The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is delighted to announce that Palestinian cartoonist Safaa Odah, creator of the critically-acclaimed work, Safaa and the Tent, has been awarded a LICAF Special Award.
The Award has been made not just for her published work, created despite living in one of the most dangerous parts of the world, but her efforts to encourage and support young Gazans through running comic workshops, in defiance of the daily danger resulting from the ongoing conflict in her country.
Safaa Odah is an animation artist and cartoonist living in Gaza. She holds a Master’s Degree in Psychology, and her work aims to inspire better physical and mental health. Besides appealing to a Palestinian audience, her ambition is that her work touches others worldwide and leaves a positive impact.
Earlier this year, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, working in collaboration with celebrated Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, published Safaa and the Tent, the diary of cartoonist Safaa Odah, translated by Nada Hodali, from Ramallah, with all profits from sales going to Safaa.
Created between October 2023 and December 2024, Safaa’s thought-provoking cartoons – some actually, originally drawn on a tent – offer insight into the day-to-day trials of Palestinians in Gaza.
The project was an instant success, buoyed by praise from graphic reportage author Joe Sacco, author of Palestine and War on Gaza.
“Some of the most powerful and poignant images to come out of Gaza are not photos,” he said. They are to be found in this incredible collection of Safaa Odah’s drawings.”
In addition to creating comics, documenting life in Gaza on her Instagram, Safaa has been supporting young Palestinians with “Little Painter” workshops, providing a space for comic creation, drawing, entertainment and distraction from their daily troubles.
When LICAF Festival Director Julie Tait and newly-installed Young Comics Laureate Mollie Ray visited Palestine at the invitation of local comic creators and the Power Group, a youth-led cultural initiative based in Bethlehem, Safaa’s work, despite her situation, left them awed. Having already published Safaa and the Tent – a limited edition first printing now sold out – the Festival team agreed Safaa deserved further recognition, and unanimously agreed she should be the recipient of the first-ever LICAF Special Award.
Her efforts in Palestine reflect the underlying message of LICAF’s Development Agency, “Comics Can Change the World”.
“Safaa’s cartoons, conjure so many emotions,” says Julie Tait. “Some funny, some thought provoking, some sad, all empowering. There’s no question her work has reached beyond borders and into many hearts.”
Remaining copies of Safaa and the Tent were sold over the Festival weekend in Bowness-on-Windermere, alongside other new works by Palestinian creators, some also published by LICAF, copies available soon the Festival’s web store.
This year’s Festival saw the launch of three new comics by artists from Gaza, to be published by LICAF, following up on the previous publication of, Safaa and the Tent.
They included copies of a comics anthology,Qusasat (“Snippets”), created by 13 young Palestinian artists at a summer camp near Bethlehem co-led by Mollie Ray from the UK. This was the culmination of a new collaboration between LICAF and the Power Group in Bethlehem, supported by The Amos Trust.
The anthology includes the work of Hana Ibrahim Mhani, Dalia Nidal Dar Abed Alhai, Tuleen Hanna Asmari, Shahd Izz Aldeen Alruzze, Nermin Anees Naifeh, Natalie Alz, Karma Ihab Barghothi, Ward Nayef Al-Hantouli, Majd Rafat Wahbeh, Abdalrahim Mutaz Zalloum, Mohammad Majed Al-Raie and Dima Iyas Nassar.
Also offered was Strategies of Surviving, a powerful work by talented animator and illustrator Abod Nasser, which was only available in very limited numbers. Abod says of his work that his sketches are not meant to avoke pity “nor to scenes of war and suffering”, but are about the Gazan in understanding life… “When he was forced to reinvent it from scratch.”
• For more on the Lakes International Comic Art Festival’s Comic Development Work please visit Comics Can Change the World at comicscanchangetheworld.com | Follow Comics4Change on BlueSky
Comic Creator Spotlight: Safaa Odah
Since the war on Gaza began in October 2023, animator and cartoonist Safaa Odah has been displaced multiple times, but continues to produce daily cartoons from her tent, sometimes using the tent as her canvas and posting them whenever she can on her Instagram account.
In August last year, she was told that her house was fully destroyed. “Knowing full well that none of the houses will remain standing, I was still hit by a brick with this news,” she wrote. “A home is not simply an abode to live in. It is our homeland. My home is my parents’ sacrifices, being expatriates for over 40 years… Going through that simply to build a simple home. Today, all our memories were shattered, destroyed, dispersed, maybe even buried. My story is no different than any distressed individual, or anyone who’s affected, we might just have many similarities. I have come to realize that we are walking in a dark labyrinth, a labyrinth with no borders.”
Despite her situation, alongside many others, she continued to cartoon, documenting the personal situations of thousands of displaced Palestinians impacted by the war around them.
She has also been supporting the displaced children of Gaza, organising “Little Painter” workshops to distract, entertain and support young creative minds, despite their situation.
“Safaa Odah, the Palestinian cartoonist from Gaza, stood against the brutality of genocide with unfiltered sincerity,” notes fellow comic creator Mohammad Sabaaneh. “Through raw instinct, she dismantled the official narrative that sought to dehumanize Palestinians, turning her art into a powerful rebuttal. When paper became as scarce as bread, safety, and solace, she did not stop – her tent walls became her new canvas, bearing witness to a resilience that could not be erased.
“We, as Palestinians, know well that Naji al-Ali, the legendary cartoonist assassinated in London in 1987, also began his artistic journey on his tent wall.”
Safaa and the Tent is a voluntary collaboration between the Lakes International Comic Art Festival and celebrated Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, with promotional support from Cartoonists Rights. A first printing, profits donated to Safaa, has all but sold out.
Nada Hodali, who translated the work, is a Palestinian literary translator from Ramallah. Following her Bachelor’s Degree in English Language and Literature with a minor in Translation at Birzeit University, Hodali further continued her education and obtained a Master’s Degree in Translation Studies from Durham University. Hodali’s translation work has been published in ArabLit Quarterly, TBA21, Anomalous Press, as well as FIKRA Magazine.
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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