Finals Cat

The cat pretty much says it all
Good luck on Finals

Webcomic Idea

A quick sketch for an idea for a new webcomic series, I just need to find the time for it

AUBites Shorts

It's summer and it's getting hot. So the ladies are starting to wear less, literally! 

My pal, the palestinian bird is starting to doubt his height.

AUBites Unsure Lizard

Well we reached May and still there was some rain. And it wasn't any type of rain, it was the rain that came out of a blue sky. One minute it is hot and dry all of a sudden it become cloudy and it starts raining. So the sun loving lizard questions.

AUBites Buzzers

Harmless

Crane Flies were hatching from their cocoons all around the AUB campus. And whenever one flies people scream "MOSQUITO!!!" Then I'd look at them and think "Are you serious?"

So I drew this to show the difference between the two.

AUBites - Nowruz

As I know from my Kurdish and Iranian friends, there is a holiday that they celebrate called Nowruz which is the new year and it happens every year on spring. One of the elements that they use to celebrate is goldfish, which is to resemble life within life (fish in water)

I thought of why not show this within my comic noting that the only animals allowed in dorms are Goldfish and no other fish...

I had the help of my friend Mohammad Yaser Emamizadeh who is Iranian and knows mostly about Nowruz to write about it to contribute to Outlook. The article is next to the image.

Happy Nowruz everyone! سال نو مبارک



Nowruz is right around the corner and for some of us that means the special time of year, it is the new year! How can it not be? Spring has arrived and the clouds of winter have gone aside and opened the way for sunshine. The birds are chirping and nature looks greener than ever. While the earth is celebrating its rebirth, many of us also celebrate along. Nowruz is a tradition celebrated in Iran and many regions that share common cultural values such as Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kurds in Iraq, Syria and Turkey. It is the first day of the year according to the Iranian calendar. In this day families visit one another while wearing their new clothes, children receive gifts from their elders, and friends wish one another a happy and fruitful year. One of the famous traditions of Nowruz is setting the “Haft seen” (sevens “S”s) table. The table consists of seven items that start with the letter “Seen” (the letter S). Each item symbolizes a certain meaning. Sabzeh (sprouts) resembles rebirth, Samanu (sweet pudding) resembles wealth, Senjed (the dried fruit of oleaster tree) resembles love, Sir (garlic) resembles medicine, Sib (apple) resembles health, Somaq (sumac berries) resembles sunrise and Serkeh (vinegar) resembles patience. Other than the seven “S”s the table also includes a holy book, a book of poems, a bowl of water with a goldfish resembling life within life, a mirror which resembles cleanness and honesty, decorated eggs symbolizing fertility, candles resembling enlightenment and happiness, and my personal favorite which is traditional Iranian nuts that just taste great! Nowruz is a beautiful, meaningful and happy day, it is the time of year families and friends have the opportunity to get closer, so Happy Nowruz to all especially the AUB society!

Outlook Comic - Mother's Day

This week's Outlook features my comic about mother's day. I really didn't know what to draw at first.

At First I started to think of drawing of the Green Toad (Bufo virdis) and its new tadpoles, but it is for mother's day! I can't discriminate mother's day with toads. So I started to doodle, and I came up with the top heads of the creature and it sorta looked like a Chimera so I continued the rest of its body and made a dialogue about how I love my mother and celebrating mother's day.

So yeah I do love my mother! (very very much)

AUBites - Wildlife Protection vs Animal Rights

Last week's issue of Outlook featured two pieces about animals. An article about creating a law that protects animals under the school of animal rights, and this comic below.

One of the things I get constantly is,: "But you love animals!!!!"

Here's the thing, I as a person with a deep background in Zoology living in Lebanon know of what is exactly the purpose of the passing the law of protecting animals as in them having rights. The main purpose is to protect feral cats and dogs found in the city. There is no intention what so ever towards any wildlife. What people don't know is that these feral cats and dogs do much damage to native animals more than good, protecting the ferals is crushing any last hope for protecting native animals.

Now you might say that protecting animals would protect the native animals. But not many know that there a species of wild cats in Lebanon which is the jungle/swamp cat (Felis chaus) which has suffered dramatically by cross breeding with the feral cat (Felis domesticus). Also golden jackals (Canis aureus), Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes), Arabian wolf (Canis lupus arabs) are all under threat from cross breading with feral dogs. This is not to mention all the other animals that are the weaker links of the food chain creating competition to other native species. Overall, they are just pieces of destruction to the overall biodiversity of the Lebanese ecosystem.

Something else which is very important that people sadly prefer to help animals over people. Millions people suffer from injustice, illnesses, and other problems. Yet they still want to help the mutts that roam through the garbages. When will they ever get the human sense of that there is a priority to life, why not help the orphans in orphanages or the elderly? And still they say that they can stop over-population of cats and dogs by neutering them... All the money they spend to neuter a cat can be used to support families.

If it came to me, I'd kill all feral cats and dogs, and use their meat to feed gulper sharks (Centrophorus granulosus), arabian wolves (Canis lupus arabs), and striped hyenas (Hyaena hyaena) which are all endangered species and create a program or support an existing program to promote wildlife and work on that.

Valentine's Day

I drew this after reading the several tweets and statuses and poems and texts about how everyone is upset of not dating and bla bla bla etc etc etc. People are just so obsessed with this day. Seriously?!

Cat Logic

AUB cats just adore eating. The comic pretty much explains itself.

AUBites Finals Fly

It is the last week of Fall 2011-2012. Everyone is studying for finals. And there are two main things that distract students these days: Anything that moves, even flies and 9gag

So the question again is Finals?

Merry Christmas Croc

It's the day before christmas. I designed a card that tackles the price rise of fuel and some randomness. There is one of my classic characters which is a crocodile in a tub. The card is suposed to take place of the piece of coal of naughty people but many didn't understand it unless with explanation, which is both good and bad. It is bad because they kinda destroyed the purpose of the card but it is good because that the santa claus myth isn't growing too much in the region.

AUB Comic - Christmas Spirit

It's almost Christmas, in Outlook we had a secret santa, where one would say what he/she would like to get as a gift. This is pretty much what I imagined if someone were to get the wrong gift.

AUBites Animals on the Web

Friday the 16th was the Social Media Changing Lives conference in AUB where I participated in. It wasn't the best thing to the people where many lacked interest in zoology especially on the web. But anyways it was the best thing I have done even though I was dead stiff under the spot light.

I also saw so many random tweets around my lecture like animals owning accounts and lolcats. Then I decided to do a comic based on two AUB animals, the Feral Cat and the Common Chameleon.







On the note, the newspaper file exportation was done wrong and my comic was destroyed =(

Secret Santa to an Engineer

Working in Outlook I took part of the secret santa where I was the secret santa to a Civil Engineer I have never met and know nothing of. So I decided to do him a poster of what engineers wish to have in our university, an Identity, a hero, and more girls (If you know what I mean)

Any how I started with the middle engineer who is a civil engineer. But he looked like who could use a side kick, so I did the chemical engineerette, who turned out to be my favorite one out of them. But still it looked like it is still missing something, so I decided to continue the whole team, where I added an electrical engineerette and a Mechanical Engineer golem in the back calling the group "The Engineers"

AUBites Parrot

After I entered AUB, a bird guide came out explaining the different birds spotted on campus. What came to my shock was that there are rose-ringed parakeets (Psittacula krameri) in the region. After research it became clear to that these parakeets are feral are spread around the region up to Lebanon down through Palestine down to Bahrain all the way to India where they originate.

While walking throughout the campus I keep seeing various birds such as common bulbuls (Pycnonotus barbatus) and palestinian sunbirds (Cinnyris oseus), but one day I heard a loud screech which shockingly turned out to be sulfur crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) flying around on campus. These cockatoos originate from Australia but it was here in Beirut. Reminded me of a conversation I had with my friend of how weird this university is.

So I depicted the two birds the common bulbul (the black headed bird) and the palestinian sunbird (the bird with a curved beak) Having the same argument where the Cockatoo interrupts them.

Sabea' - An Arab Super Hero

The Arab Super Hero, this topic has been over abused and brought up by many people and discussed and planned out like for instance Fouad Mezher's Enigma. But this Arab Hero was just a quick sketch I did for a magazine group project where the staff had to draw an interpretation of an arab super hero for a feature article asking questioning the existence of a pure Arab Super Hero.

I was randomly sketching a character and one group member says why not the hero be an animal, where I thought why not the hero can have a supporting trusty animal as a ride. I drew it to be a beast, then I thought of what it could be so I made it a stripped hyena which is found in the Lebanese and Middle Eastern region. After that I thought of what the Hero's name could be. I thought, what if he was a hero that was of that who got help from beasts and name him Beast. So I called him Sabea' (سبع) which means beast in Arabic. The logo on Sabea''s chest is actually a hindi numeral seven, which in arabic is called Sabea relating to the name, along with beast eyes.

I vow to work on the character to create him an identity and story.

AUBites Ants

Yet again, it was a late night, I had no access to the scanner, I was working on a group project fixing images using a wacom pad. And what is a bonus is that I had ants running all over my desk. So I thought of what happens when an ant finds a source of sugar, at the same time I was rolling on the internet looking at memes. It came to me that there is something in common, so I applied the MSpaint like feature on an ant character. It is something alright.

AUBites Roaches

So It was before midnight, I had to submit a comic to OutLook, and I was unable to think of an idea

Asking a good friend of mines for help, she tells me of the time they found a roach in women's dorms, directly giving me the idea of: "What would a cockroach say to the other if one found food at a certain place?"

So I came up with this!

AUBites 2 - It was a rainy day

So rain season started and one of the main things one will realize is that the snails come out to roam around on the universities campus. It kind of reminds me of some sort of invasion. This is what I came up with!