Milan's WOW Spazio Fumetto and Franco Fossati Foundation face closure due to debt

WOW Spazio Fumetto, the museum housing the Fondazione Franco Fossati's vast comic archive in Milan, risks closure due to financial difficulties. The foundation has launched a fundraising campaign and petition to save the institution, which holds one of Europe's most important comic collections. The archive includes rare 19th-century publications, early Italian comics like the first issue of Corriere dei Piccoli (1908), and international works such as early Punch issues (1841-1847). The collection was built by Franco Fossati, a pioneering comic theorist and author of the Dizionario illustrato dei fumetti (1992). The museum is located near the Oreste del Buono gardens, named after the former Linus magazine director. Umberto Eco, a frequent contributor to Linus, was a noted supporter of comic culture. The closure would leave Italy without a major comic museum, as Lucca's Museo Nazionale della nona arte has been closed since 2014.