Since the first Facebook-comment on the last post was in English, I’ll switch back once more to being international. Bear with me oh ye Swedish readers.
The exhibitions at Malmö Stadsbiblioteket opened officially on Sunday. A recorder quintet from Malmö Kulturskola played for us and started appropriately with:
There were opening speeches by project leader Caroline Lund and chairman of Seriefrämjandet (main organizer of the festival) Fredrik Strömberg. The recorder quintet played baroque music while the guests mingled and stuffed their faces with snacks and cider. It was nice!
I introduced the exhibitions to the great crowds of interested people (three of my closest friends and my girlfriend). I gave a special introduction to the Arab children’s comics of course. Here’s the exhibited material in low-res:
The Little Arab, by Qindil and Fawaz, © Al-Arabi As-Saghir (Kuwait)
The Adventures of Antara, Zarqaa and Ashab, by al-Hijar, © Fikra (Jordan)
Dracula Wants to Die, by Qurah Bayt, © Al-Arabi As-Saghir (Kuwait)
(Only in the Rosengård exhibition)
Juha the Funny Laugh maker, by al-Bari and Husni, © Dar al-Jayl (Libanon)
Kahf & Mughara, by Saad and Tawfiq, © Basim (Saudi Arabia)
Kaslan Jiddan, by Umar and Rahma, © Majid (United Arab Emirates)
Kaslan Jiddan is a classic character in Arab comics!
The Airplane Expedition, by Umar and Hijazi, © Majid (United Arab Emirates)
(Only in the Rosengård exhibition)
Reem & Reema, by Majaysh and Abod, © Basim (Saudi Arabia)
Shamsa & Dana, by Shafiq and Skahir, © Majid (United Arab Emirates)
One of my personal favorites from Majid magazine. Both style and contents are strange and unique. Another Arab classic!
The Dream Circus, by Farah and Kamil, © Basim (Saudi Arabia)
Imagine if We Lived on the Moon, by Abd al-Aziz, © Basim (Saudi Arabia)
Tanabilat al-Sibyan, by Ahmad Hijazi, © Ala’ ad-Din (Egypt)
Ahmad Hijazi is one of the most interesting creator of Arab comics. This spread is far from his greatest, but it was the only one I could find. His comics are clever, political and satiricial. A bit like the Simpsons, but Arab.
Toota, by Fathi and Salih, © Basim (Saudi Arabia)
I’d like to point out that I didn’t ask the writers and artists for permission to exhibit these pieces of work. I sincerely hope you don’t mind, dear colleagues! That would have been impossible, given the tight time schedule and the fact that I’m doing this 100% voluntary on a zero budget. I’ve been very careful with writing your names and where the comics were published. I just wanted to present to the Swedes a small sample of the comics being produced in the Arab world. Inshallah the libraries will import more Arab comics after this. At the moment Basim is the only magazine available in Malmö.
Shukran jazilan to Muhammad Shennawy and Hischam Rahma for sending me some of the pages!
Al-mukhlis
Shoqi Andreas Qassim
Awsome stuff. Would be interesting to know how big the comics are? Ie to have something to compare with. If bamse and kalle (dunno if they are) are the most popular in Sweden, what is most popular over there?
Sveni! Majid (Kaslan Jiddan, Shamsa & Dana etc.) is the classic Arab children’s magazine. I think it’s still the biggest, selling around 150,000-180,000 copies. Bamse used to be over 200,000 in the old days, but nowadays stays around 80,000-100,000. The Arab magazines travel easily since they tend to use the standard Arabic language, understood by most Arabs. But the Majid figures are modest if you consider that there are ca 250,000,000 speakers of Arabic worldwide, and no more than ca 9,5 million Swedes. We’re a comics and book reading people!
I visit your website on occasion and I must say that I like your templet!muslim baby names
hello sir ,
have a nice comics exhibitions.
can i ask how can i participation in this mag.comics exhibitions.
i will wait yours reply
thanks,
mohammed yunus
arabic comics illustrator
Dear Mohammed, I’m glad you liked the exhibition. It felt meaningful for me to do something about Arab comics. People in the West hardly know they exist! I had a lot of fun making this exhibition. It was in Malmö (Sweden) 26 October – 22 November 2009 during the Comics Festival “I Seriernas Värld”. I re-exhibited the material in Landskrona 1 – 7 March 2010 during their Arabic cultural week at the library. It’s a very small exhibition made on a zero budget, and as for now I have no plans for setting it up again. I wrote an article on the subject for a Swedish magazine covering comics called Bild & Bubbla, which will be out soon, but unfortunately it’s in Swedish. If I ever get the inclination to set up the exhibition again, what would you like to participate with?
Andreas
Pingback: Studio Qassim
Can you tell me in what year this comic was published:
The Airplane Expedition, by Umar and Hijazi, © Majid (United Arab Emirates)
Those pages were sent to me by Hisham Rahma, a contemporary Egyptian comic artist who keeps a collection of old school Arab comics. I would guess the pages are from the early 80s, but I’m not really sure.
Hi,
Im really amaze about your comic masterpiece. I am an expat leaving here in saudi arabia for almost 7 yrs, im a comic illustrator (freelance) in one of the hospitlal as a part of behavioral test for kids. Hopefully, if you have an exhibit again, just do ask my samples of comics too, just
let me make what I’ve been learn about the islam culture and beliefs in a comic form which suitable for kids!
Hi Ely!
I’m happy that you liked the collection. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to follow up on this work. I guess plenty of things have happened in Arab comics culture since I did the exhibition. I hope I’ll be able to make another exhibition, or write about Arab comics again in the future. If I do I’ll let you know.
You’re saying you’re an expat in Saudi. Where are you from? And where can I see your work? Your job at the hospital sounds like a noble one!
Al-mukhlis
Shoki Andreas