bookshop
Comics on comics on comics on comics...
The bookshop and self-publishing space at A occhi aperti 2025
This year, A occhi aperti will once again fill the DAS tables with mountains of original, high quality comics, showcasing the best releases from the contemporary publishing scene and the most original self-published works themed around Mondi Accanto/Adjacent Worlds.
Curating the selection, along with Hamelin, will be two highly respected Roman companies: the independent bookstore RISMA and Just Indie Comics - both of which have specialized for years in sourcing and offering the best Italian and international releases with a sharp eye out for both the mainstream comics market and self-published works from around the world.
Fri., Nov. 21 | 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
10 p.m. DAS presents Canicola X Maple Death [free admission recommended]
Sat., Nov. 22 | 10 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Sun., Nov. 23 | 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
What will you find in the bookshop?
The A occhi aperti bookshop is the result of a selection of the best releases on each edition's
theme. Adjacent Worlds, the festival's theme and the title of the main exhibition, dedicated to the work of Nicole Claveloux, brings together stories about microworlds, worlds within worlds, parallel worlds, worlds of the future, and much more—original places and imagery, new perspectives from which it becomes possible to revolutionize the way we look at our present.
Among the pages of the bookshop, AOA visitors will find shape-shifting provincial villages, fascinating non-places, desolate areas, cyberpunk cities where they can move between planes of reality thanks to illegal drugs, wild or surreal worlds that serve as habitats for many different and unique forms of childhood, and much more.
Who runs the bookshop?
RISMA and JustIndieComics are Serena Dovì’s and Gabriele Di Fabio’s projects, which are deeply connected to each other.
The first to be launched was JustIndieComics, a shop and blog where Gabriele Di Fazio, a passionate enthusiast of underground comics from the US and Canada (and beyond), has been offering a carefully curated selection of his discoveries and research since 2013. He quickly became a point of reference for trends in comics that are little-known to the general public. You can stay up-to-date on the latest trends and classics on his website for free or by subscribing to his buyers' club.
Picking up from last year when Just Indie Comics was also present at the A occhi aperti bookshop, this year the collaboration continues with new titles and new offerings.
In 2019, Serena Dovì opened the independent bookstore Risma in Rome's Pigneto neighborhood, specializing in comics and curated in collaboration with Just Indie Comics. From the beginning, Risma has chosen to be a place for special events and culture: exhibitions and meetings with authors have made the bookstore a point of reference for comics enthusiasts. Risma focuses primarily on comics, but also features children's books and comics, as well as a section dedicated to novels and essays.
The bookshop and self-publishing space at A occhi aperti 2025
This year, A occhi aperti will once again fill the DAS tables with mountains of original, high quality comics, showcasing the best releases from the contemporary publishing scene and the most original self-published works themed around Mondi Accanto/Adjacent Worlds.
Curating the selection, along with Hamelin, will be two highly respected Roman companies: the independent bookstore RISMA and Just Indie Comics - both of which have specialized for years in sourcing and offering the best Italian and international releases with a sharp eye out for both the mainstream comics market and self-published works from around the world.
Fri., Nov. 21 | 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
10 p.m. DAS presents Canicola X Maple Death [free admission recommended]
Sat., Nov. 22 | 10 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Sun., Nov. 23 | 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
What will you find in the bookshop?
The A occhi aperti bookshop is the result of a selection of the best releases on each edition's
theme. Adjacent Worlds, the festival's theme and the title of the main exhibition, dedicated to the work of Nicole Claveloux, brings together stories about microworlds, worlds within worlds, parallel worlds, worlds of the future, and much more—original places and imagery, new perspectives from which it becomes possible to revolutionize the way we look at our present.
Among the pages of the bookshop, AOA visitors will find shape-shifting provincial villages, fascinating non-places, desolate areas, cyberpunk cities where they can move between planes of reality thanks to illegal drugs, wild or surreal worlds that serve as habitats for many different and unique forms of childhood, and much more.
Who runs the bookshop?
RISMA and JustIndieComics are Serena Dovì’s and Gabriele Di Fabio’s projects, which are deeply connected to each other.
The first to be launched was JustIndieComics, a shop and blog where Gabriele Di Fazio, a passionate enthusiast of underground comics from the US and Canada (and beyond), has been offering a carefully curated selection of his discoveries and research since 2013. He quickly became a point of reference for trends in comics that are little-known to the general public. You can stay up-to-date on the latest trends and classics on his website for free or by subscribing to his buyers' club.
Picking up from last year when Just Indie Comics was also present at the A occhi aperti bookshop, this year the collaboration continues with new titles and new offerings.
In 2019, Serena Dovì opened the independent bookstore Risma in Rome's Pigneto neighborhood, specializing in comics and curated in collaboration with Just Indie Comics. From the beginning, Risma has chosen to be a place for special events and culture: exhibitions and meetings with authors have made the bookstore a point of reference for comics enthusiasts. Risma focuses primarily on comics, but also features children's books and comics, as well as a section dedicated to novels and essays.
Some of the titles (and the adjacent worlds ) you can immerse yourself in:
• La Mano verde é altre storie by Nicole Claveloux (Eris) is a collection of comics by the great French illustrator and cartoonist, all set in a metamorphic and surrealist universe with the contours of a dream - a visual and spatial phantasmagoria in which to lose yourself.
• Cosa Forte by artist Lika Nüssli (Sigaretten) is a story of a family set somewhere in the Swiss mountains, where the artist's father worked as a hired hand when he was a child. A hard life, but, at the same time, the story of an unfiltered, direct, and rural encounter with nature, through the eyes of a child.
• Metadoggoz by Bérénice Motais de Narbonne, aka B*MO (Actes Sud BD) is the story of a group of teenagers who transgress the rigid social structure of the cyberpunk city in which they live, the Metastazione, through the use of powerful drugs that allow them to slip between planes of reality.
• Il sogno della cicala is the debut comic by Dario Sostegni (Canicola); a story between two parallel worlds, both shaped by a small provincial town, where a group of teenage friends experience a time of rites of passage when everything changes.
• Signor Civetta is the latest work by the great French comic artist David B (Sigaretten). It is the journey of a woman frightened by her shadow, accompanied by the enigmatic Signor Civetta into the land of the dead: an overpopulated, ever-changing, ephemeral place.
• Lindy Hop dall’aldilà by Eva Daffara (Eris) takes you into the dilapidated village of Accabarì, overrun by gigantic angel statues, the Entroydi, who observe the lives of six characters searching for their place in the world from the heights of their monumentality.
• Margot Farnoux and Simon Ecary will present their self-published works. They are French artists who have long been probing the world of drawing in and outside of comics - ranging from children's comics (such as Les Vacances de Nana and Nini by Margot Farnoux, Biscoto) to investigations into the drawings on postcards that American ham radio operators exchanged in the 1980s - a virtually unknown piece of drawing history that both have explored in events and exhibitions which they will also bring to Bologna.
• Punica Fides, the latest work by Andrea Bruno (Sputnik Press), follows the journey of a former alternative rock star through Punica, an absurd city populated by smugglers, criminals, and punk musicians, towards the unknown territory known as off-screen.
• Bang! Sei Morto by Francesca Ghermandi (Eris), published for the first time in Italy, is a noir labyrinth in which each story intertwines with the others in Francesca Ghermandi's signature rollercoaster style.
• Celestia, by Manuele Fior (Oblomov), is a surreal work set in a metamorphic and distorted lagoon where telepaths and children move among ancient palaces and fortresses.
Can I suggest a title?
The bookshop selection is made by the festival based on a thematic criterion, and, open submissions are, therefore, not being accepted at this time.
However, if you are an author who has a submission that you believe is thematically close to the festival's theme, you can let us know by writing to segreteria@hamelin.net.
This does not mean that the work will be featured in the bookshop but only that it will be taken under consideration.
In short, the A occhi aperti bookshop will continue to amaze fans this year with the variety and quality of its titles. But that's not all: in keeping with the philosophy of Hamelin, Risma, and JustIndieComics, those tables will also be a meeting point for works, authors, and readers.
We look forward to seeing you!