After setting a new attendance record in 2023 with over 170.000 visitors, COMICON – International Pop Culture Festival returns to Show d'Oltremare in Naples from 25 to 28 April 2024 with the XXIV edition which promises to reach new records for areas, exhibitors present and expected visitors. Among the largest cross-media festivals in the world, COMICON Napoli arrives at the starting line with over 560 events scheduled and more than 450 guests from three continents, as always with a central nucleus at the Mostra d'Oltremare and an OFF program of appointments and exhibitions spread across the city. “This year too, Comicon presents itself as an event with a great international scope, as a Region we are proud to support this reality” – declares President Vincenzo De Luca – “I would like to underline how an event of this kind manages to bring together digitalisation, modernity and new technologies with physical meeting and human contact, this has enormous value for the new generations. In addition to the fact that every meeting of different cultures and traditions, of young people from different parts of the world, is a contribution to Peace. Also from this point of view we will have an event of great beauty and importance".
The programs of all the thematic areas are very rich: Comics, Cinema and TV Series, Videogames, Games, Asian, Music, Cosplay, Kids, Neverland, the themed food spaces PizzaCon and J-Pop Manga Niwa to which is added the new Urban Area which , for the first time in a pop festival, enhances the connections between street culture, art, sport and fashion. There will be no shortage of exhibitions, which have always been COMICON's flagship, with over 20 exhibition itineraries. And precisely in the name of the link between comics and street culture, COMICON has decided to entrust the creation of the magmatic official poster of the festival to Mike Del Mundo, a designer who marked the decade with his award-winning covers for Marvel and other publishers.
The role of Magister has been attributed to Igort (Japanese Notebooks, Fats Waller, 5 is the perfect number), one of the best-known and most influential Italian cartoonists on the international scene, a pioneer in the creation and exchange with Japanese publishing, as well as a director , publisher and driving force behind the diffusion of the graphic novel in Italy. The perfect Magister in an edition full of Asian artists like never before.
A special initiative, then, is the program of activities labeled "K-OMICON".
On the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic relations between Italy and Korea, COMICON meets KOMACON, Korea Manhwa Contents Agency, and together they host a delegation of artists, professionals, chefs and companies in Naples, to offer the festival public a vast overview of the K-world consisting of an exhibition, meetings, drawing performances, the experience of traditional clothing, culinary events, contests and K-pop music shows. COMICON's cultural activities and exhibitions benefited from support from the Campania Region which also sponsored the festival.
