Comics Museum

The Comics Museum (Cosenza) is located in a prestigious building in the historic centre (Cosenza Vecchia), inside the former Monastery of Santa Chiara. The Comics Museum houses a conspicuous permanent collection that boasts prestigious national and international comic strip signatures: Milo Manara, Gilbert Shelton, Charlie Hebdo's Coco, Enrique Breccia, Tanino Liberatore, Ivo Milazzo, Davide Toffolo, Angelo Stano and Max Frezzato. The visit route follows a thematic order and unfolds on four main levels: on the upper floor, the roof dome of the ancient Church of Santa Chiara; on the intermediate levels, exhibition rooms alternate with spaces dedicated to creative and educational workshops; on the lower floor, the room displaying the motorbike of the artist Andrea Pazienza, donated by Marina Comandini, patroness of the Comics Museum.

The Comics Museum's collection is in part the result of the various editions of the festival of the same name, which takes place every year in the city and allows each artist to measure themselves against Cosenza, its truths and legends, as the works of Martin Mystère and Dylan Dog set in the city demonstrate. Another feature of the Cosenza Comics Museum is the training of talents. Many laboratories, workshops, and seminars with illustrators of the calibre of Ivo Milazzo, Max Frezzato, and the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, have shown new paths to dozens of young people who have decided to specialise in the world of art and comics.

From this positive experience was born the Comics School, a modern creative industry active within the Museum.

Workshops, meetings, storytelling and dozens of exhibitions, such as the one dedicated to the genius of Andrea Pazienza, have left a deep mark.

All with a single claim, that of wanting to tell the comic strip for what it is, solely and exclusively an art form that manages to tell a thousand stories that are always different, without ever boring us.