Naples capital of the imagination: COMICON 2026 brings pop culture to the centre

From 30 April to 4 May, the Mostra d'Oltremare in Naples transforms once again into a place where the geographies of the collective imagination take concrete form: actors, astronauts, cartoonists, musicians and esports champions all meet under the same roof for the twenty-sixth edition of COMICON Naples, one of the most significant events in European pop culture. It is not just a trade fair, nor is it just a celebrity showcase: it is a privileged observatory of what the contemporary audience feels as its own, of what it wants to celebrate, and of how mass culture – the kind that circulates from television screens to children's tablets – is becoming common ground between different generations.

The red thread of this edition is not a single declared theme, but emerges by itself when looking at the programme: quality American television series, science fiction, Italian author comics, video games as a transversal language. It is a constellation of narrative universes that rarely find a meeting point, yet in Naples, every year, this point exists.

The cynical doctor and his creator

The name that opens the programme of international guests is that of John C. McGinley, a long-career American actor known to audiences worldwide above all for playing Dr Perry Cox in the television series Scrubs, a character that over time has become a reference point for a certain type of American dramedy, capable of mixing cynicism, depth and humour without ever losing coherence. McGinley will be in Naples on Saturday 2 May: in the morning he will take part in a talk at the Auditorium of the Teatro Mediterraneo, starting at 1:30 PM, and in the afternoon he will be available for fans in an area reserved for close encounters.

McGinley's career spans forty years of American cinema: from Oliver Stone's Platoon and Wall Street, both award-winning films of the 1980s, to Point Break, Seven, The Rock, up to more recent productions. After the Scrubs revival on Disney+, which brought the character of Dr Cox back to life with renewed success, McGinley is now working on the HBO series Rooster, alongside Steve Carell. A guest who brings with him not only the charm of popularity, but also the substance of a profession practised with consistency and a recognisably personal perspective.

The city that will not let go

The second major attraction is the Italian preview of the third episode of the fourth season of From, the sci-fi horror series produced by Paramount+ that has built a passionate following worldwide in recent years. The series, created by John Griffin and developed with showrunner Jeff Pinkner, already known for his work on Lost, Alias and Fringe, and with director Jack Bender, another central figure in contemporary American serial production, revolves around a mysterious town from which no one can escape, with a narrative construction that blends psychological horror and science fiction.

The event will take place on Sunday 3 May at the Auditorium of the Teatro Mediterraneo, with the screening of the third episode of the new season and the presence of two protagonists of the series: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Colombian actress Oscar-nominated for Maria Full of Grace, here in the role of Tabitha Matthews, and Scott McCord, interpreter of Victor Kavanaugh. With them on stage, in a juxtaposition that well reflects the hybrid character of COMICON, will come LDA and Aka7even, a musical duo fresh from the Sanremo Festival, who will pay homage to the series with a performance of their song presented precisely at the Ariston.

Wrestling comes to town

The culture of professional wrestling, which in recent decades has conquered an ever-expanding space in the global popular imagination, finds at COMICON 2026 a moment of institutional celebration. Netflix has acquired the rights to broadcast RAW, SmackDown, NXT and all the WWE Premium Live Events – the American wrestling federation that boasts hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide – and the platform will celebrate this entry at COMICON Naples with a dedicated panel on Saturday 2 May, starting at 2:30 PM, at the Auditorium of the Teatro Mediterraneo.

Guests of the panel will be Maurizio Merluzzo and Victor Laszlo, figures known to the Italian dubbing and podcasting audience, both long-time fans of the federation. With them will be Zerocalcare, the Roman cartoonist among the most followed on the Italian scene, who will bring his personal and ironic perspective on the WWE phenomenon. It is a meeting that well illustrates how certain popular languages, often regarded with distance by official cultural discourse, have instead built solid and lasting communities.

From space to comics, via video games

Among the guests expected at this edition is also Luca Parmitano, astronaut of the European Space Agency and colonel of the Italian Air Force, who took part in two long-duration missions on the International Space Station for a total of three hundred and sixty-six days away from Earth, becoming the first Italian to hold the role of Commander of the ISS. Today he works in Houston as a liaison officer between NASA and ESA for the Artemis programme. His talk at COMICON, scheduled for Friday 1 May at the Arena Flegrea, will not be a story about his space career in the strict sense, but a reflection on the relationship between digital simulation and real space, on how video games have helped – even for those who have never defined themselves as gamers – to build skills and imaginations. On stage with him will be Leo Ortolani, cartoonist, and Caparezza, musician: a meeting between science, comics and music that will hardly find space elsewhere.

In the programme for 1 May, there are also three actresses with very different career paths. Jane Perry, who won a BAFTA and who the video game public knows for her portrayal of the goddess Mystra in Baldur's Gate 3, as well as for the role of Dorothy Bahnsen in X-Files. Kirsty Rider, known for the series Industry and Sandman, as well as the voice of the character Lune in the role-playing video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. And Crystal Reed, who built her popularity through Teen Wolf, then crossed the DC Comics universe with the characters of Abby Arcane in Swamp Thing and Sofia Falcone in Gotham. All three will take part in meetings with the public on 1 May, at different times and locations, telling stories of careers that span cinema, television and that increasingly central area: narrative video game culture.

Where competition becomes spectacle

COMICON 2026 also hosts the final stages of the eSerie A Goleador, the official esports championship organised by the Lega Calcio Serie A in collaboration with Infront Italy, which sees sixteen clubs from the top Italian division compete through their professional teams on the video game EA SPORTS FC 26. The competition will enter the Playoff phase from 30 April, with the Final Eight scheduled for 1 May: at the end, the Italian champion of the discipline will be crowned, and the top four classified will gain access to the eChampions League, while the top two will also take part in the FC Pro World Championship. On 2 May, the event will open to the public with a Community Event that will allow visitors to challenge the professional players directly on stage.

Evening events are not lacking: on Thursday 30 April, at 8:30 PM at the Auditorium of the Teatro Mediterraneo, Tintoria returns, the podcast by Daniele Tinti and Stefano Rapone produced by The Comedy Club, with a special live episode in the company of Sio, one of the most followed Italian cartoonists and creators of recent years. On Friday 1 May, instead, at 7:30 PM in the same space, Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress will be screened, one of the masterpieces of Japanese animation, with an introduction and post-screening discussion led by the Criticoni, Francesco Alò, Mr. Marra and Victor Laszlo, together with Dario Moccia. And on Sunday morning, in Sala Pazienza, Elisabetta Dami, the creator of Geronimo Stilton, Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic, will tell how an imaginary journalist mouse became a publishing phenomenon with more than one hundred and eighty million copies sold in over fifty languages.

COMICON Naples 2026 presents itself as a dense programme, built with the awareness of those who know that its audience is broader and more varied than certain simplified categories would suggest. Here, television seriality and author comics share the same space with esports and the cosmic narrative of an astronaut. It is probably this ability to hold together different worlds without forcing them into an artificial synthesis that is the most authentic trait of this event.

Credit photos: comicon.it