Lucca Comics and Games 2010 – Davide Gianfelice

Davide Gianfelice

Artist: Davide Gianfelice
Subject: Northlanders
Date: November 01, 2010
Location: Lucca Comics & Games, Lucca, Italy

Lucca Con 2010 Sketch_01: Scott Morse

Batman & Tiger by Scott Morse

Artist:  Scott Morse
Date:  October 31, 2010
Location:  Lucca Comics and Games, Lucca, Italy

2010 Lucca Comics And Games – The Italian Job Studios and UDraw

On November 1, 2010, I attended the Italian Job Studios (Riccardo Burchielli, Guiseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Caselli, Diego Malara and Francesco Mattina) demonstration of THQ’s UDraw for the Nintendo WII gaming system in advance of the launch date (Nov 14/10 in North America and Jan/11 in Europe).  Basically its like a starter version of a WACOM/Cintiq tablet but for the whole family.   On this day, it was the duo of Caselli and Mattina showing everyone how easy (for them?) it was to draw a simple Flash head sketch. 

It is amazing what a simple red blob can be turned into.

 

The final version of The Flash.

2010 Lucca Comics and Games – Let The Recovery Begin

Recovering today.  As are the 135,000 other festival-goers.  And sadly, as it turns out, a nation.

Attendance figures for the 4 day Festival were announced as 23,000 (Friday),  45,000 (Saturday), 43,000 (Sunday) and 24,000 (Monday).  Monday’s total was about 50% less than what I  was told to expect as it was a national holiday,  All Saints Day.  The 2009 Lucca Comics and Games Festival had almost 140,000 attendees.

Sunday: Wading through the masses

The Sunday figures are amazing.  The Festival is held outdoors and  many venues (tents) are not  within short walking distances of each other. It rained that entire day yet the streets were always jam-packed.  Not to mention the tents bursting to capacity, especially whenever a large downpour occurred and people rushed inside to stay dry(ish).  The fire marshalls must have shut down access to the tents 6-7 times throughout the day due to overcrowding.  Looking back on it, what could have been a bad situation wasn’t primarily because it was handled properly and efficiently.

Sunday: Crowd being temporarily kept out of the tent by fire marshalls

Unfortunately, as I found out near the Festival’s end, the rains of Sunday triggered mudslides and floods in Northern and Central Italy which killed at least 3 people.  Trains and roadways were blocked off and/or closed.  The trains that bring many of the people in had been delayed or cancelled. 

I believe that this news did not reach many of the exhibitors and guests on Monday until the late morning/early afternoon.   Many of whom had been wondering openly at the sparseness of the crowd in the morning were now somber.  Soon some were making plans to pack up early and drive back through the mountains before the situation became worse. 

I will be writing a recap of the Festival and providing numerous photo dumps of my experiences here (as well as my trip to Amsterdam and Belgium) over the next couple  of weeks so please check back regularly.

Italy Day 4: Lucca Comics & Games Festival Day 1 – Watching Max Frezzato sketch

What a tiring Day 1 of the Lucca Comics and Games Festival.  The weather was great; cool early in the morning but sunny and warmer by noon.  I spent most of my first 2 hours at the con getting sketches in my Lucca-only sketch book.  The first sketch of day was one I stumbled onto accidentally.  While checking out the tents where Panini Italia (mainly Marvel comics) and Planeta DeAgostini (mainly DC comics) were located, I found Max Frezzato’s booth.

I had only just discovered Max’s work on Wednesday during my visit to the exhibit that the show was throwing for the guests of honour.  I have totally fallen head over heels in love with art.  So of course I had to line up.  And wait about 75 minutes for my turn.  And what a wild and crazy 75 minutes it was.

To call what Max does as ‘sketching’ is a great injustice.  He is an artiste who used any and every means possible to create unique pieces of art in the  sketchbooks or comic albums of his fans.

He rarely used a pencil or marker to draw in any books.  He took out a jar of black paint and a container of red from his work bag.  Dipping his finger in away he went, just finger painting and palm painting and fingernail painting…whatever he felt he needed to do to give each person a truly unique piece. 

He must have received 5-6 calls while I was there and would always work while chatting on his phone.  Did a TV interview too.

This sketch was my absolute favourite.  Not for the sketch itself but for how it was done.  Max opened the softcover book, pulled one side of the cover taut and gently yanked the book from the binding glue.  Turning to the other side, he repeated the procedure and the grabbed the guts of the book.  I was in shock when he first separated the book.  I was horrified when I saw the book torn apart.  But my Italian friend, Gregory (I met him last year in Lucca while waiting in line for Eduardo Risso), just smiled and laughed.  And shortly afterwards, so did I.  Though I was still al little worried about what would happen to my book  

I tweeted the completed sketch earlier in the day:  Max’s Interior Cover Sketch 

He also used some weird sort gold crayon/charcoal type instrument which you can barely see in these pics that I took of him working on my sketchbook.  (I think I had the first sketch of the day that wasn’t fully done in paint.)

When the crayon/charcoal concoction was covered by the paint on his hands, he rubbed it in and the resultant use created new colours and textures.

2010 Lucca Comics and Games Festival – The Days Leading Up To

Arrived in Lucca, Italy (by way of Rome and Pisa) earlier this morning after spending almost 7,100 KMs in the air.  Its my second consecutive year attending this massive festival of comic book love.  I really did mean to write  a recap of my exeriences from 2009 but never got around to it. 

So I will have to rectify that massive oversight this year. 

Day 1 was fairly uneventful.  Everyone arrived from different parts of North America at the Pisa airport.  A short taxi ride  later and we were inside the walls of Lucca.  A quick wash of the face and brush of the teeth and we were off to grab some lunch.  Before long we were back in the apartment.

2 glasses of wine and snack crackers. Airline life!

Delicious Tortelli Lucchese

 

Walked over with Tiziano a little later in the afternoon to visit with Gary Frank, DC artist extraordinnaire.  Gary has an exhibit of his artwork in a local museum.  Among the other exhibits were a tribute to the early underground comix (R.Crumb etc.), Max Frezzato and Gianni De Como.  Being exposed to some of the European artists, most of whom I had never seen before, was like a visual orgasm.   EDIT:  Pictures were taken with my iPhone camera.  I’ll revisit the exhibits and get better pics.

Old School Master and Old Skool Master

10 to 12 foot blow up of a special piece Gary Frank did for this exhibit

Gianni De Como original art

 

Max Frezzato painting used for the 2010 Lucca Comics Festival poster and program

Max Frezzato door - Side 1

Max Freezzato - Door Side 2

Tiziano, Gary and Fletcher

 

Day one ends with me falling asleep at the table in a nice little Italian restaurant for about 20 seconds.  So nearly 40 hours since Imy last bit of good sleep, I’m signing off.  Day 2 will probably be non-comic book-y stuff so there may not be an update.  I’ll to keep daily blog updates during the festival’s dates.

075: Death-tusi by Gary Frank

Death of The Endless by Gary Frank

‘Tusi #: 075
Artist:  Gary Frank
Subject: Death (Sandman, The Endless)
Date: October 31, 2009
Location: Lucca Comics & Games, Lucca, Italy

Notes: I had gone to Italy with absolutely no intentions of getting any Batusi sketches.  I just figured that with my severe inability to speak the Italian langauge without causing a possible World War I would be better served just getting generic sketches.

I had just finished reading all 4 Absolute volumes of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN.  I thought that those characters would make for some nice sketch subject requests while in Europe.

Gary was not a guest of the show but my friend Tiziano introduced him to me while he was walking about.  Gary was kind enough to agree to draw a little doodle for me.  I asked for Death but then Tiziano mentioned the Doing the Batusi theme.  Gary kind of smirked and I thought, “no way in hell is he doing that theme.”  He took away my sketchbook and returned it the next day.

Yeah, I was left just a little bit speechless when I opened the sketchbook.

Lucca Con 2009 – Sketch_03 – Sergio Algozzino

Comix Show

Artist:  Sergio Algozzino
Date: October 29, 2009
Location: Lucca Comics and Games, Lucca, Italy

Note(s): Might possibly be my favourite sketch from the whole trip.  A self-portrait inside the walls of the Lucca.

Lucca Con 2009 – Sketch_02 – Marco Galli

Il Santo Premier

Artist:  Marco Galli
Date: October 29, 2009
Location: Lucca Comics and Games, Lucca, Italy

Note(s): Well, today is Valentine’s Day.  Really like this one.

Lucca Con 2009 – Sketch_01 – Davide Osenda

Ultima lezione a Gottinga

Artist:  Davide Osenda
Date: October 29, 2009
Location: Lucca Comics and Games, Lucca, Italy

Note(s): The first sketch of the convention and it was a nice little watercolour piece.  I’m pretty sure that this was his standard con sketch but it still took about 20 mins to complete it.  Davide kept checking out the sketchpad while waiting for the watercolour to dry, feeling the paper between his fingers.  I finally realized that he really liked the pad so I wrote down the website info in the inside of his personal sketchbook.  I wonder if Curry’s will give me a commission…