The Department of Physics will be hosting a number of copies of the new edition of Comics&Science, the series of comic-book publications launched in 2013 and which, since 2016, has become a series published by CNR Edizioni, the publishing imprint of the National Research Council (CNR).
The aim of the project is to foster the relationship between science and entertainment, communicating topics and findings from scientific and technological research through the medium of comics and reaching a non-specialist audience.
Each volume explores a specific scientific topic through stories created by leading Italian comic artists — including Silver, Zerocalcare and Leo Ortolani — who collaborate with researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the world of research and transform it into narrative.
The project
Participation in this new publication stems from I-PHOQS, a project funded by the European Union (Next Generation EU) as part of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, developed by a group of researchers from the CNR and the Department of Physics. It is a platform that integrates photonic and quantum technologies within a major national infrastructure dedicated to the study of matter and its interactions across different scales of distance, energy and time, combining simultaneous measurements and complementary methodological approaches.
Through its collaboration with Comics&Science, I-PHOQS has chosen to use the creative language of comics to present cutting-edge research in a rigorous yet accessible way, demonstrating how scientific knowledge can also be shared through storytelling, creativity and curiosity.
Quantum photonics takes centre stage in the comic
The theme of the 2026 edition is quantum photonics, the discipline that studies and controls particles of light. Although it is currently at the heart of numerous research activities, this field can still seem somewhat inaccessible to the general public.
This is the inspiration behind The Quantum Photonics Issue, designed to introduce readers to the world of photonics and to explain, through the comic, the behaviour of light and its applications in contemporary science.
The comic was created by Adriano Barone, winner of the 2014 Boscarato Award for best Italian scriptwriter, Mattia Di Meo, who made his debut in 2016 on Adventure Time for BOOM! Studios, and Davide La Rosa, a cartoonist, writer and scriptwriter.
The following individuals contributed to the drafting of the texts:
- Caterina Amendola, a researcher in the Department of Physics at the Politecnico di Milano, working in the Photonics for Health group;
- Paolo De Natale, physicist, Senior Researcher and Director of CNR-INO, coordinator of the I-PHOQS research infrastructure;
- Maja Colautti, researcher at CNR-INO;
- Andrea Macchi, Research Director at CNR-INO;
- Fabio Chiarello, senior researcher at CNR IFN;
- Francesco Todisco, senior researcher at CNR NANOTEC, photonics expert and I-PHOQS communications manager;
- Gabriele Bianchi, one of the founders of OrgoglioNerd.it.
The comic was previewed at the Turin Book Fair on 16 May.
In the Magazine section of the website, you can read an interview with Caterina Amendola, in which she talks about the work that goes on behind the scenes of the comic and how the idea for the character in her story came about.
The interview is available via the following link.