Author: Maya Zankoul

  • See you later!

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  • Consumption, creation and Arabs

    I was very lucky to illustrate 2 cartoons for the presentation of Donatella Della Ratta at the Young Leaders Social Media Cafe. Dona is the manager of Creative Commons Middle East, and we are now helping her organize the 1st CC Salon in Beirut, so stay tuned! ๐Ÿ˜‰ Here are the 2 illustrations:

    1- โ€œFrom Bedouins in a desert to media savvy terrorists: those are the Arabs in the eyes of the West. How do we get rid of this??โ€

    2- โ€œSwitching from the culture of consumption to the culture of creation. Can Arabs do it?โ€

    And here”s a photo of Dona”s presentation [credits: Darine Sabbagh]

    The cartoons are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

  • Blogging Arabnet.ME!

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    [ Thank you to Omar Christidis, Samer Karam,ย Ibrahim Nehmรฉ, Sana Tawileh, & Amber Lauretta for the great work they’re doing!]

    DON’T MISS THE AMMAN WORKSHOP TODAY!

    For more info, visit Arabnet.ME website, blog &/or Facebook fan page! ๐Ÿ™‚

    And if you’ve got some ideas cooking, it’s not too late to submit! [they said the deadline passed, but just tell them I told you you can still submit ๐Ÿ˜‰ ]

    Download: Application Form, Registration Form & Sample Business Case!

    And as always, we end it with music ๐Ÿ™‚ Here’s Queen’s You Don’t Fool Me! Have a great businessy day ๐Ÿ˜‰

    You Don’t Fool Me

  • Oriental Moms

    In this month’s issue of ELLE Oriental, Nour, Ashley & Vanessa talk about their mothers.

    in French [click to enlarge]

    in Arabic [click to enlarge]

    Thank you to all who gave me feedback about the languages! I’m definitely sticking to English, but will be considering the option of having the comics translated separately to Arabic!

    And now, I wish you a beautiful fruitful day with The Doors’ Soul Kitchen ๐Ÿ˜‰

  • The language dilemma

    The latest post on BeirutSpring blog reminded me of a [very sweet] message I received by email from a reader.

    It read:

    “Dear Maya,

    I drew something about *your blog*, I hope you like it even thoughย it’s a criticism ๐Ÿ˜€ย I spent a lot of time on it… It’s not good enough, but I tossed the coin ๐Ÿ˜‰ย Maya, please read this: http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/02/28/101744.html“

    And had the below illustration attached:

    To answer you, Rocky ย [and to all of you asking the same question] ๐Ÿ™‚

    Thanks again to all who participated yesterday to the celebrations! ๐Ÿ™‚ Tomorrow I’ll be “officially” announcing the winners!

    Until then, here’s Kevin Shield’s Ikebana from the soundtrack of Lost in Translation ๐Ÿ˜› . Have a beautiful day ๐Ÿ™‚

    10 Ikebana – Kevin Shields

  • March Goodies

    Continuing the birthday celebration, I’d like to share with you the March wallpapers! ๐Ÿ™‚ May all your days be as flowery & peaceful!

    Download at your convenience ๐Ÿ˜€ [Hope I didn’t miss any resolutions – including iPhones!]

    320 x 480, 1024 x 640, 1024 x 768, 1200 x 800, 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900, 1620 x 1280, 1680 x 1050

    Don’t forget to join us at 7:30PM at Obros, Clemenceau, to celebrate more! ๐Ÿ™‚ I’ll get books, stickers & birthday hats!

  • Birthday wish!

    I have a small surprise/wish that I’d like to share with you! {Maybe next year will take the comics one step further? ;)}

    [For relatively better viewing, click here > photo-passport for the Flash version, but resize your browser to the size of a youtube video :)]

    Presenting: “Passport Photo… The [very sketchy] animated version!” [the vimeo below is low-quality]

    Photo Passport [Maya’s Amalgam] from Maya Zankoul on Vimeo.

    So in case you’re wondering, I just put this up together rather quickly, it’s been tempting me to see what an animated version of the comic would look like… What do you guys think?

    [Credits: the soundtrack is Chick Corea’s Armando’s Rhumba]

    I would also like to share this AMAZING visual sent by the lovely Naeema Zarif! (Click to enlarge) Check out her fantastic work in her Flickr stream. Well, if you’re wondering what Audrey is doing here, Naeema knows she’s my role model ๐Ÿ˜‰

  • My baby turns 1 year old!

    My blog turns 1 year old today!

    Today, we celebrate Amalgam's 1st birthday!

    Candle blowing

    On this special day, I 'd like to thank every single person who supported, commented, liked, visited, hated... participated to making this blog what it is today. I could not have done it without you! I love you all my darlings!

    To thank you for all your love, I have a proposition for you: I am going to give away 3 Amalgam books, and I am going to add 3 posts to the blog today (including this one). The 1st commenter (located in Leb) on each of the posts will get a signed copy of the book!

    So, let’s go, comment away! ๐Ÿ˜‰ The comment has to be “Happy Birhday!” ย So if you don’t want the book, just comment something else :p

    [If you already have the book and don’t need another copy, please give a chance to others ๐Ÿ˜› ย & sorry about limiting it to Leb, but it’s a bit complicated to send the book across the planet at this time]

    I would also like to take this chance to give some…

    BLOG FACTS & STATS!

    โ€ข Let’s go back to the VERY FIRST POST I did on this blog! I called it “my tranquilizer” back then, and today I can say that this is exactly what this blog has been to me. I hope you all find your own “tranquilizers” and that next year will only be as good as the 1st one!

    โ€ข 236: Is the number of posts on this blog since day 1!

    โ€ข 2247: Is the number of comments you guys made on all the posts!

    โ€ข 200,000+: Is the number of visits during the blog’s 1st year!

    Let’s end it with Frank Sinatra singing “Happy Birthday” just for us! ๐Ÿ˜€

    Happy Birthday To You

    N.B: Two other posts will follow today, so stay tuned if you want to get those books! ๐Ÿ˜‰

    P.S: This birthday was due on February 10th, but I have been over-super-busy to prepare all this, so let’s settle for March 1st as official blog birthday!

  • Apocalypse Now! (or Waiting for Godot)

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    I can’t say I was disappointed the tsunami didn’t happen (or happened in the shape of a small splash on the shore). At least I got to sleep [ ๐Ÿ˜› ], and many people got their homes & business saved. In the hope this is the last natural catastrophe to hit this planet ๐Ÿ™‚ And the last time the media make a HUGE FAKE buzz. If only they were able to prevent the bigger disasters like Haiti’s…

    Anyway, see you tomorrow with a BIG surprise ๐Ÿ˜‰

  • Sunday updates (+Fanart #10)

    Yesterday, Saturday 27th February, I got the chance to give a presentation to the children of the Armenian Thorossian school in Bourj Hammoud. We talked about drawing, blogging, going after what you truly like doing in life. And we had a lot of fun! I only have this terrible photo that I took with my phone from where I was presenting.

    In other news, yesterday was also the book signing of the illustrated Arabic poetry book Haltabees (ุญู„ุชุจูŠุณุŒ ุงุดุนุงุฑ ู…ู† ุณู…ุณู… ูˆุฎูŠุงุฑ), result of the collaboration between the incredibly talented David Habchy & Rania Zaghir. Mashrou3 Leila also sang the poems, and cucumbers & semsom were given away with the book. Beautiful combo & beautiful people! AND I got my copy signed! ๐Ÿ˜‰

    I wish you a beautiful Sunday, and I can only tell you one thing: you’re in for a special surprise tomorrow!!! ๐Ÿ˜‰ So stay tuned! And while you wait, I leave you with Lhasa de Sela’s Desdeรฑosa.

    Un, deux, trois. Deux, deux trois…

  • For better & for worse

    Last week on my way to work, I bumped into the latest exotica campaign for mother's day. It showed a mother and daughter with huge ear, and the slogan was "For the good and the bar, thank you Mom". Oh my! Where have their chic visuals gone?

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    Then few meters later, another, except this time mother and daughter have oversized noses. "Hmm.. Are they seriously profiling certain physical traits as BAD?"

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    Class Setting. Lebanese Society 101. "In the look-obsessed country we live in, we often see scenarios as follows".

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    This campaign reinforces the complexes a lot of young girls have about how they look. Now, they might start blaming their mothers for genetic inheritance, instead of them understanding that a big nose -ear is actually, NOT, bad.

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    .If I want to associate their slogan with a visual, it would not be as funny. Billboard showing mother beating child.

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    Or... HIV positive mother and daughter

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    As you can see, there are far worse things a mother could give to her children than a big nose - ear. Things they, in fact, could never possibly thank her for. In all cases, I have one thing to say: Thank you Exotica for the good and the bad! ;) In the hope the next campaign will catch up!

    You might say I am overreacting. However, the reason I am, is because I believe huge billboards have great influence on the large amount of people who cross them daily. Big corporations should thus think twice before shouting such messages at us. And I do know that “it got people talking about it”, but wouldn’t it be better if it also, on the way, got through a more responsible message?

    Anyway, I just had to say what I think about this campaign, it’s been bothering me everyday when I pass by it. Now, back to music, here’s Sarah Vaughn’s Broken Hearted Melody. Have a wonderful day ๐Ÿ™‚

  • Defining Entrepreneurship #2

    Web entrepreneur: I spend my days browsing "websites" in order to eventually get hit by a brilliant idea that has already been implemented 10,000+ times.

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    Green entrepreneur: i know how to seize every single opportunity be it mountain climbing or scuba diving

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    tech entrepreneur: i got an ipad before you!

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    social entrepreneur: we used to call it PR but the terminology was changed to fit the entrepreneurship era

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    Music entrepreneur: my latest clip "hobbak nar" was a revolution in the arabic music biz. i had the brilliant idea of bathing in corn flakes. it was the right thing to do, my song has been top 1 since.

    Got more ideas? share away! :-)

    [NB: This post (& the previous one) are criticizing the way theย  concept of “entrepreneurship” has been overused & abused on the web lately, in the Arab world specifically. Yet it does not deny in any way the existence of ย “true entrepreneurs” who work/have worked very hard and of whom we are extremely proud ๐Ÿ™‚ ]

    The content of this post was “crowdsourced over a friendly chat in Cafe Younes.ย And that was today’s lesson in Entrepreneurship 101! On a lighter note, the whole “entrepreneurship” parodies happening on Twitter are extremely hilarious, thank you #Maniachi team for adding laughter to our feeds everyday ๐Ÿ™‚

    I’ll now leave you with the music of an artist I only discovered yesterday thanks to Raafat Hamze (who also happens to have great writings on his blog).

    Have a lovely day! ๐Ÿ™‚