Illustrating Shakespeare in Italian Comic Books: The Case of Gianni De Luca

This article examines the role of Shakespearean adaptations in comics through the case of Italian artist Gianni De Luca (1927–1991), focusing on his Trilogia Shakespeariana (The Tempest, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet), originally published in the children’s magazine Il Giornalino in the mid-1970s. Situating the analysis within adaptation studies and comics theory, the paper adopts the rhizomatic model proposed by Deleuze and Guattari, as further developed in Shakespeare studies by Douglas Lanier, alongside Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the “Third Space.” Through this theoretical framework, Shakespeare is interpreted not as a fixed cultural source but as a dynamic network of adaptations that circulate across media and cultural boundaries. The study combines historical contextualization of Italian comics in the 1970s with close formal analysis of De Luca’s visual strategies, particularly his use of the page as a theatrical stage and his rejection of conventional panel-based sequentiality. These techniques enable a hybrid form of storytelling that merges theatrical spatiality with the language of comics. The article argues that De Luca’s trilogy represents a unique site of cultural negotiation between so-called “high” and “low” culture, demonstrating how Shakespeare functions as a generative node within a broader rhizomatic system. In this sense, the trilogy exemplifies comics’ potential as a medium for both aesthetic experimentation and cultural mediation.