Italy's oldest comics exhibition, at home in Rapallo
Rapalloonia is not a comics fair in the conventional sense. It is not Lucca Comics, with its queues, cosplayers in every street and enormous exhibition halls. It is something different, something only Rapallo could host: an elegant, intimate exhibition that takes a historic villa and a seafront castle and transforms them for nine days into a place where comics meet art — art to be truly looked at. For almost half a century — the 50th edition was held in 2025 — Rapallo has welcomed the world's greatest cartoonists with this formula: small, intense, authentic.
The history of Rapalloonia begins in 1975 and spans decades of international comics. The U Giancu Prize — named after the Ligurian innkeeper who hosted the early gatherings — is one of the oldest and most respected awards in the global comics world. The artists who have won it are names that fill the shelves of the most passionate readers: a cultural continuity that many more recent and more visible events cannot claim. When Rapalloonia opens each September, those who work seriously in comics know it is worth being there.
The 2025 edition raised the cultural bar still further: the year's theme was manga and Japanese comics culture seen from the Tigullio, with Yoshiko Tezuka — daughter of the legendary Osamu Tezuka, father of modern manga — as the exceptional guest of honour. Rapallo, with its harbour and Ligurian sky, as an imaginary backdrop from which to observe Tokyo and the world of Asian comics. A combination that only an exhibition with that history could propose without seeming contrived.
Villa Queirolo is the main venue: a historic villa with gardens in the heart of Rapallo, which becomes for nine days a journey through original artwork, installations and meetings with cartoonists. The Castello sul Mare — Rapallo's iconic symbol, right on the bay — hosts some of the most spectacular displays. Between visits, the seafront, the cafés, the restaurants: Rapalloonia has the advantage of taking place in a beautiful city, at one of the best times of year to be in Liguria.
How to get the most from Rapalloonia
Nine days allow rare flexibility. There is no need to choose a single day: you can return several times, explore Villa Queirolo in the morning when it is quieter, visit the Castello sul Mare in the afternoon in the best light, attend an evening talk. Those staying in Rapallo have an obvious advantage: they are already there, can manage the exhibition's rhythm as they please, with no logistics to solve each time. The detailed programme — with cartoonist meetings, presentations and special evenings — is published on rapalloonia.com.
A suggestion: do not limit yourself to the exhibition. Rapalloonia in late September is a reason to be in Rapallo at one of the best moments of the year. The sea is still warm, the beaches are almost empty, restaurants are working well without the August queues. The Festival della Comunicazione in Camogli often overlaps for a few days — 10 minutes by train from Rapallo — and offers a cultural pairing that is hard to find anywhere else in Italy.
