Lucca Comics & Video games, one of many world’s largest comics festivals, held its 2022 Comics Awards final weekend in Italy. Among the many winners, two lifetime achievement Maestro/Maestra of Comics profession awards have been bestowed this yr – one to Japan’s Riyoko Ikeda and one other to Italy’s Milo Manara. Whereas erotica impresario Manara has beforehand gained awards at Lucca, this appears to be the primary time the 77-year-old has been given the profession award.
Riyoko Ikeda is a prolific mangaka greatest recognized worldwide for her romantic eighteenth century French courtroom epic The Rose of Versailles – which is lastly accessible in English through Udon Leisure. Her profession started within the Sixties however actually took off within the Nineteen Seventies.
The Lucca Awards 2022 jury remarked on the prolonged careers of Manara and Ikeda, and cross cultural themes of their work:
“Riyoko Ikeda and Milo Manara are two masters of comics who idealistically draw a cultural bridge between East and West. In a time of struggle, which we thought previous, giving a sign of hope and peace in a rare method the prize is awarded to those two artists, who’ve made defiance, curiosity, a powerful figuring out trait. If Girl Oscar [The Rose of Versailles] stems from studying Stefan Zweig, The Asian Adventures of Giuseppe Bergman reveals a love of the Orient. Two portraits, every with the distinctiveness of its personal signature, one widespread body: the cartoon that binds and makes us dream, with out borders.”
Three English-originated works scooped up awards for Italian printed works – Barry Windsor-Smith‘s Monsters (2021) scored a Particular Jury Prize; Peter Kuper‘s Kafkaesque: Fourteen Tales (2018) for Finest Quick Story or Assortment; and R. Kikuo Johnson‘s No One Else (2021) for Finest Script.
The Lucca 2022 Ebook of the 12 months Award went to Practice to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho and artist Choi Gyu-seok‘s manhwa The Hellbound (accessible in English from Darkish Horse Comics).
In response to the jury,
“The Hellbound achieves the twin objective of entertaining and making individuals assume, recounting by a fast-paced plot a society through which the circulation of unverified information and the prominence the media provides it change into an instrument of repression and violence. The work additionally testifies to the nice vitality of South Korea as a producer of comedian books, in addition to movies and TV sequence, able to profitable over worldwide audiences.”
Spanish cartoonist Paco Roca‘s newest e-book, Spanish civil struggle household drama Ritorno all’Eden [‘Return to Eden‘] earned him the celebrated Autore dell’anno [Author of the Year] Yellow Child. The e-book isn’t at present accessible in English however since a lot of his again catalogue is out there, one would hope to anticipate it within the close to future.
The jury for the 2022 Lucca Comics Awards comprised artists Werther Dell’Edera and Miguel Vila; author, journalist and lecturer Bruno Luverà; longtime competition collaborator and knowledgeable Dario Dino-Guida; and comics scholar Mara Famularo.
The Lucca Comics Awards happen yearly on the Lucca Comics & Video games Competition, often the ultimate weekend of October. The intent of the awards is to “reward the very best comedian books printed yearly in Italy and their authors, no matter nationality, editorial format and distribution methodology.”
The Lucca Competition has been in existence – by many iterations – since 1965. From 1970 the Competition has been bestowing units of Yellow Child and Gran Guinigi Awards, the primary named after Richard F. Outcault’s well-known early comics character and the latter after an area landmark of town. There are three Yellow Child and 5 Gran Guinigi awards – with a particular Gran Guinigi named after former competition director Stefano Beani bestowed to editorial cartooning initiatives.
You may try the award winners in full under.
2022 Lucca Comics Awards
Word: works accessible in English are indicated. These not accessible in English have free DeepL machine-translated synopses offered.
Yellow Child Maestro/Maestra del Fumetto [‘Master of Comics’] Awardees
Riyoko Ikeda & Milo Manara
Lucca [translated via DeepL]:
“Riyoko Ikeda and Milo Manara are two masters of comics who idealistically draw a cultural bridge between East and West. In a time of struggle, which we thought previous, giving a sign of hope and peace in a rare method the prize is awarded to those two artists, who’ve made defiance, curiosity, a powerful figuring out trait. If Girl Oscar stems from studying Stefan Zweig, The Asian Adventures of Giuseppe Bergman reveals a love of the Orient. Two portraits, every with the distinctiveness of its personal signature, one widespread body: the cartoon that binds and makes us dream, with out borders.”
Yellow Child Fumetto dell’anno [‘Comic of the Year’]
The Hellbound, Yeon Sang-ho & Choi Gyu-seok, Panini Comics (printed in English with Darkish Horse Comics)
Lucca:
“The Hellbound achieves the twin objective of entertaining and making individuals assume, recounting by a fast-paced plot a society through which the circulation of unverified information and the prominence the media provides it change into an instrument of repression and violence. The work additionally testifies to the nice vitality of South Korea as a producer of comedian books, in addition to movies and TV sequence, able to profitable over worldwide audiences.”
Yellow Child Autore dell’anno [‘Author of the Year’]
Paco Roca, for Ritorno all’Eden [‘Return to Eden‘], Tunué
Lots of the Spanish cartoonist’s works can be found in English – The Treasure of the Black Swan (2022), Winter of the Cartoonist (2020), The Home (2019), Twists of Destiny (2018), The Lighthouse (2017), Wrinkles (2015) from NBM, Knockabout, and Fantagraphics – so Ritorno all’Eden will hopefully come out in translation quickly.
Lucca:
“For the consistency with which he continues to place “odd” individuals on the middle of the narrative who’re capable of arouse deep feelings within the reader. And for bringing to full maturity an important and eloquent graphic language able to displaying with out explaining.”
Ebook Synopsis (Translated from Italian version):
“From a 1946 household picture on the outdated Nazareth seashore in Valencia, Paco Roca attracts a fresco on postwar Spain by a humble family-a reflection of the overwhelming majority of society that survived the Franco dictatorship-with critical issues making a livelihood. The writer delves us into the mom’s idealized previous, however is that this actually the case? Why is the daddy not within the image? What backstory can be revealed?”
Premio speciale della Giuria [Special Jury Prize]
Mostri [Monsters], Barry Windsor-Smith, Mondadori
The multi-award profitable e-book that debuted in English in 2021 continues to attract acclaim in translation.
Lucca:
“A monumental achievement, the results of a long time of labor and hardly ascribable to an outlined style, it overwhelms the reader with its characters suspended between obsession and tragedy and, above all, with the extraordinary scratched black-and-white drawing that brings to gentle each minute element.”
Gran Guinigi Miglior fumetto breve o raccolta [Best Short Comics or Collection]
Gli incubi di Kafka [‘Kafka’s Nightmares‘], Peter Kuper, Tunué
Revealed in English as with W. W. Norton.
Lucca:
“With fierce black and white and expressionistic brushstrokes, Kuper succeeds in transposing Kafka’s tales from early Twentieth-century Central Europe to up to date New York, reaffirming the universality of a literary traditional with the language of comics.”
Gran Guinigi Miglior fumetto seriale [Best Series]
Cosma & Mito, Nicola Zurlo & Vincenzo Filosa, Coconino Press
Begun in 2019, with the second quantity seeing publication this yr, Cosma & Mita is eligible for the Finest Sequence award. To this point not accessible in English.
Lucca:
“A extremely authentic experiment that mixes Japanese-inspired graphic and narrative stylistic options with tales and characters drawn from Calabrian folklore with a view to assemble a decidedly weird but shut fantasy world of our personal into which the reader can’t assist however enterprise.”
Translated synopsis of quantity one:
“Cosma and Mito, mom and youngster, battle and hope. A octopus-child who’s kidnapped by a tribe of werewolves, a murderous mom who units out on a determined seek for him, an ultra-pop and ancestral fable directly, through which future is written within the blood that runs by one’s veins and the blood one pours out within the title of 1’s decisions. Set in a recent and archaic Calabria the place native folklore is permeated with parts attribute of Japanese fiction, Cosma & Mito is the fictional journey of the longer term: as strong as a picket spoon, as stunning as a recreation of laser tag.”
Gran Guinigi Miglior disegno [Best Illustrator]
Gaëlle Geniller for Le Jardin, Paris, Edizioni Star Comics
Le Jardin, Paris isn’t at present accessible in English.
Lucca:
“By means of a clear and harmonious model of drawing, significantly memorable within the dance scenes, and a flowing and readable narrative sequence, the writer gives a recent and efficient remodeling of the Artwork Deco language, managing to revive all of the appeal of Nineteen Twenties Paris.”
Synopsis:
“Nineteen Twenties. Le Jardin [‘The Garden’] is a really profitable Parisian cabaret. All the ladies who work there are named after flowers, and there’s a actually familial environment. Rose, an nearly 18-year-old boy, was born and raised in that setting: he actually needs his time to return to carry out on stage, in entrance of an viewers. Similar to his associates do. Earlier than lengthy, Rose will change into the membership’s principal attraction.”
Gran Guinigi Miglior sceneggiatura [Best Script]
R. Kikuo Johnson for Nessun altro (No One Else), Coconino Press
Initially printed in English as No One Else, 2021, from Fantagraphics
Lucca:
“The writer surprises with a pure and flowing narrative supported extra by pauses and silences than by dialogue. It’s this straightforward but well-calibrated rhythm that greatest tells an odd however intense story set on the outskirts of a Hawaiian island.”
Gran Guinigi Miglior esordiente [Best Newcomer]
Giorgia Kelley for Unusual Rage, Rizzoli Lizard
Lucca:
“For the simplicity and effectiveness with which she portrays the restlessness and bewilderment of a era that can’t discover peace regardless of having nothing to rage towards, managing to place a recent spin on the traditional formulation of the coming-of-age story.”
Synopsis:
“Gloria and Anna are two younger associates. Tying them collectively, moreover their widespread hatred for individuals who put on rock band T-shirts, is their latest previous. Each, in actual fact, left Italy a number of years in the past to hunt their fortune in England, in Manchester. One night, throughout one more boring social gathering, the 2 run into Leo. He’s additionally an Italian expat like them, and so they begin chatting. Instantly, a lady journeys and sends her glass of pink wine flying onto Gloria’s snow-white T-shirt: a superb cause to take off.
“Beneath the guise of going to a 24/7 shopping center to purchase a brand new T-shirt, the three set off on a journey in the course of the night time, telling one another about their experiences: their causes for leaving Italy, their first contacts with the British, and their want to interrupt free from their households with out changing into “grown-ups” and carving out their very own lives. Alongside the way in which they’ll come throughout conditions and incidents that may trigger them to rethink a few of their positions and notice much more how a lot they want their friendship. A narrative that condenses an authentic and edgy coming-of-age novel into a number of hours of late-night wandering.”
Gran Guinigi per un’iniziativa editoriale [Editorial Cartooning Initiatives] – Premio Stefano Beani ex aequo
La Revue Dessinée Italia
The Italian offshoot of the French graphic journalism periodical La Revue Dessinée (related stylistically to The Nib Journal).
Lucca:
“As a result of it rethinks for the advantage of the Italian public a mannequin of graphic journalism in a periodical format, with well-articulated investigations which can be at all times intently associated to present occasions, reconfirming how comics proceed to be a beneficial instrument for reflecting on the up to date world.”
Comics & Science, by CNR Edizioni/Feltrinelli Comics
Lucca:
“For the steadiness achieved between popularization and leisure and the power to develop over time, involving quite a few well-known names in Italian comics and structuring itself as a wide-ranging venture, in addition to considered one of undisputed instructional worth.”
