In the beginning of July, I was commissioned by the Italian magazine Internazionale to do two pages of comics on the subject of my choice. The deadline was the 20th of July, but the story would appear in the end of August issue. I proposed the only two subjects that mattered to me at this point: the catastrophic situation in Lebanon or the Corona pandemic, and I insisted that the story should be printed in the same week it was done, because in one month many things could change in both cases.
I ended up doing A Subjective History of Lebanon, two very dense pages where i managed to fit most of the recent history of Lebanon. The story appeared in Internazionale on the 24th of July, and the only thing missing from it was the explosion of the 4th of August that had yet to take place.
Today, a month and a half later, I am publishing this story in a screen-friendly scrollable english version on Words Without Borders. After a long hesitation, I decided not change the end of the story, but rather to add this new “episode” of our glorious history as an epilogue; I think it shows better, and in real time, how the Lebanese situation can/will always surprise you.
Hi Mazen,
I begin to understand why you call yourself a pessimist! How came your choice of Berlin?
cu soon, hopefully
Marcus
hahaha yes marcus, this story kind of put my eternal pessimism in perspective.
why berlin? the easy answer would be: because i got an artist residency to come spend a year here with my family, then we decided to stay. but it is actually more complex than that. maybe i will talk about that here one day, but probably we will talk about it live next time we meet!