postcard of the 31st Diamond Pepper Festival
- NEWS
- Sat, 9 Sep 2023 13:54:20 +0330
Artist
Biography
Mohamed Al Zawawi -Libya
Mohamed Zwawi, considered to be the father of Libyan cartooning, comics, and animation, was born in the suburbs of Benghazi in 1936. He began his career as an illustrator at the audiovisual department in “The Fourth American Station,” and later moved on to work with the Libyan Ministry of News and Guidance.
In 1963, he joined Al-Idha’a magazine in Tripoli, where he published his first cartoon.
He eventually became journalistic director for Al-Mar’a magazine, and continued to publish in various print media, including the daily paper Al-Thawra and the weekly magazine Al-Usboo’ Assiaasi, and assisted in creating animated television series until his death in 2011.
Mohamed Al-Zawawi was a pioneer of Libyan cartoons, whose comical observations of everyday life have appeared in magazines and newspapers like at-Tawra and Al Amal.
The artist has received much acclaim in the Arab world, and is considered the father of Libyan cartoons, comics and animation.
He is also referred to as Mohamed Zwawi or Muhammad az-Zuwawi.
Al-Zawawi was also a pioneer in the local animation industry.
In the early 1980s he was asked by the national Libyan TV to make a series of animated cartoons. One of these was 'Hajj Nakad', on which he worked in cooperation with a studio in the UK, and another was the 45-minutes film 'Joha's Diary', which was largely produced in Japan. Like his comics, his animation projects also critically tackled Libyan society.
The artist died on Sunday 5 June 2011 in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
