An award for the collaboration between Ai Weiwei, Elettra Stamboulis, and Gianluca Costantini
The cover of the book Zodiac, which I created together with Ai Weiwei and Elettra Stamboulis, won the “Best Cover” award at the Lucca Comics Awards 2025 in Italy, part of the Lucca Comics & Games festival.
The awards celebrate the best comic works and their authors, regardless of nationality, publishing format, or distribution method.
This year’s jury included Kalina Muhova, Mauro Uzzeo, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Cecilia Bressanelli, and Corinna Braghieri. The book was published in Italy by Oblomov Edizioni.
Zodiac is a graphic memoir by Ai Weiwei, written by Elettra Stamboulis and illustrated by Gianluca Costantini. The book tells the story of the Chinese artist’s life and ideas through a symbolic structure of twelve chapters, each inspired by one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. Every sign becomes a lens through which Ai Weiwei reflects on key themes—freedom, memory, time, family, art—intertwining personal recollection, collective history, and political reflection.
The narrative retraces Ai Weiwei’s childhood in exile due to his father, the poet Ai Qing, being persecuted, his years of artistic formation, his return to China, and the consequences of his opposition to the regime, including imprisonment and exile. The storytelling unfolds in fragments, following the rhythm of memory and alternating lyrical and documentary tones.
Costantini’s visual language gives form to Stamboulis’s words and Ai Weiwei’s voice through an essential, sharp line that moves between realism and symbolism. The drawing itself becomes an act of resistance, expressing the tension between individual freedom and power.
Zodiac is Ai Weiwei’s first autobiographical graphic work and stands at the crossroads of contemporary art, graphic journalism, and political memory. It is also the result of an international collaboration that brings together diverse experiences and languages: Ai Weiwei’s visual activism, Stamboulis’s analytical writing, and Costantini’s civic engagement. The result is a universal story about freedom of expression and the power of art as testimony.
The book was published in Italy by Oblomov Edizioni and internationally by Penguin Random House.
