World War 3 Illustrated

World War 3 Illustrated presents a collaborative comic Magdy El Shafee and several Egyptian artists, including WW3I contributor Ganzeer, made for issue #43 of our magazine. It is titled “What No-one Will Tell You (About The Fire At The Science Academy) and captures the mood in Egypt one year after the revolution, under the regime of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces.

Magdy El Shafee was arrested by the current regime in mid-April, freed on bail, and is awaiting trial on trumped-up charges of violence. You can read all of our coverage and updates here (including more comics) and by following the tag #freemagdy

You can buy a copy of World War 3 Illustrated #43 from Top Shelf here.

COMICS FROM TAHRIR SQUARE

Meet Magdy El Shafee, graphic novelist of the ongoing Egyptian Revolution

Saturday, May 11 — 2pm to 4pm — FREE

School of Visual Arts Auditorium
209 East 23rd street, room 311

co-sponsored by the BFA Illustration and Cartooning Department of SVA

Magdy El Shafee’s 2008 graphic novel, Metro: A Story of Cairo has been called the first Arabic-language graphic novel. It was banned by the regime of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and El Shafee and his publisher were arrested, jailed and fined. In 2012, one year after the fall of Mubarak, it was finally republished in Arabic, French, Italian, German and English.

El Shafee has continued to chronicle his own involvement in the tumultuous Egyptian politics of street protest and repression through comics, several of which have now appeared in English in World War 3 Illustrated magazine, the U.S’s longest-running political comix anthology.

In late April he was again arrested with a group of protestors demonstrating against the new Egyptian regime of Mohammad Mursi. After his arrest made international news, he was released on bail, but still faces extreme charges in an Egyptian legal system known for targeting demonstrators.

On Saturday, May 11th at 2pm, at the School of Visual Arts auditorium on 23rd Street in Manhattan, El Shafee will give a presentation via live Skype from Cairo talking about the new movement of cartoonists that has emerged from the Arab spring, about the changing situation in Egypt, about his own case and his own art.

“Egypt is burning.”

This is Magdy El Shafee’s untitled single page comic, drawn approximately a year after the January 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, reflecting on how the military junta that replaced him was scapegoating the protestors who had been the heroes of the revolution. It appeared in print in World War 3 Illustrated #43, which you can buy from Top Shelf here. Translation by Eman Morsi. You can read his comic about the revolution we posted yesterday here.

Magdy El Shafee was arrested by the current regime in mid-April, freed on bail, and is awaiting trial on trumped-up charges of violence. You can read all of our coverage and updates here and by following the tag #freemagdy

WW3I is proud to present Magdy El Shafee’s first contribution to our magazine on the web for your reading pleasure. We had been aware of Magdy’s graphic novel Metro when it was released in Egypt in 2008, and the legal difficulties it faced, so when we started to put together issue #42 of World War 3 Illustrated in the early months of 2011, dedicated to the spirit of liberation that was sweeping from the Arab world to the U.S. and the world over, Magdy was one of the first cartoonists we contacted to contribute. He turned in this 7 page story, “The Anonymous”— dedicated, he said, to the real heroes of Tahrir Square, whose names and faces would never be known.

We are enormously proud to have brought Magdy’s work to print in the U.S. for the first time, and we post this now in the hopes that it will increase Magdy’s visibility and profile in the U.S. after his recent arrest. Although he has been freed on bail, we still want to support Magdy in his upcoming legal battles. We are trying to organize an event in NYC now for Magdy— stay tuned!

You can also follow updates from WW3I on our facebook page, facebook.com/worldwar3illustrated,

twitter account @ww3illustrated

and contact us at worldwar3illustrated @ gmail

You can order a copy of WW3I #42, and all of our recent issues, from Top Shelf by clicking here.

Sabrina Jones presents a slide talk about her new book,

Race to Incarcerate, A Graphic Retelling

at the 15^th Street Friends Meeting on Sunday April 28^th at 1PM.

The audience will also hear from American Friends Service Committee and Milk Not Jails about current actions to resist mass incarceration. 

15^th St. Ministry and Worship Committee presents:

The Race to Incarcerate and Quaker Prison Witness

Slide Talk and Book Release Celebration

Sunday, April 28th, 1PM

15^th Street Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

15 Rutherford Place at 15^th St between 2^nd and 3^rd Aves.

New York NY 10003

How did the US become the world leader in locking its people up?

How are comics part of the solution?

Race to Incarcerate, A Graphic Retelling tackles these questions with the vivid artwork of graphic novelist and15^th Street member Sabrina Jones and the expertise of Marc Mauer, director of the Sentencing Project.

A thoroughly researched analysis of the “war on drugs” and “tough on crime” policies adapted in the form of a graphic novel, Race to Incarcerate may be particularly useful to Friends concerned with prison issues and racial justice.

Come see, hear and discuss how we can engage in this urgent issue.

Books will be available.

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, states in the introduction:

“Do not underestimate the power of the book you are holding in your hands.”

At forty-second meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium…

Peter Kuper will present Drawn to New York— an illustrated chronicle of three decades in Manhattan and New York as a subject for artists— rolling up to the book’s official release in June.

Monday, April 29, 2013 at 7:00 PM

Parsons The New School, 2 West 13th Street in The Bark Room (off lobby).

Kids Drawings For Magdy L Shafee

Sunday morning, as we all waited for news of Egyptian cartoonist Magdy El Shafee, who had been arrested at a demonstration, WW3’s Sabrina Jones shared his story with the children at the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Here are the drawings they produced in support of him. Thanks to Dwight, Kiana, Juliet and Joy! They will be happy to know that he is free again.

Magdy’s brother Omar el Shafie just posted this photo to his Facebook page with the caption: Magdy is free!

Thank you so much to everyone who contacted the embassy or helped spread the word. Magdy still needs our support, as he still faces ridiculous and trumped-up charges. We are going to try to organize an event in NYC with him soon!

TWO EVENTS THIS WEEK IN NYC WITH WW3I ARTISTS

On Monday April 22nd, Sabrina Jones will be presenting on her new book Race To Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling as part of an all-day conference at the CUNY Grad Center titled “Resisting Criminalization through Academic-Media-Activist Partnerships”. Her presentation will be part of a roundtable at 2pm called “Visualizing Big Data, Resisting Criminalization.”

Info about the event here:
http://justpublics365.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Sabrina was also recently interviewed alongside her co-author Marc Mauer on the progressive television show GritTV hosted by Laura Flanders:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lstKXYtRqjA

On Tuesday, April 23rd at 7pm, WW3I editors Carlo Quispe and Ethan Heitner will be joined by longtime contributors Jennifer Camper, Katie Fricas, Mike Diana and Sabin Calvert for a presentation of comics at the bookstore Bureau of General Services - Queer Division for a reading of new comics.
Facebook event page here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/193872390760636/?ref=22
Bookstore event page here:
http://bgsqd.com/event/nyc-comics-underground/