HARRIET FITCH LITTLE July 17, 2013 A love/hate letter to Beirut Mazen Kerbaj publishes his latest comic strip collection Mazen Kerbaj’s mother has been fielding some awkward phone calls over the past few weeks. Her son’s latest book, Lettre à la mère (‘letter to mother’ in English) opens with the line, “Mother died today,” and goes on to describe a level of euphoria at the passing that is certainly not indicative of a happy home life. But look just a little closer, and concerned neighbors can rest easy; the accompanying illustration of Beirut’s iconic ‘egg’ dome should be sufficient to demonstrate that Kerbaj’s unfortunate addressee is not the woman who raised him but rather his ‘second mother’: Beirut. The Egg is just one amongst a host of the battered monuments which illustrate Kerbaj’s strip, drawings which he juxtaposes with the uniform lines and bland exteriors of the glinting glass towers that make up another portion of Beirut’s architectural landscape. Images are accompanied by sparse and what he terms ‘aggressive’ text: “it is not a love letter, it is a hate letter, or perhaps a love/hate letter,” he offers by way of explanation. Although he says he dislikes the term, Kerbaj admits that “poetic comics” is the best phrase he can think of to describe his style. He does not want to tell a story which progresses logically frame by frame, instead each page is intended more as a freestanding vignette on a running theme. https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/features/a-lovehate-letter-to-beirut
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 15:05:07 +0000