Tag Archives: Middle East

Paul Buhle on Comics: Street Noise: ‘Crash Course’ and ‘Power Born of Dreams’

CRASH COURSE by Woodrow Phoenix

POWER BORN OF DREAMS by Mohammad Sabaaneh

Crash Course: If You Want To Get Away With Murder Buy A Car. By Woodrow Phoenix. Street Noise Books, Brooklyn, NY, 2020. 208pp. $16.99.

Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine. By Mohammad Sabaaneh. Street Noise Books, Brooklyn, NY, 2021. 118pp, $15.99.

Street Noise Makes Noise (but in a good way)

Guest Review by Paul Buhle

This is a review about two outstanding comics. But it is first of all a review of a new comics publisher. A veteran of the book trade, founder and publisher Liz Frances, jumped into the fast-changing world of GNs a few years ago, after a considerable career in the publishing industry. She has explained to interviewers that she wants to create books that count, that have both passion and social value. Certainly so, but I see these two books rather differently. Not that I doubt her explanation for a minute. What I think I perceive is a glimpse at a new generation of comic artists and their art.

Neither of these books is particularly close to traditional comics styles, the kind that my older sisters lovingly employed, when I was six, to teach me how to read. I remember more or less precisely that moment in my life. Looking back from a distance of about seventy years, I can easily grasp the big change. Comics are now certain to be “read” in very different ways, sometimes on devices that do not look or act like printed books, although the books on review here are printed. The real change, however, reflects how artists themselves learn and come to see themselves. As Parsons comics teacher and comic artist Ben Katchor reflected in an interview book, a few years ago, the internal logic of the young artist is no longer the world of the drawing board nor any other fixed spot.

Crash Course author/artist Woodrow Phoenix, a British citizen, whose parents emigrated from Guyana, where the CIA overthrew a leftwing government in 1960 and perhaps arranged for the assassination of the rebellious Walter Rodney in 1980, is a very radical person in his own way. He delivers a powerful message to the heads of readers, certainly to mine, in pounding page after page.

Page from CRASH COURSE

How does he do it? Because he explores in words and expressionist-like drawings the things we know, but do not want to think very much about our cars and our driving. Despite being a key form of death and injury around the world, not even to speak of vast environmental damage, driving has dug itself into our brains. Even if we spend maximum time (as I do) either biking or walking, for most of us, the car is always there. It gets us to the grocery store or to a doctor’s appointment, or to “get out of the city” for a while to visit friends and relatives. Not to mention moving distances for major changes in our lives and work. All these could certainly be done without cars. Given contemporary arrangements, only with real difficulty.

But there’s far, far more to it, and at the psychological core, cars have been ingeniously devised and stylized to make up for the insecurities and shortcomings of our individual lives. “Individual” is key here, as he explains, because each driver lives within a second skin, competing with others in the same circumstances for safety, speed, and psychological reinforcement. Merely reciting the names of models recalls the vicarious excitement, exoticism, and terribly real speed, made all the more attractive because the depictions in every media never show anyone in the real, constant traffic jam. In every hour of an average commute, twenty minutes is spent locked in very boring lines, rousing the desire to get ahead of every competing car and to cut corners by going ten or twenty miles per hour over the law or passing in the breakdown line.

All this, as Phoenix makes so vivid, is dramatized by the sheer eeriness of a vast but empty parking lot. And just as vividly by the violent use of cars to run down political demonstrators, acts now apparently made non-punishable. Cars have created non-spaces across the world, at the same time that they have become weapons, in many ways the weapons of daily use.

From POWER BORN OF DREAMS

Power Born of Dreams begins in prison, an Israeli prison, and that is the most fundamental fact of this book. The second most fundamental is the artist’s technique: linocuts, recalling a past era when leftwing artists of the 1920s struggled to make a living outside of the magazine world. As the artist says, “I was unable to carve my name onto the walls of my prison cell.” So, he chooses a kind of carving, to carve the stories of imprisoned Palestinians, on paper.

The lines are spare, the background black. Interrogation goes with confinement, and each reinforce the other. Israeli companies have made themselves world-famous with “crowd control” techniques, tried out mainly in the West Bank against Palestinians protesting the loss of their homes and their land. The artist’s road out of mental confinement is his art. He can see a tree outside and become a tree, for a moment. Then come back to his own reality behind bars.

He is, in real life, a citizen without a country. No Palestinian who lived in East Jerusalem can be allowed Israeli citizenship, not even marriage with an Israeli can make that happen. Leaving East Jerusalem can easily preclude returning, ever. And even remaining in your home means awaiting the dreaded moment when you will be driven out by a would-be Israeli settler insisting that not even a long family history in this spot, this house, entitles you to remain there.

A large part of the narrative is the deeply personal, deeply disturbing story of the artist himself. During the Second Intifada, he set himself on the task of drawing portraits of the dead, drawing the victim in the mortuary, then giving the portrait to the family the next day, at the funeral. A young boy, the brother of one of the victims, asks, “Can you make my portrait?” The artist says no, he only draws the dead, and this boy surely has a long life ahead of him, but learns days later that the boy, too, has become a martyr, trying to avenge his killing of his brother.

“They tore down the tree and destroyed the nest?” is his dialogue among two birds. “Imagine living without a home.” This leads, as it must, to an apparently tragic conclusion: the settlers slice up an imagined Palestinian homeland, in the geographical territory agreed to at Camp David, into slices smaller and smaller, divided from each other so that travel and work, not to mention emergency medical care, become almost impossible.

Things could change, at least theoretically. But a humane outcome could not alter the power of Mohammad Sabaaneh’s artistic descriptions, their capacity, we hope, to open hearts of readers everywhere.

Paul Buhle

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Filed under Comics, Comics Reviews, Graphic Novel Reviews, Paul Buhle

Interview: Ted Rall and THE STRINGER

War journalism ain’t what it used to be.

Ted Rall is a journalist, cartoonist, and columnist. Ted Rall’s new graphic novel, THE STRINGER, is a political thriller that will appeal to readers who enjoy a full-bodied story with twists and turns. Bringing in his own experience as a war correspondent, Rall’s book has a gripping authentic voice that takes the reader on a wild ride with food for thought.

After so much hard luck, Mark Scribner could really use a lucky break. Be careful what you wish for.

A movie version of The Stringer would be something like George Clooney in Three Kings or Jeremy Renner in Kill the Messenger. It’s a gritty vibe; a fable for our overly-disruptive times. Here is an interview with Ted Rall where we cover the creative process and discuss Rall’s collaboration with artist Pablo Callejo as well as tackle the media and political landscape. Today was a particularly interesting news day with President Biden’s first formal press conference. Rall has some observations on that too. This is a guy who takes on the left with as much gusto as he does the right. It depends upon the issue and who is in power. One way or another, you may disagree with him but you can’t say his thinking is sloppy and he’s just phoning it in.

Forget the old tropes. A younger woman and an older man who are just friends.

There’s a friendship that Mark strikes up with Margreet, a female reporter half his age. Running counter to the old romance tropes, they remain just friends. It’s not something that’s emphasized. It just is. And it’s nice to see. Rall is highly opinionated but that doesn’t mean his work is heavy-handed. Often, what I see in Rall is someone who is simply daring to talk about a better world–and that can run against various interests; and a lot of people’s tendency to leave well enough alone. Rall’s attitude is “don’t settle for the lesser of two evils.” Don’t settle on corporate lies. Just don’t settle. That approach is what fuels the best of Rall’s work and that’s what you’ll find in The Stringer.

Visit Ted Rall at his website. For more information on The Stringer, visit NBM Publishing.

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Review: SPRING RAIN by Andy Warner

SPRING RAIN

Spring Rain by Andy Warner. St. Martin’s Press. 2020. 202 pages. $19.99.

The Arab Spring began nearly a decade ago. Graphic artist Andy Warner recalls the predawn of revolution, Lebanon in 2005, in his new graphic memoir. In the span of little over a season, about five months, Warner seems to live a lifetime of experiences during his brief study abroad in Beirut at the age of 21. In his book, Warner sheds away any inhibitions and provides the reader with a confessional tale. This is Warner’s coming-of-age story amid a surreal worn-torn landscape. Anything goes. Sex. Drugs. Anything. To his credit, Warner navigates through all the rough terrain with compelling results.

As much as we might think we know about the Middle East, it’s clear that we don’t know enough. Warner is sensitive to this fact and carefully lays out people, places, and events. Simply for the sake of gaining insight into the region, this book is essential for any age. Through Warner’s adventures, including a mix of backgrounds (students, LGBTQ, foreigners and Lebanese), the reader becomes acquainted with a vibrant and multicultural Beirut. The reader gets a firsthand account of the dynamics at play in the aftermath of the assassination of a Lebanese icon, the tycoon, Rafik Hariri. He swindled billions and created luxury estates. But he also created schools, hospitals, and, perhaps most important, he provided a symbol of hope. Legends, just like memory itself, can be complicated and messy.

Page excerpt from SPRING RAIN

Warner shares as much as he can about his own memories and struggles with mental health, particularly during those intense months in Beirut filled with protests, bombings, and self-discovery. If you read only one graphic novel this year, you would do well to pick this one up. Warner proves to be a reliable and trustworthy narrator and guides the reader on many levels, including the often daunting creative process. Warner’s artwork is an appealing combination of semi-realism and cartoony. It is cartoonists like Andy Warner who rise to the occasion and live up to the potential of the comics medium. In doing so, Warner and other great cartoonists contribute to greater understanding of, and empathy for, the world at large.

Spring Rain is available as of January 28, 2020.

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Review: ‘Haytham: A Childhood in Syria’ by Kyungeun Park & Nicolas Hénin

“Haytham: A Childhood in Syria” by Kyungeun Park & Nicolas Hénin

“Haytham: A Childhood in Syria” depicts a typical Syrian family in clear and accessible terms–and that alone is a powerful vehicle to understanding Syria today. Like many an American family, each individual helps the other to progress. In the al-Aswad family, much is expected from young Haytham. He demonstrates both academic and athletic skill. And he adores his activist father. It is in following this family that the reader is given a unique perspective into how average Syrians live under a dictatorship–and how they resist.

Growing up with the Assad regime.

The story begins with Haytham reveling in the beauty of lemon trees in his family’s garden. By age four, he observes the first signs of threat from the outside world. The dictator Hafez al-Assad has died. Haytham’s father is jubilant. But the celebration is short-lived. Assad’s son, Bashir, takes over control. And so the control of the Ba’ath Party continues and intensifies. The Ba’ath Party is Soviet-inspired, complete with its own secret police, the Mukhabarat.

A graphic novel about Syria that educates and enlightens.

The script is based upon the true story of Haytham al-Aswad. It is written by Nicolas Hénin, a French journalist who was held hostage by Isis for 10 months. Hénin has spoken out against air strikes in Syria, saying they represent “a trap” for Britain and other members of the international community. The reader will appreciate the sense of urgency to this story, an authentic work of reportage uniquely brought to life in a graphic novel format. The story of Mr. Hénin, and his thoughtful views, are very compelling:

Illustrator Kyungeun Park (Yallah Bye) does a heroic job of bringing Hénin’s script to life. Park has a very warm approach to family and character details. The reader is made to feel at home and compelled to invest in the story. Park does great justice to a graphic novel equipped to do much good: to both educate and enlighten.

Kyung-eun Park, Haytham al-Aswad, and Nicolas Hénin

Crossing the border into Jordan.

“Haytham: A Childhood in Syria” is an 80-page graphic novel, black & white with gray tones. This book was originally published in France by Dargaud. You can find it at izneo, the place to go to read European comics in French and in English. Izneo BD Comics Manga is the best app for French-Belgian comics, with thousands of digital comic books. Give the izneo comics reader a test drive right here.

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Filed under Al Qaeda, Comics, ISIS, izneo, Middle East, Syria

Advance Review: BANKSHOT #1 (of 5)

BANKSHOT #1

Alex de Campi (Archie vs. Predator, No Mercy) is a writer you can count on for something with some tooth to it. Her work in comics began with the political thriller, SMOKE, a 2005 mini-series with IDW. Her latest is BANKSHOT, a short series with Dark Horse that finds the reader right in the thick of our current tangled web around the world.

Our anti-hero is Marcus King and he seems to find himself in all the right and wrong places. The end result is that he has become both valuable to some and dangerous to others. King’s story goes back to a military action in the Middle East that put him face to face with the Dutchman, a sort of pirate king, set to plunder what he can during any ensuing chaos. Much more to come regarding this villain. Suffice it to say, Marcus King is a busy mercenary with more foes than friends.

Page #1

Art by ChrisCross (Convergence: Justice League of America) brings home the action as well as fine tunes our connections to characters. Colors by Snakebite Cortez pick up nicely on the atmospherics whether back at FBI HQ, some baked and desolate desert, or a round of heavy artillery blowing everything sky high.

We begin our story back in DC with a dapper secret agent refreshed after a much needed vacation. But agent Gault is in for quite a thrashing by his superiors when they demand to know why he authorized an operation involving the legendary Marcus King. He is strictly hands off! Gault is puzzled at first. He is then provided some very compelling details. Anyway, this is Marcus King we’re talking about. His name alone should give any agent pause. An opening scene brimming with that much intrigue is worthy of any reader’s attention.

Page #2

What you’ll find appealing in this thriller is just the right mix of fantasy and reality. Marcus King is a larger-than-life figure but you can easily imagine that he exists in lesser forms skulking about the dangerous parts of the world.

BANKSHOT #1 is on sale as of June 28th. The Final Order Cutoff for comic book shops is June 5th. For more details, visit Dark Horse Comics right here.

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Filed under Alex de Campi, Comics, Comics Reviews, Dark Horse Comics

Review: ‘Ville avoisinant la Terre’ by Jorj A. Mhaya

Our hero

Taking a global view, there’s isn’t a hotter book right now than “Ville avoisinant la Terre,” by Jorj A. Mhaya. It was originally published in Arabic in 2011 by Dar Onboz. And it has been recently translated into French by Éditions Denoël. This is a gorgeous book and it is only a matter of time before there is an English translation. In the meantime, I would encourage you to seek it out now and get ahead of the pack. If you enjoy the convenience of Amazon, you can find it right here. Let’s take a closer look.

The setting: Beirut, Lebanon

Over years, I’ve enjoyed a number of comics in languages I don’t know well or at all. For example, you don’t have to know French to enjoy the artwork of Blutch or Tardi. And so it is with the artwork of Mhaya. He has a wonderfully sensitive and expressive line punctuated by his use of China black ink wash.

A map for some context.

You will get much of the gist of the narrative by simply following along our main character, Farid Tawill, a typical office worker from Beirut. It may be evident from what you see but, just in case, this man’s world has been turned upside down. On his way home from the office, he finds that the apartment building where he lives with his family has disappeared. Further along his search, he finds his whole city as become alien to him. Like a character out of Kafka, or from an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” our hero appears to be in an alternate reality.

Front cover of “Ville avoisinant la Terre” by Jorj A. Mhaya

Alienation is a favorite subject in art. Edvard Munch’s “Scream” series, first begun in 1893, is the most famous example. And it comes as no surprise that, over a hundred years later, we find Munch quite relevant–feel compelled to add more to the discourse on disconnection–and see how the world has forged some pretty heavy links. It’s not lost on Mhaya from his vantage point in Beirut.

Back cover of “Ville avoisinant la Terre” by Jorj A. Mhaya

Mhaya wants you to feel the surreal quality to his homeland. He has stated that he gained a lot of insight from the photojournalism he grew up with: the urgent black & white news photos during the Beirut civil war in the ’70s and ’80s help to inform his moody ink wash artwork.

Page excerpt from VLAT

How much more absurd can life seem to be than to live in a perpetual war zone? No wonder Mhaya has an obese Batman character chasing our hero down the streets.

Page excerpt from VLAT

What Mhaya has done with this book is set up a vehicle upon which to comment upon the absurdity of life, weaving back and forth from the specifics (his own experiences, views, and concepts) and the general human condition. This is what any great novelist, filmmaker, painter, etc. does on some level: set the stage and then perform. It is certainly a process well suited for a graphic novelist.

Page excerpt from VLAT

So, you can see that you can do very well from just reading the images. Yes, you do want the text. In fact, you do need the text. But we can live with just the images. We see the little hooks that motivate the artist: everything from a close-up of a mangy dog to a close-up of a woman’s pretty feet. This or that panel do not just appear out of nowhere. The dog is a symbol of isolation. The feet are a symbol of release.

Page excerpt from VLAT

It appears that our hero is forced to confront his life in every which way possible: philosophical, emotional, sexual, intellectual. He is not just in an alternate reality. He is in a place that forces him to experience a heightened sense of reality. His choices, what he learns, what he survives, will determine his fate.

“Ville avoisinant la Terre” by Jorj A. Mhaya

And here I am commenting up a storm and I’m only relying upon the pictures! Well, it makes total sense that this book went first with a French translation in order to make the natural progression to being part of the prestigious Angoulême Comics Festival. And now English readers can’t wait to join in. The loose translation in English to this book is “City Neighboring the Earth.” I look forward to that title in the near future.

“Ville avoisinant la Terre,” by Jorj A. Mhaya, is an 88-page hardcover, black & white with tones, translated into French by Éditions Denoël. Find it at Amazon right here.

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Filed under Angoulême, Angoulême Comics Festival, Éditions Denoël, Beirut, Comics, France, Franz Kafka, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Jorj A. Mhaya, Lebanon, Middle East

Review: ‘The Arab of the Future: A Graphic Memoir’ by Riad Sattouf

Arab of the Future Riad Sattouf

“The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir,” by Riad Sattouf, is a must-read for anyone interested in a story that helps to illuminate the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. As I was preparing this review this weekend, Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran over events that heated the tension between the Sunni majority and the Shitte minority. Brought down to an intimate level, in the spirit of Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis,” Sattouf’s graphic novel takes us into a part of the world many of us would like to understand better.

Riad Sattouf Arab of the Future

Riad Sattouf provides us with a amazing tale spanning his earliest years, from birth up to age six, in this first part to his memoirs. Told from a child’s point of view, it is eye-opening and honest. But it’s also told from a no-holds-barred adult’s point of view. Sattouf was a contributor to the controversial satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo. What this extended narrative helps to do is give some insight into a certain way of seeing and a certain sense of humor that may challenge readers the further away they are from the scene. Sattouf is in a unique position to undertake such a work having been born into a family with a Syrian father and a French mother.

No doubt, this is not a sentimental journey. And, while it is educational, this is not suitable for children. I’d say late teens on up. Above all, this is a fascinating story with a whimsical and surprising energy. We follow little Riad literally from his earliest days as a cute towhead frolicking in innocence. And, little by little, we see that innocence chipped away.

Sattouf depicts his father as both bookish/academic and crude/uncouth. His mother he depicts as refined but ultimately subservient to her husband. And Sattouf cannot help but dwell on the backwardness and the darkness he believes he may have witnessed in the Middle East at such a young age. He regularly describes the Arabs he comes in contact with in terms of the sweat he smells from them. While that is more of the child’s-eye at play, it speaks to a special tension the author is dealing with. Sattouf sees himself, like Marjane Satrapi, as an ultimate outsider. As the book’s title ironically states, it is little Riad who is in conflict with the idea of being the Arab of the future.

Aside from the portrait of young Riad, the portraits of Libya under Gaddafi and Syria under Assad are quite interesting. We get a firsthand look at Gaddafi’s attempt at creating a utopia with free housing for everyone. There’s only one catch: you can’t lock your home. So, if someone else comes by in need of a home, and you’re not around, they can take it over. Assad’s Syria, during a relatively peaceful time, looks like a war zone.

Sattouf’s father, full of idealism and for his own selfish reasons, brings his family to live in very challenging conditions in Libya and Syria. To make it worse, Sattouf would be moved back and forth so he had life in Paris to factor in as well. It was to be a life layered in conflict on many levels. Which brings us back to Sattouf’s connection with Charlie Hebdo and its controversy and tragedy. The biggest problem that a provocative one panel gag cartoon has is that it is a provocative one panel gag cartoon. However, with a graphic novel, you have a much better chance to deal with a myriad of thoughts and emotions running a lifetime, running generations. So, yes, this book will provoke. You should know that. But it is definitely worth reading.

“The Arab of the Future: A Graphic Memoir” is a 160-page trade paperback published by Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt. For more details, visit the book’s site right here.

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Filed under Charlie Hebdo, Comics, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Middle East

Review: MIKE’S PLACE, published by First Second

Mikes-Place-First-Second

Jack is a journalist in search of a story. It’s 2003 and Iraq is grabbing all the headlines. However, a set of circumstances finds him considering a story set in the Middle East that does not involve conflict. Enter Mike’s Place, a haven for the young and young-at-heart to unwind and enjoy good spirits and great rhythm and blues right off the beach in Tel Aviv. It will be a decidedly odd twist of fate that places Jack in what proves a most compelling story of conflict, and unbridled optimism.

Building upon their work on the documentary, “Blues by the Beach,” Jack Baxter and Joshua Faudem have taken what they placed on the screen and reworked it for the comics medium. Along with the thoughtful and energetic art of Koren Shadmi, you have a narrative that naturally flows with a life of its own. Shadmi has carefully developed believable characters that the reader hooks into. This is a story, as the cover makes clear, about a bombing. But not only about a bombing.

Mikes-Place-First-Second-2015

With countless acts of violence and terror in the world, it can all seem a blur. As the characters in this story often say, you have to create your own way of coping amid terror. Throughout, the regulars at Mike’s Place are being interviewed for a documentary exploring the real Israel. One standout is Dominique, a beautiful and lively waitress. Her story, on and off camera, is pivotal. When asked about how she copes with bombings, she says that you need short-term memory as an “immune system.” You deal with it at the time and then move on. She proudly states, “That’s the Israeli way.”

But, how then do you make sense of it all if you’re constantly moving on? Well, you don’t completely forget. It seems that a story like the one about Mike’s Place becomes more powerful with each revisit. It seems that Baxter and Faudem had to process what they experienced and recorded into two separate mediums, as a documentary and then as a graphic novel. You sift through the details and sharpen the focus. What happens, once you have a graphic novel of this caliber, is that you find a greater truth.

You have here a straightforward cadence as the story is presented in comics. The layout foundation on the page is two panels on three rows with variations as needed. This is classic comics storytelling and it works quite well. You don’t need much else in many cases. For this story, this framework sort of mimics the camera in a documentary and evokes reportage in general. In fact, you don’t really notice the panel structure as you are immersed into action. Again, Shadmi does a remarkable job with bringing to life these characters. And, as you’ll see yourself, this graphic novel does a remarkable job of clearing away the clutter and getting to the heart of the matter.

You see here Mike’s Place become the center of conflict. A happy-go-lucky gathering spot, seemingly existing out of time and place, comes crashing down. This is the story of such a place. And how people come together once the unthinkable has happened.

“Mikes’ Place” is a 192-page hardcover published by First Second Books. For more details, visit our friends at First Second right here. You can also find this book here, here, and here.

If you are in the Seattle area, be sure to stop by Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery this Saturday, June 13, and meet the book’s cartoonist, Koren Shadmi. This will be a fun event which includes the debut of a new book by local cartoonist, Greg Stump, “Disillusioned Illusions,” published by Fantagraphics. For more details, go right here.

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Filed under Comics, Documentaries, First Second, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Israel, Middle East

Review: THE REALIST by Asaf Hanuka

Hanuka-The-Realist

For the last four years, Asaf Hanuka has been doing auto-biographical webcomics about his life in Tel Aviv, Israel, entitled, “The Realist.” In many ways, this is a pretty straightforward narrative but, as in any life, things can gain, at any moment, a razor-sharp specificity and intensity. This is, after all, one of the most watched war-torn areas in the world.

So, when a morning can simply consist of a father goading his little boy to eat his toast, that already carries potentially more weight than a similar moment somewhere else. That said, Hanuka seems to carry himself like a man on a mission wherever he might live. The Realist has now been collected for the first time in English as a graphic novel, published by Archaia, an imprint of BOOM! Studios.

The-Realist-Hanuka

Comparable to the work of R. Crumb and Daniel Clowes, Hanuka has a keen sense for depictions of everyday life. What really matters is that he’s FUNNY!

I actually laughed out loud from reading his comics. He wears his version of the average Joe quite well. There’s one strip where we follow Hanuka throughout his day, as if following the daily routine of a computer from start up to sleep mode. At each point of the day, he has options to choose: engage or ignore the bus driver, the neighbor, the co-worker, his son, his wife. End. Repeat the next day. It strikes close to home, and it’s hilarious.

They say that if if you try to call attention to your merits, people will gladly ignore you. However, if you revel in self-deprecation, suddenly you have a following. Well, Hanuka definitely has a following. But it’s more than having readers relate to your problems. Hanuka has an engaging style with his artwork. It’s a crisp rendering of his life that you can’t help but want to know more about.

“The Realist” is an original 192-page hardcover graphic novel, priced at $24.99, arriving in comic shops from Archaia on April 22nd with a cover by creator Asaf Hanuka. For more details, visit our friends at Boom! Studios right here.

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Filed under Archaia Entertainment, Asaf Hanuka, Boom! Studios, Comics, Family, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Israel, Middle East, War, Webcomics

Interview: Matthew “Griff” Griffin, Combat Flip Flops, and the Process of Rebuilding

An Afghan Special Forces policeman walks through a poppy field as he searches for Taliban fighters in the village of Sanjaray in Zhari district early April 26, 2008. (REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic)

An Afghan Special Forces policeman walks through a poppy field as he searches for Taliban fighters in the village of Sanjaray in Zhari district early April 26, 2008. (REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic)

It all began with the idea of combining the combat boot with the flip flop, a sort of yin and yang. More precisely, it was about finding peaceful alternatives to war.

One thing that I look forward to once the weather warms up is getting back into flip flops. They can be a haven from the world. But the flip flops that I’m wearing right now face the world head-on. These are Combat Flip Flops. They are more true to their name than you might imagine. And they represent an inspiring story about rebuilding where only chaos and destruction once existed.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Yep, the above flip flops would do anyone proud in terms of style and comfort. But there’s a lot more going on here. Every item created at Combat Flip Flops was made by people from a region that has known extreme conflict.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

These fashion-forward sandals shown above are made in Bogota, Columbia. This is one of the newest items available from this most enterprising company.

Combat-Flip-FlopsThe story of Combat Flip Flops began in Afghanistan when Army Rangers Matthew “Griff” Griffin and Donald Lee had an epiphany. After serving multiple deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, they knew they could do more to help people in war-torn countries. Initially, the focus was to transform a boot factory in Afghanistan into a viable flip flop business. But, that specific plan did not work out the first time out and meant reworking one’s way back with a different product that fit that region’s particular economic base. It just meant that one initial setback led down another path. And this process has led to a venture with a wider, and ever-growing, scope.

Matthew "Griff" Griffin models The Cashmagh

Matthew “Griff” Griffin models The Cashmagh

Support Business, Not Bullets

I got a chance to talk with co-founder Matthew Griffin, who goes by Griff, and he proved to be very confident and enthusiastic about the future of Combat Flip Flops. At one point in our conversation, I noted the arrival of spring and how everyone is ready to venture out in flip flops. Griff’s thoughts went back to the arena of combat. It’s spring that marks the beginning of renewed conflict. And, with that in mind, Combat Flip Flops has been doubling its charitable efforts to war-torn regions all through the month of March. And you could say it has been doubling its efforts in more ways than one. What you find here is a direct link back to helping those in great need. You can listen to my interview with Griff by clicking the link below:

Do visit the Combat Flip Flops site and view the assortment of products offered like The Cashmagh:

The Cashmagh
They say you can leave Afghanistan, but it it never leaves you. Over multiple combat deployments, the shemagh became a necessary tool for shade, warmth, cover, and style. It never left the toolbox. Typically made from cotton or polyester, the standard shemagh didn’t meet our standards for a world class product. So we made one. This 100% Afghan Cashmere Shemagh was born in the mountains of Afghanistan. Produced from the finest cashmere in the world, this endlessly functional accessory shows your global perspective, open mind, and willingness to do what others won’t—support business, not bullets. Lightweight, supple, and functional, this performance cashmere shemagh is fitting from the battlefield to the boardroom. We prefer the latter.

Visit our friends at Combat Flip Flops right here.

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