Zina, a young cartoonist, depicts her comics with a “revolutionary” sense

Born in Cairo of Greek-Lebanese parents, taught in Canada, and arrived back to Lebanon, the country of her parents, those aspects made the cosmopolitan profile of the young artist Ms. Pert Zina Mufarrij, the artist who makes Zina Comics, to express herself, and her love, which is not a blind one, to her country, and life in its capital; Beirut.

Recently, the lines of her fans stood in front of the Tawlet (Table) restaurant in Beirut to collect copies of Zina’s new book “ikht hal balad … Chou B7ebbo!” (colloquially spoken Lebanese expression means **** this country…. how I love it)

Zina’s cartoons portray Lebanese society, with chosen characters that form the stereotypical families nowadays. Her criticism is youthful, witty, funny, but also tough.

The book starts portraying the panorama of complicated Beirut. In a close up scenes we follow stories that uncover the hidden situations in modern Lebanon. Zina chose to move to Canada, as many Middle Eastern – specially Lebanese – dreamt of transferring their lives to better ones. But always, they have a foot abroad, and another in homeland. So, on returning they make the compare between three societies that shape the life in Beirut; a part coming from a western country, a part who lives in Lebanon –specially elder generation – and a third part who returns from time to time from a rich Gulf city like Dubai. Situations are built on that mixture, even with an Asian maid as it is a usual scene in the Arab Gulf countries.

We shall meet Madame, the blond virago; Mam, the patient mother, the transmitter of Lebanese culture; and of the hardworking, unobtrusive Coussouma, the Buster Keaton-like Asian domestic worker who never lets on what she is thinking.

What Zina draws is really more than a comic for fun, it is the revolutionary expression by the new generation, a revolution of its own.