demon's Gold that was nominated at the Eisner Award, and a Darth Vader story called Extinction for Star Wars Tales. In 2001 he drew The Call for Batman Black & White. In 2003 he went back to Marvel with Paul Jenkins miniseries Wolverine: The End. At that time, he was the official artist for Batman: Gotham Knights covers and he also illustrated various covers for Superman/Batman and Countdown to Final Crisis.

In the following years he decided to primarily focus on the collecting world, collaborating only sporadically with Marvel and DC. His last work for DC was Man and Superman, written by Marv Wolfman, a story about Superman's first appearance by the point of view of Clar Kent human side.

Recently, he illustrated the variant cover of Justice League #48 and Silver Surfer Rebirth #1. In 2023, Panini wanted to reprint Dangerous Artifacts, his Silver Surfer graphic novel from 1993. The result is a renewed and better version of a thirty-year-old work that has stood the test of time and continues to set the standard for the superhero genre. In the last few months of 2025, he collaborated again with Marvel and DC on various covers: Fantastic Four Fanfare #2, Fantastic Four #1, Death of the Silver Surfer #2-3-4, Doomed 2099 #1, Superman #30. The variant cover for The Flash #36 will be published in august.

Guardian of the legacy, Castellini depicts him as an aged, white bearded figure with a torn cape. A modern Ulysses, marked by his ordeals, he has learned that true strength lies not in muscles but in the wisdom of knowing when to step aside. He embodies the festival's sixty-year history not as an object of nostalgia or celebration of the past, but as a gift to be passed on. His is the steady, adult hand that passes the pencil to the following generation. He defends a "family of dreamers" because he has come to understand that the most precious heritage is not a story to be kept locked away in a drawer, but the living power to imagine the world in order to change it. 

The Little Girl does not come from a single poster: she comes from all of them. She embodies the child that Lucca Comics & Games has brought to life, poster after poster, for sixty years. Whelan's smiling girl (2017), echoed in the Little Girl's dress and enthusiasm; Brian Froud's Alice (2007), gazing out over the enchanted world; and Gabriele Dell'Otto's child (2014), ready to use his key to open the portal to the labyrinth-city. The Yellow Kid, the very first child in comics, the historic mascot featured on the festival posters of 1978, 1984, 1990 and 1993. If the Hero symbolizes the great authors who have shaped the festival's sixty-year history, she represents those who, in the future, will rewrite our collective imagination.

Lu embodies the spirit of Lucca Comics & Games and was created by Zerocalcare for the festival’s 50th anniversary (“Gold” edition) in 2016. She is an unconcerned anti-superhero, not too trashy, with bold necklaces (including brass knuckles) representing the symbol of the festival. Her entire body is covered in comic-inspired tattoos and on the chest she has the Torre delle Ore (Clock Tower), a landmark of the city. Originally, her hands formed the number 50, but now she’s making 3+3: six decades. Lu embodies the visitAuthor: the kind of fan who goes beyond simply reading the story and wears it on their skin, making it part of their identity. She’s the proof that Legacy is not just an abstract concept, but something tangible that lives on the bodies of the community; in those who receive an imaginary and carry it as a second skin.

Ciruelo Cabral’s dragon (2003) is an allegory of the fantasy descending upon the real city. The iconic signature of the Argentinian Master of Dragons, it is the embodiment of the fantasy, comics and gaming worlds that every year bursts into medieval Lucca and takes it over. It is not a threat to be defeated, but a dreamlike creature that occupies Lucca’s walls, its tower and its historic skyline. It’s a metaphor of the meeting between the city-stone and the festival-fantasy, coherent with the poetics of Ciruelo’s Petropictosi, where dragons seem to emerge from the rock. In this case the rock is Torre Guinigi, the quintessential symbol of the city. Legacy, our heritage of stories, is something that does not vanish, indeed twenty years later, in 2023, a new dragon would return to besiege the same tower.

For the 2011 edition, dedicated to Emilio Salgari, Don Maitz, American legend of adventure illustration and a two-time Hugo Awards winner, painted Sandokan in Lucca's medieval alleys, where The Tiger of Malaysia seems to feel like home. The poster represents the classic adventure, popular novels that lights up the imagination of entire generations before the invention of cinema and videogames. Sandokan is the evidence that Legacy begins long before the festival itself; it's the heritage of stories (Salgari, pirates, far away worlds) that Lucca collects, preserves and brings back to life. Those myths on paper are the “gym for the imagination" that Rodari described: the grammar through which we learn to read this world and dream about others.

Created by Phil Hale (with Rick Berry) for the 2009 edition dedicated to the theme of the evolution of the species, this image shows a gorilla from which a female android blossoms: the fusion between brute, animal and primordial strength with a clear, forward-looking, digital mind. It is the portrait of a metamorphosis that embodies the festival itself: the digital transformation of the 2000s marked the moment when Lucca Comics & Games stepped outside the traditional canon and reinvented itself. Legacy is evolution, a heritage that does not remain unchanged but is transformed by each new generation, just like a legacy game where every match permanently reshapes the board for those who will play tomorrow.

Hope, Lady of the Dawn, is the goddess imagined for the 2022 edition by Ted Nasmith, the master of imaginative realism who, for forty years, brought Middle-earth to life through his art. Inspired by Yavanna, the healer of nature in Tolkien’s mythology, Hope rises above an ancient olive tree; her colors recall the ones of the Italian flag and the flowing ribbons symbolize freedom, creativity and diversity. Thanks to her, Lucca becomes Valinor, an enchanted kingdom and Garden of Eden. Yavanna embodied Legacy as a rebirth: she arrives after the hardest trial, that of 2020, where everything stopped and the festival chose not to disappear. She is hope, not as doubt, but as certainty; the heritage of dreams that flourish once again and is offered to the new future, because a story, to remain alive, must continue to be told.