Drawing Dissent from the Assad Regime to Beirut Uprisings

Abstract This article describes Syrian artist Lina Ghaibeh’s role in establishing the field of Arab comics as a pioneer in Arabic graphic narrative and animation, as an archivist of Arab comics through her role as the founding director of the Arab Comics Center in Beirut, as a creator of personal graphic narratives, and as teacher to generations of university students. The article delves more deeply into her work in the last two capacities: as a producer of comics and as a mentor of young comics students. In both these roles, the article demonstrates how Ghaibeh draws on the heritage of Arab visual culture and merges it with first-person narratives that promote creative expression, while acknowledging the constraints of political repression and instability. Through the juxtaposition of image and text in sequential panels, Ghaibeh summons the reader to participate in reimagining unfolding history in the Arab world. Ghaibeh’s techniques include (1) the use of Arabic script as an embodied, living character that emplaces comics within the Arab setting, (2) the amplification of the first-person voice and shrinking down of state propaganda to size, and (3) displaying challenges to state discourse, and visually recreating that which authoritarian governments have erased and displaying challenges to state discourse.