Sara Pichelli, the ‘mother’ of Spider-Man, who comes from a town of 2,500 people

On the day that changed her life, Sara Pichelli showed up late. Her tardiness was due to doubts or, perhaps, she muses, “intellectual honesty.”

The comic book artist recounts that she barely had any drawings to submit to a competition. She kept asking: “What am I going to send in?” To which those around her — with a dose of common sense — countered: “What does it matter? Give it a try, it’s free.” Finally, they convinced her. So, despite her limited portfolio, she signed up for Chesterquest, the international talent search that Marvel conducted in 2008. But because of sheer procrastination, she realized that the deadline had passed. Still, she went ahead and submitted.

Some time later, she received a response. Perhaps they were simply informing her that she had violated the terms of the contest. But after reading the message, she had another suspicion: “That they had made a mistake.” Her name was among the 12 winners worldwide. It was no mistake, but rather the intuition of C.B. Cebulski, who, at the time, was a talent scout for the renowned publisher of so many superheroes.

The artist confesses to EL PAÍS via video call: “To this day, when we meet, I ask him what he saw in those drawings.”

It turns out that he saw the same thing that other executives, award juries, and thousands of readers have noticed. Because today, Pichelli is one of the company’s most respected artists: she will be a star guest at the Naples ComicCon from April 30 to May 3. Icons from The Guardians of the Galaxy, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and many others have traveled from the U.S. to Rome, where she lives, to be brought to life by her pencil. And she even gave birth to a new myth herself: in 2012, she co-created Miles Morales, a reimagining of Spider-Man. In other words, she’s Spider-Man’s mother.

And that was despite the fact that comic books barely reached her hometown. Amatrice was always famous for its pasta all’Amatriciana. However, since 2016, it has sadly become known for the earthquake that devastated it. Located in the heart of Italy, the town barely has 2,500 inhabitants. But now, it has the pride of being the hometown of Pichelli and Spider-Man. There, in 1983, the artist’s father worked as a pharmacist, although the family soon moved with their baby a little further north, to Porto Sant’Elpidio. The population there reached 25,000, but Pichelli’s exposure to comics didn’t grow much.

Pichelli has always been a designer; she was influenced by her mother, a painter. In high school, she became the “official comic book dealer”: anyone who wanted a portrait of Goku or Sailor Moon could go to her desk. “But I didn’t think about making a career in art. I didn’t read many comics, nor were there any specialized workshops or training schools nearby,” the author recalls. That’s why, when she moved to Rome for university, she enrolled in Oriental Languages: specifically, Chinese and Hindi.

However, this only lasted four months — just enough time to discover that there was an International School of Comics near where she was living. Today, Pichelli teaches at the very place where she was once a student. But before that, she postponed her foray into comics once again: she started working in storyboarding, animation and character design. Little by little, she realized that she just felt like “a small cog in a machine.”

Moving to bigger markets like France or the United States was out of the question for personal reasons. In the end, it was a dismissal letter that settled her dilemmas. The path was suddenly clear to give comics a real try. And that’s when Marvel’s global talent competition appeared.

“When I started, a certain type of artistic language was already in place; it was a bit old-school. And many other artists and I have contributed to diversifying it,” the Italian artist reflects. Her style is celebrated for being versatile, realistic and delicate, capable of reflecting the character’s inner world.

Pichelli also brought a different perspective to Marvel. A year after the competition, she went to New York City to meet her bosses for the first time. She was ready to accept any commission they offered. But then, she was asked a question that couldn’t be answered with a simple “yes”: “Which Spider-Woman supervillains would you like to draw?”

She couldn’t name a single one — basically because she had no idea. Her influences were more Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Claire Wendling. Although, today, she also cites The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home (by J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr., published in 2002): “It left the first real mark on me, because of its introspection. That interests me far more than the action.”

Since then, the most powerful characters on the planet have ended up on her table in Rome. But they only stay for a while: they always return to the parent company. Pichelli has loved portraying the Scarlet Witch, and she’s fascinated by Daredevil. But she knows that such precious toys are on loan — and must be returned intact.

“As an artist, certain costumes and designs are established. As a writer, you work within a story that already has plots and origins. And then, there’s American culture and the arrival of Disney [which bought Marvel in 2009], which has increased the rigidity somewhat. There are restrictions in some areas, although not so many when it comes to showing violence. If, with all this, you manage to add something of your own, you’ve won.”

She’s achieved even more than that: creating a legend from scratch.

It was 2012 when her art — along with Brian Michael Bendis’s writing — gave birth to Miles Morales, a Spider-Man for the 21st century. In the very first pages, the character — who is Afro-Latino and very young — manages to gain admission to a school that his family cannot afford thanks to a lottery. “At first, there was no script, no synopsis — just an idea. Brian showed me a documentary about the social fabric of the U.S. and its minorities. And that’s where we got the character’s starting point. I was thrilled. No one expected that from Spider‑Man, and it had never been done in superhero comics,” Pichelli recalls.

She tried many options: dreadlocks, a shaved head, a white belt. Until she came up with the protagonist’s final version: a very slender build, with an afro. And the minimalist costume had a lot of black, at the artist’s insistence. She even studied fighting manuals so that the encounter between the new and old Spider-Man would feel realistic: Morales had to evoke capoeira (an Afro-Brazilian martial art), while Peter Parker’s movements were reminiscent of a dancer.

“I consider it the highlight of my career so far. We kept asking ourselves if it would work. When it took off, we realized how lucky we’d been: I’ve never again experienced that level of freedom and fun. It built an incredible fan base, and every time I go to events in the U.S., I see how much it means.” At one of those conventions, the father of a comic book reader approached Pichelli just to say thank you.

For six decades, Spider-Man has taught us that with great power comes great responsibility. And Pichelli felt a very significant responsibility on her shoulders: as a European, white woman, she was creating a symbol for a community to which neither she nor the screenwriter — who has an African-American daughter — belonged. “Back then, I wasn’t so aware of it; I didn’t consider so many issues. As a character designer, I was used to working with any character. I’ve done some reflecting since then. Now, in 2026, I don’t see myself as the first choice for the job. It would be good to give a voice from that community a chance to be heard,” she says.

On the page, Pichelli often works with shadows and soft gradients. But throughout the conversation, she shows she can handle other nuances too. Over the years, many comic book artists have complained that they don’t see a single crumb of the box-office revenues that their characters generate in hit movies.

She argues that she has received “symbolic recognition of a financial nature and credits for each film” in the successful, Oscar-winning animated Spider-Verse saga (2018-present). The artist adds that this “is a very important issue. We work with the assignment of copyrights. And, contractually, we don’t own the rights to the characters we helped create for the major studios. There are other publishers where you can work with your own creations. It’s a very complex issue, and it’s fair to talk about it. The important thing is not to fall into a polarized good‑versus‑evil narrative.”

There are other thorny issues that she’s dealt with. Pichelli is so passionate about the graphic novel Sandman: she has an illustration from it tattooed on her body. She even fulfilled her dream of working with texts by its creater, Neil Gaiman. And so, how has she reacted to the sexual assault allegations made against the writer and the fact that he was dropped by his publishing house?

“What I read was terrible,” Pichellie replies. “But I’m glad for him that the accusations fell apart. In any case, if we broaden our focus beyond this specific case, it remains essential to fight to eradicate gender violence. We live in a time when the fact that a case fizzles out, or doesn’t end up in court, doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen. I imagine it’s a nightmare for an innocent person to find themselves caught up in something like that. But many women still aren’t believed or are revictimized, we still have a long way to go in that regard.”

Superhero comics, in her view, have taken some steps toward equality. “I’ve found myself drawing sexualized female characters. I’ve tried to break free from the stereotype of the superheroine in a pre-orgasmic pose wearing a size 7 bra, although it’s not exactly easy when she’s wearing a bikini while fighting a man in armor,” she says with irony.

At the same time, Pichelli believes that the emergence of more female editors and writers — and of characters like Ms. Marvel — has shifted the focus from bodies to women’s stories. “I’ve never been discriminated against in my work. But I can’t deny that everywhere I went [in this field], I was surrounded by men. And, of course, there have been fans who’ve told me things like, ‘You draw well for a woman,’” she adds. Pichelli feels something is changing for the better — but more change is needed.

Her difficult relationship with fame, however, remains the same. During the hour-long conversation with this newspaper, she seems very comfortable. Nevertheless, she notes: “I still struggle with media exposure. But I’ve become an expert at putting on a mask.” That’s what happens when you get along with so many superheroes.

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