Since 2014, the Cartoon Club festival has established the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, an award designed to celebrate the talent, passion and commitment of those who have dedicated their lives to the world of animation and comics. Every year, the prize is awarded to great masters and professionals who, with their artistic vision and their inexhaustible creativity, have been able to leave a deep and lasting imprint on the cultural landscape and in the collective imagination, inspiring generations of authors and enthusiasts.
Every year, the Cartoon Club Festival awards the Lifetime Achievement Award to authors who, with passion, talent and a profound authorial vision, have contributed decisively to the growth and cultural recognition of comic literature.
This award celebrates those who, through sign, word and narrative construction, have been able to transform comics into an art form capable of exciting, reflecting and affecting the collective imagination. Their works have spanned eras, styles and generations, making the language of comics a powerful vehicle of stories, memories and ideas.
With this award, the Festival intends to pay homage to an exemplary creative path, but also to underline the artistic and cultural value of a profession that often acts in the silence of the tables, yet leaves an indelible mark in the hearts of readers.
Thanks to these masters of comics, the world continues to read, imagine and think.
The 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award for Comic Literature: Milo Manara
Milo Manara, born in Luson in 1945 and raised in Verona, is one of the greatest masters of contemporary comics. Famous for the elegant style and unmistakable sensuality of his female figures, he transformed comics into an artistic language admired all over the world.
From his beginnings in the 60s to collaborations with giants such as Hugo Pratt, Neil Gaiman, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marvel, Manara has created iconic works such as Giuseppe Bergman, The Game, Everything Began Again with an Indian Summer and the comic biography Caravaggio. His relationship with Federico Fellini was also fundamental, for whom he created posters and illustrations for the films Intervista and La voce della luna, as well as developing a comic book project that remained unfinished after the director’s death: Viaggio a Tulum, then followed by Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, known as Fernet.
His career spans comics, illustration, cinema and visual art, always maintaining a unique balance between eroticism, storytelling and beauty of the line. Internationally loved, Manara has been celebrated in numerous exhibitions and publications that testify to his central role in contemporary visual culture.