Lucca Comics & Games

            If you could be any superhero who would you be? As a kid my choice varied amongst a few characters but I found most affinity with the climbing and swinging ability of Peter Parker’s alter ego: Spiderman. Sure, although no slouch, he probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance arm-wrestling Superman and didn’t sport the ultra-cool bad-guy fighting gadgets of Batman, but boy was he adept at making his way silently through urban environments to get the crooks when they least expected it. A squirt of his web and WHAMMO, another foiled crime. And what a suit! Imagine my surprise and delight when walking into our own urban environment one morning a week or two ago I caught a glimpse of the red-and-blue-spandexed man-spider himself. I managed to snap this photo (and not without detection, as you can see) before he slipped anonymously into the crowds.

         Truth be told, although delighted, I wasn’t as surprised as you might think. This was the third day of Lucca Comics & Games after all, and I’d grown accustomed to seeing superheroes galore, as well as video-game characters, the princesses, monsters and cloaked sword-wielding folk from role-playing games, and countless other comic-book look-alikes, many of the Manga style popularized originally in Japan.

      

           Preparations for Lucca Comics & Games and the 155,000 fans who would come to town over five days to enjoy it probably began as soon as the festival ended last year, but for me the reality of this gigantic event (which I later found out is the second largest Comics and Games festival in Europe) began to become clear at the end of September. Why was the largest swath of grass below the walls being covered with plastic? Were more pedestrian paths being constructed? Would some sort of landscaping occur? A few days later dump trucks brought in load upon load of rock, then the bulldozers smoothed and compacted it upon the sheeting. Whatever it was, it was gigantic.

Then came the white tents, equally voluminous. Never before had I seen ones the size of several football fields, replete with wooden flooring and ventilation systems. After four weeks of preparation the construction finally drew to a close. Meanwhile similar tents had taken over the town’s two main piazzas and a section of the path on the walls, along with a bandstand for the many musical groups that would play day and night during the festival. It had taken us awhile, but somewhere in their set-up we finally realized what the tents were for.

         And then they came. Yes, the ones already costumed up when they got out of their cars were among the more obvious festival-goers, but we noticed the others right away, too, even outside the walls on our street. Mostly Italians yes, but dressed a little more casually than the typical Lucchese style, and so many more twenty-somethings than we were accustomed to seeing.

         So for five days and nights the town’s population swelled many-fold as thousands meandered the walls, the streets, the convention areas—people-watching had never been better—visiting cartoonists and game designers signed autographs and gave tips to aspiring artists, gamers staged mock battles, contests abounded for best costume, best new game, and musicians rocked it out around the clock.

 When all was said and done, most praised Lucca and the organizing committee for staging such a professional event and many also lauded the great behavior of so many mostly younger visitors. The tents are coming down now, most already packed and hauled away but the largest down on the grass below the walls proving more challenging to quickly remove (couldn't some of those superheroes have stuck around to lend a hand?).

We enjoyed some of the novelty and excitement surrounding Lucca Comics & Games and celebrated Halloween by dressing up and wandering amongst the costumed crowed up on the walls but we were also not too disappointed when it ended.

The population shrunk back to a sustainable level and, after a busy summer and fall, life in Lucca began to settle back into its quieter season. Seeing Spiderman was fun, but after five days I think we were all ready for him to strap the camera back around his neck and just be Peter Parker for awhile.