Lucca Comics & Games Renews Award For Héctor Germán Oesterheld

Posted in: Comics, Events, Lucca Comics & Games, Pop Culture | Tagged: Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Lucca Comics & Games 2026, The Eternaut

Lucca Comics & Games Renews Award For Héctor Germán Oesterheld

Lucca Comics & Games honored Héctor Germán Oesterheld, author of The Eternaut, with an award resurrected 40 years after it was created.

Article Summary

• Lucca Comics & Games revives the Oesterheld Award 40 years later, honoring The Eternaut creator Héctor Germán Oesterheld.
• The award was presented on October 29 to nephew Martín Oesterheld during Lucca Comics & Games’ 60th anniversary ceremony.
• Originally created in 1986, the Oesterheld Plaque celebrates dialogue and understanding among peoples across media.
• Lucca Comics & Games relaunched the prize with Oesterheld’s heirs, Emergency, and a jury of comics and culture leaders.

Organizers of Lucca Comics & Games have brought back a long-retired award to honor Héctor Germán Oesterheld, author of The Eternaut. The team has brought back the Oesterheld Plaque for Dialogue and Understanding Among Peoples, forty years after it was first created, to help mark the convention’s 60th Anniversary. The plaque was presented during the Awards Ceremony at the Teatro del Giglio Giacomo Puccini on October 29 to his nephew Martin Oesterheld, one of the few remaining members of his family, as Oesterheld himself was kidnapped and disappeared in 1977 during Argentina’s last military dictatorship. We have more details about the award below.

Lucca Comics & Games Awards Héctor Germán Oesterheld 40 Years After Its Creation

An award that already had a history when, in 1986, the then-International Comics Fair posthumously dedicated it to Héctor Germán Oesterheld, master of the masterpiece The Eternaut, who disappeared in the mists of Argentina’s military dictatorship along with his four daughters and 30,000 other desaparecidos. Following the exhibition “The Eternaut. Beyond Space and Time,” dedicated to the unforgettable Argentine cartoonist in 2025, held in the halls of Palazzo Guinigi with an exhibition of more than 100 original panels, Lucca Comics & Games is now reviving the Oesterheld Award, reimagined in collaboration with Martín Miguel Oesterheld and Laura Bruno, heirs of the great Argentine cartoonist, and Emergency, the event’s charity partner. This award is more significant than ever in a world torn apart by war, intolerance, and oppression.

If for years the Award represented the meeting point between comics and human rights and was aimed at authors, publishers, and designers who, through the ninth art created bridges to overcome cultural and political divisions, today the Oesterheld Award is aimed at all forms of expression that Lucca Comics & Games represents, also rewarding those who have distinguished themselves for the creation of “dialogue and understanding between peoples” in the various media it celebrates.

The award will be decided by a special jury, including Italian maestro Igort; Martìn Miguel Oesterheld, heir to the great Héctor; Simonetta Gola, communications director for Emergency; Argentine maestro José Muñoz; the popular fantasy writer Licia Troisi; and a representative of the Lucca Comics & Games working group.

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