Understanding Arab Comics
In a new essay for the Los Angeles Review of Books, I review the comics anthology Muqtatafat and discuss the state of Arab comic art:
AT THIS WINTER’S massive Cairo International Book Fair, one of the most talked about publications consisted of snarky stick figure comics printed on lined notebook paper. The popular web cartoonist Islam Gawish had transformed his illustrated memes into a best seller called Al-Warka or, in English, The Paper. Gawish’s cartoons were already on sale in two volumes at most Cairo bookstores, and his profile had soared a week earlier when Egyptian authorities briefly arrested him, reportedly for operating a Facebook page without a license. He was released the next day without charge, and has continued to draw gags about everything from the government crackdown on youth to an unseasonal heat wave. Since his arrest, Al-Warka has added some 500,000 new fans on Facebook, edging toward two million likes. The book, now in its 12th edition, had sold some 18,000 copies — a feat usually reserved for luminaries like Naguib Mahfouz, and an unprecedented accomplishment for a collection of Egyptian cartoons.
Yet Gawish’s achievement is not entirely surprising. Egypt and the Arabic-speaking press have long appreciated comic strips and cartoons, and for a century readers young and old have devoured them. The Arabic mass media first emerged in the 1920s, largely as social and political satire in humor periodicals or as illustrated political commentary in newspapers and magazines. From the 1950s onward, comics grew in popularity, beginning with children’s magazines, Arabic translations of international superhero adventures, and imported cartoons. By the 1970s, nationalist comics taught children state-approved histories.
Gawish exemplifies a new generation of comic artists from the Middle East. In the past decade, and especially since the 2011 uprisings, talented Arab artists have traded comics for comix. Alternative zines, web strips, graphic novels, and other underground publications encompass a diversity of aesthetics, narrative techniques, and political messages. Today, Beirut, Cairo, and Casablanca each have their own Crumbs, Spiegelmans, and Moulys.
Continue reading at LARB.
