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Free Comic Book Day: How UAE-based artists are rewriting visual storytelling
02 May 2026 01:19:36 GMT9
02 May 2026 01:19:36 GMT9
As the world celebrates Free Comic Book Day on May 2, the Emirates Literature Foundation brings together three UAE-based comic artists to explore how nostalgia, memory, and place shape the stories they tell — and why comics remain one of the most powerful forms of self-expression today.
For multidisciplinary artist Manar Laham, it started with Majid Magazine: “Every Wednesday, there was a man outside my school selling it,” he recalls. “I’d save my money and run to buy it. It wasn’t just about comics — it made me fall in love with storytelling.”
Anna Thackray remembers the moment vividly: “My father brought home a box full of comics and I was immediately transported. From then on, I was Superman, I was X-Men. I remember the colors, even the smell.”
For Mohammad Yousuf Al Shaibani, visual storytelling arrived through animation at an early age: “I was four years old when I watched Devilman. That was the moment I realized how powerful images could be in telling stories.”
The UAE plays a defining role in shaping each artist’s creative voice, but the paths that brought them here are as varied as the stories they tell.
Manar Laham, a Syrian artist who built his comic career in the Emirates and now teaches at the University of Sharjah, still remembers the thrill of being recognized as a young talent after winning a national art competition.
Mohammad Yousuf Al Shaibani, a Dubai-based Emirati and member of Sandstorm Comics, traces his love of storytelling back to childhood evenings in his grandfather’s majlis, gathered around old VHS tapes that sparked his imagination.
Anna Thackray, originally from South Africa, journeyed through Bahrain before settling in Abu Dhabi in 2017. The capital city’s layered landscapes — its wildlife, its quiet rhythms, its easily missed details — have become central to her visual language, and she was quickly recognized as one of the UAE’s pioneer female comics.
She adds: “Abu Dhabi has so many different layers. I live in Saadiyat, I see Dhabis (gazelles) everywhere — on the roads, in the gardens. Even the foxes. I find myself wondering: what is that fox doing? It must have a family, a story.”
Together, their experiences reflect the multicultural fabric of the UAE — a place where different histories, identities, and memories converge, and where each artist finds a distinct sense of belonging that shapes the stories they bring to life.
These comic artists, brought together by the Emirates Literature Foundation, remind us that comics are more than entertainment. They are a way of preserving memory, expressing identity, and telling stories rooted in place — one panel at a time.
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