Samandal Comics collective launches new comic series on Instagram

It is called "Catastrophe" and is scheduled to be launched on 15 March. The directors of this project are Lebanese illustrators and cartoonists Karen Keyrouz and Nour Hifaoui Fakhoury. Eighteen artists are participating: Tracy Chahwan, Ghadi Ghosn, Balsam Abo Zour, Rawand Issa, Georges Torbey-Sbete, Barrack Rima, Jana Traboulsi, Carla Aouad, Yara Asmar, Muriele Honein, Hussein Nakhal, Sandra Ghosn, Nader Bahsoun, Joseph Kai, Carla Habib, Shakeeb Abu Hamda, and of course Nour Hifaoui and Karen Keyrouz.

Samandal is a collective created in 2007 by Léna Merhej, Omar Khouri, Hatem Imam, Tarek Nabaa and Fadi Baqi. This quarterly magazine encourages artists to create comics. The magazine is participatory, and the three languages spoken in Lebanon - Arabic, French and English - have their place. Over the years, it has brought together a large number of young illustrators from the Arab world, but also from Belgium, France, Brazil, Bulgaria, Serbia, Canada and the United States. It now has around 120 artists. The collective was awarded the Alternative Comics Prize at the 2019 Angoulême International Comics Festival.