We were lucky to catch up with Mahour Pourghadim recently and have shared our conversation below.
Mahour, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
My primary source of inspiration for fiction and non-fiction comics is my country’s art, culture, and history. Iran is full of untold stories that must be heard. When I need fresh inspiration for my comics, I turn to folktales, mythology, Persian Miniatures, and the Shahnameh. In addition, the stories of my partner, Sadaf Faghihi, have always been my most important source of inspiration. We have worked closely together for nearly a decade and produced various comic works. We are always trying to narrate a more accurate picture of what is shown in the mainstream media of Iran. When you live in a country with a history of thousands of years, every part of the city, the life of ordinary people, and the works left by the past can stimulate your creative power.
Another source of inspiration for me and many other artists is seeing other creators’ works. I always enjoy reading the work of other comic artists. Besides, who can say that watching a good movie or listening to beautiful music doesn’t spark your creativity?
If I want to be honest, the main challenge of my career is not to keep my creativity alive but to control the passion that wants to do something new every day but has to adhere to professional obligations, deadlines, and various rules and regulations.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
As an Iranian comic artist, my main concern is telling stories originating from my culture in form and content. My partner and I have traveled both fictional and non-fictional paths to reach this goal. The subject of my master’s thesis was Comparative Comparison between Comic Art and Persian Miniature. During this research, I concluded that the narrative method of Iranian manuscript painting is very similar to comics in terms of the relationship between images and between text and image. In addition, three of our published non-fiction comics deal with aspects of Iranian livelihood. Our first non-fiction comic, FortySeven, is a memoir about Sadaf’s work experience at a children’s hospital in Tehran. This work has been published in “Falls and Convocations” by Sequential Artists Workshop. Our second non-fiction, A Thousand Kilometers Away, is about an Iranian Kurdish family who lost their lives while crossing the English Channel for asylum. The Sequential Artists Workshop has also published this work in “In The News Again” anthology. Our most recent non-fiction comic, The Bat, The Spider, and The Chest of Angel Feathers, is a brief history of serial killers in Iran. It became a Finalist in the Negative Space Comics Short Comics Competition and was later printed in their anthology.
We are currently working on two other non-fiction titles. Radiocity, The Tale of a Cinephile Cat, which is a story about a burnt cinema in Tehran, and Wash Your Hands After Reading, the story of Iranian frontline medical workers during the coronavirus pandemic, which will be published in the second Frontline Comics Project Anthology by Graphic Medicine.
In the case of fictional works, we have been more focused on the history of Iran. Our first fictional comic, The Border, received a bronze award in the first Clip Studio’s International Manga/Comic School Contest. After that, we were contacted by a publisher in Iran, and they were interested in publishing our story. The Border turned into a three-volume graphic novel. It’s the story of Mazdak, a kindhearted Persian miniature artist in the 16th century. He is tasked with a crucial mission to help his country escape a terrible war. The first volume was published in 2020 and won the National Book of the Year by Young Authors Award – Winner of the Young Adult Category.
Our second fictional comic, Zal and Roudabah, is a romantic retelling of the Shahnameh with an unexpected twist and has been published in “Rhythms: A SAW Comics Anthology” by Sequential Artists Workshop.
I am currently working on another Iranian historical fantasy story for the new Discord Comics anthology.
I’m a freelancer, which means I’m working on my Comics 24/7, but I’ve always enjoyed doing this. I think the reason is the energy I receive from the audience.
One of the most exciting parts of doing what we do is seeing people’s reactions when they read these stories.
One unique thing about comics is that the reader creates half of the story in their minds when they read between the panels. That makes them engage with the story even more. I think that’s the best part about being a storyteller and a comic artist: being able to make people feel something new.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
In my undergraduate degree, I entered the field of Persian Miniature to learn traditional Iranian design, what was going on in the minds of Iranian artists in the past centuries, and what was an authentic and native image from their perspective. This issue becomes important when we consider that the Middle East is a region that struggles with misrepresentation, orientalism, and exoticism. Representing each part of the Middle East requires a lot of studies, and combining different cultures and putting the name of one of them on all of them does not do justice to the content. (For example, Arabian Nights includes stories from Iran, India, Africa, Assyrians, and the Arabic region).
I owe the second skill I acquired to the one-year course I spent studying at the Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW). For me, comics were just the works of the mainstream. Since comics in Iran face many restrictions, many of us fans are unfamiliar with non-fiction works.
SAW taught me how to show my country through Memoir, Comic Journalism, and Comic Medicine and broadened my view of comics. Everyone can tell their own story and where they come from in the form of comics, whether fiction or non-fiction.
The third skill necessary for me and every other comic artist is consistency—not giving up what we love even when we don’t want to look at it anymore. Making comics can get frustrating and even hurtful. And creating a comic isn’t just about illustration. Several factors, including visual narration, storytelling, world and character building, help a comic come together. It also requires time and energy management to help make it less frustrating.
Beginner comic artists are at the risk of getting bogged down in technicalities rather than producing actual comic pages and telling a story, while a good comic can be created with just a few simple lines. I got an MFA in Illustration from the University of Tehran, only to find out that it wasn’t very vital to doing comics.
My advice is to prioritize telling a compelling story rather than drawing a perfect illustration, start with short projects, and tell stories from personal experiences. If you tell a story about your culture, you must study it thoroughly. And if you are narrating a story from another culture, especially the Middle East, do it carefully and with a fundamental study of the diverse ethnicities in this vast area.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
Working in Iran, a country that struggles with both international sanctions and internal restrictions, has many challenges. Access to many services, products, and training requiring international payments is impossible for us. This is one of the biggest challenges many other artists in my country and I face. However, free comic publishing platforms provide a good opportunity for us to showcase our works. I hope that Iranian comics will gradually gain their place in the world markets and, contrary to the restrictions, international audiences will get to know the stories of Iranian authors.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mahour.arts/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahour-pourghadim/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mahour_arts
