Lucca Comics & Games is one of the largest transmedia conventions in the world, selling more than 300 thousand tickets to the event held in a town that houses only 80 thousand. With numbers like that, it is no wonder that for the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, they plan to go big!
This year, Lucca Comics & Games will celebrate D&D in several ways. I spoke with Director of Lucca Comics & Games, Emanuele Vietina, ahead of Lucca’s 58th celebration (that’s right, this festival has been going on for 58 years!), and he had so much to tell us about just how Lucca is planning to feature Dungeons & Dragons for this monumental anniversary, first starting with this year’s theme, “The Butterfly Effect,” with some exclusive news about some very special dragon appearances,
“The largest butterfly effect we are going to celebrate with a lot of effort is, of course, Dungeons & Dragons…I’m going to tell you something that probably no one else in the press knows. Uffizi is going to compliment the exhibition in the Servi church, the Chiesa dei Servi, with the Koder Collection, the exhibition curated by Jon Peterson and Jessica Patterson, with three of its dragons.” He went on to emphasize how important this is for D&D, “One of the most influencing museums in the world is paying homage to Dungeons & Dragons, to our culture and to the art of Dungeons & Dragons.”
Announcing that the Uffizi collection will be adding three 18th-century dragons to the stunning art on display during the Gateway to Adventure: 50 Years of D&D Art exhibition is very exciting, and Vietina went on to explain why they want to showcase the art behind D&D,
“After Dungeons & Dragons creators are now different, showrunners are now different. Writers are now different. We are different. We want to participate. We don’t want to be spectators anymore. For us, it is a lesson so they change the idea of the comic convention. People don’t want to see a show anymore. They want to BE this show and cosplaying!”
We asked Vietina to tell us a bit more about the Koder Collection, and he had no shortage of details,
“We are organizing the largest and most complete and most comprehensive Original art exhibition about Dungeons & Dragons ever done in the history of the world. The collection comes from Matthew Koder. Matthew Koder is the collector. The curators are Jon Peterson and Jessica Patterson. And it’s also the very first time for us to have two Americans as curators of one of our exhibitions.
We are going to exhibit 140 original artworks from the golden age, from the very early age to the to the fifth edition. Everything. Matthew Koder will be in Lucca on the 30th and on the 26th when we are going to open the exhibition, and Jon and Jess are going to be in Lucca for all five days.”
For any fans of D&D, the Gateway to Adventure: 50 Years of D&D Art is going to be an exhibition you don’t want to miss. Speaking to Vietina last year ahead of Lucca Comic & Games 2024, we learned so much about the history of the festival and what it means to him personally. Growing up playing games like Dungeons & Dragons since 1989, Lucca means the world to him, and you can see that when he talks about the event. Because of this, Vietina has spent nearly 15 years on one specific mission, and it is finally being implemented this year.
“This is our biggest effort as a festival and as a town. I think it’s pretty incredible. I think we are the first town in the world, for sure in Europe, dedicating a public passageway to the game designer Gary Gygax. It’s nice because, in Lucca, there are public passageways that are literally dungeons. So the dungeon, Gary Gygax and Dave Dave Arneson.”
We asked him how this came about, “I started playing role-playing games in 1989, and now I can give something back to my favourite people. And for me, it’s a dream that come true. And I asked my municipality. I sat in front of a committee trying to explain this since 2008, when Gary Gygax died. So it took me 15 years….It’s an idea that we had immediately when Gygax died and then Arneson died. And it’s been a long road.”
There is something to be said about the love and heart that goes into Lucca Comics & Games, all the way from the Director—or Dungeon Master, as he prefers—right down to the fans. Lucca Comics & Games takes place in Lucca, Italy, from October 30, 2024, to November 3, 2024.
Stay tuned to CGMagazine for all things Lucca Comics & Games here.
