downthetubes Italian partner Fumettomania Factory has launched its Star Trek 60th Anniversary Special project, marking the launch of Star Trek: The Original Series back in 1966 on USTV with their customary investigation into every aspect of the enduring franchise, including contributions from around the globe, including former Star Trek Explorer editor John Freeman.
Following the first “prequel” to the Special, in which they analysed the release of Star Trek: Godshock, and a second dedicated to this Special’s Artist Gallery, this week their major 60th anniversary Star Trek special officially debuts, which will run for 26 weeks on the Italian website.
On 8th September 2026, the world began celebrations for 60 years of Star Trek, the television series that since 1966 has inspired millions of people to look toward the future with confidence, imagination, and a spirit of exploration. Fumettomania Factory, an Italian social and cultural promotion association and magazine dedicated to comics and pop culture medium, is paying tribute to this milestone with a central question: “What would I do if I were charting the course for the future?”
“The lead-up has been very intense, filled with emails, phone calls, messages, outlines, article drafts, and ideas coming and going,” says Fumettomania Factory’s Mario Benenati. Creator of Cultural Projects for Fumettomania Factory APS.
“I would like to thank the ‘officers’ who will take their stations alongside me on the bridge of our Starship and help chart our course for the future.”
Below, Mario explains his love of Star Trek, and the background to this special, unofficial project, published in Italian, in more detail… head here to read the original text, in Italian…
Charting the course for the future: Why Star Trek still speaks to us today
Mario Benenati / Project Curator
The first time I laid eyes on the Star Trek universe, the original five-year mission had already concluded long before. It was the mid-1980s. For me, and for many of my generation, Starfleet did not appear as a groundbreaking revelation on an evening in 1966, but as a layered mythos tied to a sci-fi series that I began discovering “on tape delay”, right after Space: 1999, a British sci-fi series, entirely different from Star Trek, step by step, well after that fateful year of 1982 that marked the franchise’s cinematic rebirth with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
I will admit right off the bat, with the honesty owed to fellow travellers: I am not a shipboard computer. I don’t know the names of every minor character who ever walked the decks of the various ships by heart, nor could I list every single Starfleet directive. My bond with this saga was forged in front of the silver screen, taking in the grandeur and conflict of the theatrical films, and within the colourful panels and lines of comic books capable of stepping aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise.
This connection, after all, runs deep. Between 1990 and 2009, in the pages of our print fanzine, we frequently reviewed Star Trek comics, striving to capture that sense of wonder printed on paper, which we now proudly bring to the web all these years later in this special.
Celebrating 60 years of Star Trek today means understanding that this saga does not belong only to those who were there from the very beginning, but to anyone who has embraced its many messages. Gene Roddenberry didn’t merely create a story about spaceships; he put forth a political, social, and human manifesto. Star Trek, at the height of the Cold War (when the world trembled under the shadow of nuclear nightmare), dared to show a future where humanity had made it. It had overcome racism, hunger, poverty, and greed to unite its efforts and look toward the stars. Not to conquer or colonise them by force, but to understand, cooperate, and grow. Roddenberry was a genius with his utopian vision!
Today, in 2026, that message has not aged a single day. If anything, in an era fractured by new geopolitical tensions, climate crises, and fear of technology, the Federation’s rational optimism is needed more than ever. It is from this urgency that our guiding question was born: “What would I do if I were charting the course for the future?”
This question is not just an exercise in imagination, but a call to action. It asks each of us – creators, contributors, readers – to virtually step onto the bridge and imagine the direction we want our society to take by applying the series’ values of tolerance and cooperation.
This new Special Project by Fumettomania stems from precisely this foundation. It is not a rigid academic celebration reserved for a select few, but a journey open to all. Through historical and social analyses, film critiques, episode guides, comic pages, and original artwork from our illustrators, we aim to provide a map to help you navigate this galaxy.
Our crew of officers includes Arturo Fabra, Daniele Tomasi, Giuseppe Pennetri, Andrea Carta from the Terre di Confine website, Prof. Claudio Chillemi, Giuseppe Causarano, Prof. Giuseppe Cozzolino, Dario Janese, Alessandro Bottero, Antonio Barreca, Federica Manfredi, Elena Casagrande, Luca Strati, Silvia Califano, Milena Rigucci, Prof. Amedeo Balbi, John Freeman, the “Alberto Lisiero” Star Trek Italian Club, Alessandro Sidoti, Marcello Toninelli, Giuseppe Pollicina, and Nino Trapani, alongside many other friends joining us along the way; and our team of expert translators: Chiara Pia Valenti, Cesare Giombetti, Alberto Conte, Marcello Vaccari, and Daniele Tomasi.
Whether you are a day-one trekker, a viewer from the J.J. Abrams era, a comic strip reader, or simply curious and drawn to the unknown, you are welcome on our bridge. Because, in the end, charting the course for the future is a responsibility that belongs to us all.
Live long and prosper.
Mario Benenati
• Check out the Fumettomania Factory Star Trek 60th Anniversary Special project here
About The Author
Born in 1967, Mario Benenati holds a degree in Architecture and works as a freelance technician. A comic book reader and collector, in 1990 he founded Fumettomania, a print fanzine featuring commentary, reviews, interviews, and comics by emerging creators, which ran with national distribution until 2008.
In 1991, to support the fanzine, he co-founded the Cultural Association “Laboratorio Giovani Esordienti” (more commonly known as Fumettomania) in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (Messina, Sicily) alongside two friends. Since 1990, he has met approximately 240 professional and emerging creators and participated in over 40 Italian conventions, including Lucca Comics, Expo Cartoon in Rome, Nuvole in Cremona, Palermo Comic Convention, Messina, Napoli Comicon, Etna Comics, Dragon Fest in Milazzo, and Corolla Games & Comics (where he manages the Artist Alley).
He is also passionate about music, science fiction films, and animation.
Since 2002, he has curated the Fumettomania website (now a web magazine at www.fumettomaniafactory.net) and contributes periodically to various Italian comic criticism websites. Since 2016, he has also managed the archive site Glamazonia.it. On September 12, 2012, he reorganized the Fumettomania Factory cultural association with new members, updated bylaws, and fresh projects. Alongside Marco Grasso (Exhibition Manager at Etna Comics), he organized the 2013–2015 cultural-humanitarian initiative “Sulla stessa barca” (In the Same Boat), raising funds for Ai.Bi.’s project supporting unaccompanied foreign minors arriving in Lampedusa through 14 exhibitions across 18 months.
Since 2010, he has developed and led the educational-cultural initiative “LEGGENDO UN FUMETTO” (Reading a Comic) for comprehensive school districts across Barcellona P.G. The project emphasizes social themes (legality, anti-mafia education, migration, the Holocaust through comics, and courage in sports), creative exploration (illustrated fairy tales, superheroes with everyday struggles, 70 years of Marvel superheroes), and Sicilian comic artists, including Lelio Bonaccorso, Marco Rizzo, Marco Failla, Anna Leotta, Antonio Recupero, and others. In 2023, the initiative was rebranded as LETTERATURA DISEGNATA (Drawn Literature) across varied educational formats. On February 18, 2017, he was interviewed by journalist Cristina Saja for the website 24live.it as part of the “Impronta d’Autore” project curated by the Epicentro Museum of La Gala, Barcellona P.G.
He is currently the lead advocate and spokesperson for a new cultural project serving the entire Barcellona area: a dedicated space for comics study, reading, and workshops, planned for realisation in Barcellona P.G.
Official 60th-anniversary Star Trek logo. Star Trek © ViacomCBS – Paramount Pictures | Star Trek © ViacomCBS – Paramount Pictures | All images are used strictly for cultural and educational purposes and remain © their respective copyright holders.
The Fumettomania Factory Special Dossier, like all others produced for this digital magazine, is non-profit and intended solely for cultural and informational purposes. All images used are © their respective copyright holders.
The opinions expressed in the article above belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Fumettomania Association, which strives through its platform to uphold freedom of expression.
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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