Posts tagged interview

The Art of Storm-Riding - by Yahia Lababidi

I could not decipher the living riddle of my body
put it to sleep when it hungered, and overfed it
when time came to dream

I nearly choked on the forked tongue of my spirit
between the real and the ideal, rejecting the one
and rejected by the other

I still have not mastered that art of storm-riding
without ears to apprehend howling winds
or eyes for rolling waves

Always the weather catches me unawares, baffled
by maps, compass, stars and the entire apparatus
of bearings or warning signals

Clutching at driftwood, eyes screwed shut, I tremble
hoping the unhinged night will pass and I remember
how once I shielded my flame.

Obsession Sessions with Henrik & Sofia - by Ibraheem Youssef

During my time at SidLee in Montréal earlier this year, I was fortunate to be exposed to such a myriad of national and international talent. Among the inspiring people that I encountered, Henrik Leichsenring & Sofia Gillström are one of the few that stood out amongst the crowd. Not only are they extremely cheerful individuals, but they also are a supreme dynamic husband & wife creative duo. Being around them, one can’t help but feel really motivated to be the best version of themselves and aspire to reach constantly new creative heights. Once again, I’m truly grateful to know such creative talents.

I: What’s the earliest memory of a creative activity you did?

S: I remember thinking I could build a robot, I must have been 5 or 6. I made it out of cardboard boxes. I guess I was disappointed when I realized I couldn’t make it walk or talk.

H: I’ve actually tried on something similar. I was about the same age trying to build a helicopter with just one piece of wood and a hammer. I was hammering on that piece of wood for a while until I realized that wood will never fly. I gave up on that and carried on playing with toys not made by me.

I: If you weren’t doing what you do right now, what would you be doing?

HS: We would be inventors. We would hook up with like minded developers and business savvy people and make cool shit happen. In fact, that’s the next step for us I believe. We have a lot of ideas we want to see come to life, you know walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

I: Inspiration, who? what? where?

S: Maybe the most obvious answer right now, but Steve Jobs was an amazing smart and creative person. I guess you don’t appreciate people as much when they’re alive as when they pass away.

H: I get inspired by people around me that is about to move to new places, take on new challenges, getting into the unknown if you will. People taking risks in general inspires me and broadens my mind.

I: Share any of piece your work, recent or old and talk about it.

HS: Mixable Dancer is probably our favorite work up to date mainly because it was an idea we had that we could execute by ourselves in our apartment. It was a cool experience that you could make a lot of buzz on the internet with a simple idea that didn’t cost us more than a rabbit mask to make.

It is basically an interactive YouTube video where the user mixes the song and visual. It has almost 100 000 views today and the reaction on blogs was great and we even got an interview on Underwire (Wired magazine blog). We have a dozen ideas like this waiting to get started on, just need a few more people in our network to make it happen. Good times!

I: Name 5 websites that you check often.

S: Facebook and twitter is the first thing I check, there I have a collection of all my friends cool links. Buzzfeed gives me a daily dose of LOLs and other cool stuff. I get design inspiration from sites like Behance, awwwards and ffffound. Dvice is my favorite site to get insights about technology and some insights for what the future holds. I’m all into fashion and pop culture, and the Nylon blog does a good job of bringing me both.

H: Same here, I get my daily dose of cats out of twitter, Facebook and YouTube like everyone else. Lately I’ve been working on web related projects so I’ve been camping on sites like awwwards, siteinspire, cssdsgn and similar for cool stuff to steal. Lastly I spend a lot of time on feber (fever) a Swedish blog about everything news worthy.

From Berlin with Love

Part of Spring Lessons is not just documentation, but active participation in giving people a voice and finding simple, yet effective ways of doing so.

In this case, noticing that demonstrations in Berlin consisted mostly in a lot of shouting at walls, a team went out to give the participants in a demonstration in front of the German Foreign Office in Berlin the possiblity  to relay their statements directly to Egypt. We shot about 35 15- second segments, recording the name and demand of the individual interviewee.

Thanks to the hard and wonderful work of Kareem Kandiel, who shot and edited this. Marianne Wagdy, translator extraordinaire is responsible for the subtitles.

I hope other Egyptians across the world will take up this idea and emulate it.

[Originally published on CaramK.blogspot.com on November 29, 2011]

Obsession Sessions with Joel Lazano - by Ibraheem Youssef

Welcome to another round of obsession sessions. The inspiring person I decided to introduce everyone to today is Spanish talented soul Joel Lazano. I discovered Joel’s work about a year and half ago when browsing through a myriad of design blogs. It was bookmarked at first sight. I was fortunate enough to secure some of his time for a brief Q&A.

I: What’s the earliest memory of a creative activity you did?

J: In primary school I used to make posters for the classroom and at 12, I started in graffiti’s world, due to my interest in illustration, typography and calligraphy.

I: If you weren’t doing what you do right now, what would you be doing?

J: I would probably go to Japan to be a sushiman, or be a cook; it is as close to graphic design that exist.

I: Inspiration, who? what? where?

J: To inspirate and have a clean brain, traveling around works to me. this charge my batteries! but the truly inspiration comes when I am sleeping: when I get to bed, before falling asleep, i think in the current project and when I wake up, I found the way.

I: Share any piece of your work, recent or old and talk about it.

J: Self-portrait for “Other mirrors”, an exhibition of Sonar and OFFF.

It is a representation of my world and how i am absorbing what is around me. This piece was created with an Illustrator plugin designed specifically for the occasion by my collegue Flan (in the project Overtype studio vol.1)

I: Name 5 websites that you check often.

www.google.com, www.vimeo.com, www.ffffound.com, www.cargocollective.com, www.behance.net

[first published on http://blog.ibraheemyoussef.com/ on October 17th, 2011]

Obsession Sessions with Ahmad Abdal Moneim Abbas (aka. Monty) by Ibraheem Youssef

I’d like to introduce everyone to a long time friend of mine, Ahmed Abdel monem a multi-talented Egyptian artist/designer that always try to explore new boundaries and creative venues. Aside from being witty and humourous, Ahmed who is also known as “Monty” is a really inspiring individual. I’ve known Ahmed for 11 years, we first met at the college of fine arts in Zamalek, Cairo and we’ve been actively in contact with one another throughout the years.

I: What’s the earliest memory of a creative activity you did?

A: The earliest creative thing I remember is when I was a child may be 9 or 10 years old I got some a5 papers from my neighbor Sherif Mokbel who was my first inspiration. So I drew a story about the Ninja Turtles meeting RoboCop .

I: If you weren’t doing what you do right now, what would you be doing?

I would be an Aviator.

I: Inspiration, who? what? where?

Who: Sherif Mokbel – Ashley Woods – Hesham Ellabban – Hussein Faheem – Mouneer Al-Shaarani

What: Radiohead – Pink Floyd – Daft Punk – Street ads in Egypt – blublu – Obey gaint – Posterboy NY – Charles Burnes – Frank Miller

Where: London – Nwaybaa taba – Paris – Berlin – Milan – japan

I: Share any of piece your work, recent or old and talk about it.

Border of Change - After the start of the Egyptian revolution on January 25th, a new era for me and all the Egyptians living right now. We are moving through a lot of different situations, so I wanted to develop a form of how we can get through this Transitional phase.

I: Name 5 websites that you check often.

http://themill.com/, http://studioaka.co.uk/, http://www.notcot.org/, http://universaleverything.com/, http://www.iamnotanartist.org/

Obsession Sessions with Daniel Julien - by Ibraheem Youssef

It’s time for the second obsession session with none other than one of the most inspiring and interesting people I’ve met to date, Daniel Julien. A graphic designer, actually a modern day DaVinci based out of Montréal, Canada. He knows no limits when it comes to exploring new creative boundaries, from product design, posters, identities to anything that oozes coolness, daniel does with swagger and a smile. I met him a couple months ago during a multi-week stint at creative powerhouse SidLee in Montréal while working on the next global creative campaign for adidas, I’m privileged to know such a positive person.

I: What’s the earliest memory of a creative activity you did?

D: I believe I made a Two Ply Eight Part Button Knot with the umbilical cord when i was born.  Second souvenir is probably drawing supernova military space stations and all-terrain trucks. They seemed so real in my mind — wonder how the drawings actually looked…

I: If you weren’t doing what you do right now, what would you be doing?

D: Probably Djing (so predictable). Been fascinated by turntables and records since I was a shorty. My father would get mad at me, I would crank some christmas disco songs and Greek dance music all day ‘eer day. Or maybe private investigator, yeah, private investigator.

I: Inspiration, who? what? where?

D: Mostly inspired by small things, the unnoticed. Wherever my attention deficit brings me. In crush mode when all is hectic and the deadline is giving me the cold shoulder – panic overcomes and then I realize that the solution has been in front of me all the time.

I: Share any piece of your work, recent or old and talk about it.

D: I was ask to build a logo for a collabo between Furni and Ken Diamond — Almost carte blanche. Only constraint,  It had to link Montréal and Vancouver. Printed on an hanker chief and laser etched on a pale leather wallet. Really into product design lately and many fun opportunities are coming thru.

I: Name 5 websites that you check often.

D: www.meteomedia.com, www.theworldsbestever.com, www.garywarnett.wordpress.com, www.smashingalltoys.com, www.thefuckingwordoftheday.com

Obsession Sessions with Jonathan Mutch - by Ibraheem Youssef

For the past few weeks now, graphic designer Ibraheem Youssef has been doing weekly Q&A’s with designers he admires, and posting them onto his blog. The questions are short and standardized, but from the responses of Ibraheem’s subjects you are given a lot of insight into the different ways a designer can think and operate.

Rolling Bulb will be republishing Ibraheem’s Obsession Sessions in order to bring it to a wider audience. Alright, let’s give him the stage.

This week, I’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Mutch, a young uber talented graphic designer that I randomly met over the internet. We were both pleasantly surprised that we also found out that we both live in Toronto. I’ve known him for two years and he’s been inspiring me ever since.

I: What’s the earliest memory of a creative activity you did?

J: I think the first time I really fell in love with design was when I was in the sixth grade. We were supplied with these white binders to hold some of our projects for the year, and were asked by our teacher to design them. I brought in a few issues of Mountain Bike Action and Car and Driver and cut out my favourite bikes, cars and logos and decorated the hell out of that binder. I loved every minute of it. I loved aligning the logos on the spine, the loved the overlapping shapes and colours, and I loved the textures formed by the cut outs and the decoupage. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that I could do basically the same thing, for money.

I: If you weren’t doing what you do right now, what would you be doing?

J: I was always unsure what I wanted to be. I wasn’t passionate about anything career-wise until quite late in my life. To be honest, I have completely no idea what I’d be doing. Perhaps a photographer.

I: Inspiration, who? what? where?

J: I find inspiration from many things, but mainly talking to friends, colleagues and fellow students. I also collect a huge amount of images from various sources online. I have found most of my strongest ideas come to me when I’m doing something completely un-design related, such as cleaning my apartment, exercising or just walking to school. Getting away from the computer, sketching out ideas and just talking about the project with friends has helped me so much, and is something I wish I started doing sooner.

Designers that are inspiring me at the moment are:

Michael Cina, Network Osaka (Derek Kim), ISO50 (Scott Hansen), Olly Moss

I: Share any piece of your work, recent or old and talk about it.

This piece was done for a type class last year at OCAD. I recorded 12 hours of my day and went exploring in Toronto’s west end. I documented what I saw, what I ate, who I spoke to, what I listened to, how far I walked, etc. It was a hugely challenging exercise but I felt it paid off. I restricted myself to one typeface (DIN) and 1 colour. The project took many forms before this final iteration was created, and I felt I improved as a designer in the process.

I: Name 5 websites that you check often.

reddit.com, ffffound.com, iso50.com, Facebook.com, reform.lt

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This interview was first published on Ibraheem Youssef’s blog on September 19th, 2011.

An Afternoon with Sad Panda by Suzeeinthecity

[Sad Panda across tank vs boy on bike by Ganzeer, Across from Al Ahly Club, Zamalek]

We meet under the most peculiar of circumstances.  I’d been in touch with Sad Panda over Twitter about photographing his graffiti in the Cairo area of Masaken Sheraton; yet I, having the mental compass of a duck in the desert, get immediately lost. So he puts me in touch with a friend called Hatem, who will show me Sad Panda’s work in the neighborhood, but first Hatem asks me if I’d like to see a graffiti artist cutting up stencils. I say yes.

Five seconds in his living room and I realize Hatem is Sad Panda. The poster of a large panda being cut up on the table kinda gives it away. When probed, he demurs and says something along the lines of ‘Why does Sad Panda have to be a person? It could be a group, or a theme, or an entity. Maybe I send stencils to someone in Holland to use them there; they could be Sad Panda there.’

He chain-smokes, his mother offers me cold orange juice, I try not to step on the cat lazing on the floor, and I snap away at my camera as he patiently cuts through the outline of his new stencil.

This is why I find him peculiar, or better, intriguing. For someone who says he isn’t a people’s person – he avoids public transportation and crowded spaces, which make him seriously depressed to the point of a phobia – he is incredibly friendly and warms to me instantly like he’s known me for years. And for someone who says that he is depressed a lot and ends all his tweets with a sad face, he is surprisingly good-humored and easy going. He’s somewhat paranoid about his true identity being revealed, and asks me not to take photos of his face or disclose details about him, a common strain that I find in other graffiti artists I’ve met.

Just get him talking about his graffiti and he loses the paranoia and talks animatedly.

‘It’s like cocaine to me,’ he says. ‘When you can only do a small amount of this substance or else you overdose, so you keep increasing the dose inch by inch until you slowly reach the point if you took one more dose; you’re done. And then you go into rehab and you get healed, and you leave so that you go back to taking small doses of cocaine. That’s how I see graffiti. The point is you make art, and then it gets removed, so you make more.’

‘It doesn’t matter to me if the graffiti gets ruined or painted over, ‘ he adds. ‘The point is that the art is made, then it is seen, then it is destroyed and painted over, then it is made all over again. ‘

He came up with the sad panda persona because that was his nickname in school, due to his size and his melancholic demeanour.

‘There was not a single wall or desk in school that I hadn’t drawn a panda all over,’ he laughs. ‘Technique comes with practice. If I showed you my first graffiti piece, it should be torn apart now. ‘

His neighborhood of Masaken Sheraton is his playground, his turf where he can paint freely to little if any reproach. We drive through the winding streets, as I spot a pair of eyes peeking from a lamppost, a Baradei head on a telephone box, Suzanne Mubarak, Fathy Sorour and Zakareya Azmy on electricity boxes. And of course, the proverbial panda shape everywhere.

‘You know, the day after I made the Suzanne Mubarak poster, she got arrested,’ he giggles, ‘As if my little poster in Masaken Sheraton brought Mama Suzanne down.’

He doesn’t like his art to be pigeon-holed or politicized, even if it is political.

‘Someone wrote about my graffiti and analyzed it as the political panda. What is a political panda? How can a panda be political?!’

He prefers to focus on the comedic element of his work, and avoids work that spells out its message.

‘The concept is ‘this art is mine.’ That’s how I see it. I want to make a statement that could be interpreted as political, but I don’t want to have force my message down people’s throats. If I did, I’d get a microphone and roam around the streets, yelling at people till they get my point.  That’s the difference between being an activist and an artist. When Picasso painted the Spanish civil war, he made Guernica, and he painted it from his perspective. The way he saw it, not the way the war was. ‘

Hatem uses relatable local personalities in his images that the average man on the street can understand: Saad Zaghloul, Adel Imam, the politicians, the protestors, the military; all accompanied by a small panda doodle at the bottom as his signature. One exception is Che Guevara the Salafist, an icon that not necessarily everyone in Egypt would recognize.

‘If you see Ahmed Adaweya holding a machine gun, at least the average man on the street will like it and try to figure it out.’

He adds that the Egyptian culture lacks street art sophistication, and the only posters and banners people are used to seeing are of political banners or posters for elections.

‘That’s the only background knowledge they have,’ he says. ‘So to put up posters and tell them that this is art, they will think: ‘So what? What am I supposed to do with it?’ If you paint something they don’t even understand, they won’t even take pleasure in seeing the artwork. Ahmed Adaweya I know and understand , and I will be happy to see a graffiti piece about him. Our art has to be related to us somehow. ‘

Things have changed for Hatem’s graffiti escapades since the revolution. Before he had to be careful and clandestine, and work in the dark, now he can paint on main streets in broad daylight.

‘When [people on the street] find me painting a panda, they don’t really react much, it’s not like I’m painting the mask of freedom, it’s just a panda,’ he insists.

There is no clear law criminalizing vandalism in Egypt, merely a law prohibiting destruction of public monuments and private property, as far as I know. Your maximum fine is 50LE if you actually get caught, and you may be forced to repaint the wall you just spoiled.

‘But you won’t be condemned to death for graffiti,’ he shrugs.

[Safwat El Shereif danger sign.]

[Gamal Mubarak danger sign.]

[Muammar Gadagi gets the McDonalds treatment, ‘Leave Ali’ the woman’s sign reads. Located right across from McDonalds Merghani.]

[One of his first posters to go up under Merghani Bridge, this piece dates back to around the January 25 revolution. He’s surprised it lasted that long.]

First published at SuzeeInTheCity.WordPress.com on July 11, 2011

City Structures and Human Narratives or City Humans and Narrative Structures / A Chat With Francesc Ruiz

Comics are seldom thought of as a form of sophisticated art, even with the efforts of other-worldly masterminds such as Alan Moore, who has, for example, dedicated an entire chapter of his 1987 graphic novel Watchmen, to comment on the perception of time. But even Alan Moore’s very groundbreaking experiments fall within the traditional constructs of a commercial comic book story narrative.

Francesc Ruiz is a contemporary Catalan artist who uses the comic book storytelling medium in contemporary art practices traditionally reserved for installation and performance artists. In one exhibit, Ruiz displayed open pages from a variety of comic-book versions of the bible from around the world. Laid out in a long glass box atop a table, Ruiz placed open pages from copies of a comic book of his own between these comic book bibles. His own comic featured random exhibition visitors looking at these laid out bibles and commenting on them.

Another work of Ruiz composed of large murals, each mural acting as a comic book panel, with life-sized characters and dialogue balloons, but also acting as massive mirrors, illustrating the background as a reflection of the gallery space and the characters as reflections of imaginary gallery visitors. As such, Ruiz’s work delivers immediate social commentary, forcing people to look at themselves, through these smart, playful installations that use the comic book medium as its form of commentary.

It seems that Ruiz’s comic book experiments are not only space-specific, but even time-specific as well. To truly enjoy his work the way its meant to be, the viewer has to be then and there when the comic book installation happens.

An example from “Funhouse”, 2009, Francesc Ruiz’s mirror panels. 

Visitors experiencing Ruiz’s “Funhouse”, 2009.

Ruiz creates a comic book narrative out of a city map.

Sitting with Francesc Ruiz at a downtown coffee shop in Cairo, I ask him whether he considers himself a contemporary artist, or comic book artist.

“I started out doing cardboard models of buildings in Barcelona in the contemporary art world, recreating special parts of the city. Meanwhile, I used to also write poetry about how I was feeling in the city, commenting on the function of the city and whatnot, and then I decided to play around with drawing. I thought I’d try my hand at expressing my ideas regarding the human relationship with the city through drawings, so I decided to draw the inside of a big building.” 

Francesc Ruiz’s massive B&W Xerox of life in a building, El Corte Inglés and the Barceló-Sants Hotel, 2000.

Detail from Ruiz’s El Corte Inglés and the Barceló-Sants Hotel, 2000.

What Ruiz did was basically draw what architects call “an elevation,” but within the complex structure of the building, he drew “characters going about their day in the building, dealing with the building and with each other,” he states. “I found it uncannily similar to comic book narration, and got into the habit of looking for a link between this form of narration and the structure of the city. In conclusion, I only really got into comics through my contemporary art practices, which makes me much more of a contemporary artist than a comic book artist.”

A hesitant Ruiz then goes on to admit “I don’t think I’m a very good comic book artist. Professional comics are very much concerned with high illustrative qualities, whereas I’m more interested in what I can offer in the contemporary art world, using comics as a medium of ideas.”

You can tell Ruiz has a passion for comics, and strong admiration for the detailed skill and dedication eminent in professional comic book illustration. It’s like he’s almost longing to be up to par with that cult league of comic book super artists, yet there is an obvious content regarding his experimenting with comic book forms in a liberated contemporary art atmosphere. 

Francesc Ruiz’s “Winter Garden,” 2007, an installation that uses a comic book to give garbage a voice.

“On the other hand,” he declares, “people from the comics world have been contacting me to take part in their universe. For example, there’s a biennale in France called Le Havre that explores the relationship between comics and contemporary art.” He humbly lets me know “I’m fortunate enough to have been invited to participate. Another initiative is Creative Time Comics, a website based out of New York City that invites artists to capture and comment on the here and now within a 9-panel grid.”

Like the subjects in his comics, Ruiz is physically expressive. His back arches a little bit, and his eyes squint just about enough to let me know I’m about to hear some words of sincere wisdom. “They have of course decided to do a biennale like this because they’ve noticed something; comics are being accepted as a true art form. Comics have expanded beyond their norms, and everything can be read in terms of comics. You can walk around the city and use the elements around you to read a narrative. It could be billboards, advertisements, peoples’ t-shirts, or consecutive shop windows, reading shop windows like comic book panels.”

“Historically,” he continues, “fine art has always looked down on comics. Even pop artists never really delved deep into comics. They only adopted the look of comics on the surface, absolutely neglecting the logic and grammar behind comics. They really had little to do with comics at all.”

Drowning Girl by Roy Lichtenstein, 1963. Roy Lichtenstein used the splash page of a romance story in DC Comics‘ Secret Hearts #83 (November 1962), lettered by Ira Schnapp, as the basis for the image.

Francesc Ruiz is anything but an unfair criticizer. He praises the work of abstract painter Ad Reinhardt saying “ when he did comics, he really did comics. It was about the commentary he could deliver through comics, not just the look of comics.”

Ad Reinhardt’s “Please Teach Me To Draw Like You.” Comic strip, early 1930s. Courtesy of Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

Ad Reinhardt hangs his black paintings to dry, New York, 1966.

“On the other hand, comic book artists and authors are far from the contemporary art world, and tend to ridicule it almost religiously,” he jokes. “It’s quite funny, because it contradicts a bit with comic book artists’ view of themselves as a lower class of artists. It’s no secret that comic book artists obviously consider themselves less than filmmakers, who are really people who use another medium to tell stories. It’s really silly, because both are mediums of expression, each with its own strengths in terms communication and impact.”

Ruiz desires all art forms to be considered on the same level. “They’re all cultural productions,” he contends. “You can do something creative in any medium, and they’re all great mediums. But things are changing now, because more and more people are operating between several mediums. Yet, it’s still expected that yes, you can either create a commercial film or experimental film, but when it comes to comics, it’s just comics in the commercial sense. You can obviously also create an experimental comic, the same way you can create an experimental film. You play around with the storytelling medium, and try new things, especially with the emergence of new technologies; like the iPad. Because flipping through pages is very much a part of the comic book reading experience, the iPad is the perfect technology for adopting digital comics. The storytelling mechanisms of comics would have to be adjusted a bit to become ideal for the iPad, but I think the iPad will be great for future comic book experiments.”

Demonstration of Marvel Comics’ current iPad app. Courtesy of TheMelaVideo.

So according to Francesc Ruiz, comics will never die. “Comics is just another medium that  adopts trends and technologies just like other mediums.” With an almost childish fascination, he brings up “South Korea, for example, is a place that has a very interesting relationship with comics and digital technologies. Did you know they have comic book rental clubs? Just like a video rental clubs, you go and look through their selection of comics, rent what you want, read it at home and bring it back. An obvious adoption of the digital age over there is their video game olympics. The marriage between comics and the digital age there can be seen in their invention of ‘Line Comics,’ which are comics based on computer scrolling habits; the panels are border-less and read from top to bottom in a scrolling fashion, the same way you would scroll down to read through any website. Comics are changing. You can see in Japan how so many things are being done to popularize comics for girls.”

He pauses for a second, eyes darting left and right, almost cartoonishly making sure the coast is clear enough to reveal what seems to be a big secret “I’ll tell you something,” he quietly hums, “female comic book creators in Japan started making a type of comics just for female readers. It’s called Yaoi, and its all about sexual relationships between gay boys. Boys with other boys… fucking.”

Random “Yaoi” example. Courtesy of The Yaoi Review.

“Comics are changing,” he reassures me.

So what brings this comic book connoisseur to Cairo? During his talk at the Contemporary Image Collective ‘s new space on May 4, 2010, Francesc revealed his intent on creating a downtown narrative between some of the popular characters that have bestowed Egypt’s short comic book history. The now defunct Flash featured a widely popularized character known as ‘The Ground (crushed) Citizen.’ This sad depiction of your everyday Cairene will appear alongside Samir, Tintin, and Donald Duck on the streets of downtown Cairo on a path mapped out by Ruiz. Their walk-and-talk will offer commentary on the state of Cairo through the juxtaposition between the forever young knowledge of the long-lived Samir, the series of unfortunate events that used to face the now-dead Ground Citizen, the colonialist background of Tintin, and the American presence of Donald Duck.   

Donald Duck, Samir, and The Ground Citizen in a preview of Fracesc Ruiz’s upcoming Cairo comic experiment.