Facts & Figures
Arab Countries
15
Number of Submissions
300
Female Participation
43%
10th Mahmoud Kahil Award Winners
April 2025
Editorial Cartoons
Tawfik | Egypt
Tawfik’s extensive experience spans roles as a technical director and designer for animation projects, alongside a long tenure as a comics artist for Basim and Majid magazines. He won First Prize in Journalistic Comics at the Cairo International Comics Festival in 2016.
Co-founder of the award-winning TOK-TOK magazine, Tawfik has participated in international exhibitions, published works referenced in the Encyclopedia of Arab Caricature and Comic Artists, and collaborated with Harvard University on Middle Eastern comics. He also published Tawfik-Comics, a collection of his works spanning thirteen years.
Graphic Novels
Mohamed Ali | Egypt
Ali has participated in numerous collective art exhibitions and was awarded the Angoulême Maison des Auteurs art residency in 2020. His comic work was featured in the 2018 Mahmoud Kahil Award annual book, and his contributions to animation have earned him two awards in Cairo and Dubai.
A published author, Ali has released two comic books, published consecutively in 2021 and 2022. His work continues to shape the fields of comics and animation, establishing him as a leading figure in contemporary visual storytelling.
Comics
Nour Haidar | Lebanon
Nour Haidar is a talented 24-year-old illustrator and comic book artist based in Beirut, a city rich with unique and inspiring stories. Her passion for the arts began in childhood, but it was during her studies at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts that she developed a deep interest in illustration and sequential storytelling.
Since then, Haidar has embarked on a diverse range of projects, exploring various mediums and styles with each new endeavor. Her artistic curiosity has driven her to experiment with different themes and techniques, always seeking to tell compelling stories through her work. Haidar believes that every image holds its own narrative, and her creations reflect this belief, capturing the essence of the stories that surround her.
Graphic Illustration
Sally Samir | Egypt
She has participated in various exhibitions and received notable recognition, including the State Encouragement Award in Arts for pre-school children’s book illustrations in 2022. Her book Where, Moon? won the Best Design and Production Award at the Lebanon International Book Fair.
Her creative and impactful approach to illustrations continues to shape the field of children’s literature, where she brings vibrant stories to life with every new project.
Chilldren’s Book Illustration
Shiroug Mohamed Ali Idris | Sudan
Her work is deeply inspired by African folklore and mythology, with a strong emphasis on representing Afro-Arabian heritage. Through her illustrations, Shiroug seeks to highlight and preserve the rich narratives of her roots, creating art that resonates with both historical depth and contemporary relevance.
Amaal Khattab
In the early 1980s, Amaal Khattab had the opportunity to join the team of artists and illustrators at her favorite magazine, “Samir”. There, she participated in drawing stories and coloring illustrations at her small desk, surrounded by fellow artists and creative collaborators, including Mohamed El-Tahamy and Alaa El-Saeed – the artist behind the redesign of Samir’s character in the early 1980s.
Her artistic and aesthetic maturity reached its peak in the 1990s, where she skillfully and professionally brought these iconic images to life, making Samir’s covers and pages vibrantly beautiful and full of life.
Amaal Khattab was selected among 12 artists who applied for the position of replacing Samir’s illustrator. She proved her talent by illustrating Samir and his friend Tahtah for five years before leaving Egypt for Lebanon, where she helped establish Bisat Al-Reeh Magazine in the United States, where she was hosted by Walt Disney in his studios. She continued working in illustration for 22 years thereafter. Amaal worked at Samir Magazine from the early 1980s until her retirement around 2017.
Maamoul Press
Maamoul Press is a small press and collective working at the intersection of comics, printmaking, and book arts, fostering by-us for-us storytelling from marginalized communities through publishing, workshops, and more. We orient our work, and call on you, to refuse and resist zionist and imperialist hegemony everywhere, towards collective liberation.
Founded in 2019 in metro Detroit, Maamoul launched with an 8-week comics workshop that provided an intensive learning experience to local participants, as they created their own comics zines. Since then we have published numerous books, zines, and prints, curated the work of our artist members for exhibitions, and tabled at fairs across North America. Our work is by and for artists and communities from SWANA and other marginalized backgrounds, working against hostile publishing landscapes that seek to suppress and control our narratives. We are rooted in a collaborative and DIY ethos with a long tradition in printmaking and zine-making spaces, forging alternative, community-based modes of publishing, and sharing knowledge and skills through always free workshops and programs. Where possible we have directed proceeds to supporting various causes locally as well as in our homelands, with a focus since October 2023 on mutual aid efforts in Gaza, while also directly supporting Gazan artists through publishing their work. Find us at maamoulpress.com and @maamoulpress.
10th Mahmoud Kahil Award 2025 Finalists
Editorial Cartoon
- Naser Jaafari | Jordan
- Mohamed Afefa | Palestine
- Mohamed Zahran | Egypt
Graphic Novel
- Mohammad Sabaaneh | Palestine
- Karen Keyrouz | Lebanon
- Mohamad Kraytem | Lebanon
Comics
- Farid Nagy Nasr | Egypt
- Tawfik | Egypt
- Mai Koraiem | Egypt
Graphic Illustration
- Yousif Elamin | Sudan
- Mahmoud Abdou | Egypt
Children’s Book Illustration
- Baraa Alawoor | Palestine
- Hayam Safwat | Egypt
Meet the Jury
Her most notable work is the comic series about Nofret, which follows a girl navigating the political and religious intrigues of pharaoh Akhenaten’s reign. The final installment of the series was released in April 2022. In total, she has written and illustrated 34 comic books, including He Electrified the World, the best-selling Danish comic book of its year. Additionally, she has illustrated nearly 200 children’s books.
Bech has received all major Danish comics awards, and in 2015 was honored with the Adamson statuette from the Swedish Comics Academy in Stockholm. Her works have been exhibited 37 times in eight countries, including France and Germany.
More details can be found at: www.sussibech.dk.
Doaa has participated in numerous exhibitions, and she has received numerous awards, including the Egyptian Syndicate of Journalists’ Best Cartoon (2009) and the Mustafa and Ali Amin prize (2015). In 2016, the BBC named her one of the most inspirational and influential women of the year. She later received the Mahmoud Kahil Award (2017) and (2024) both in the Editorial Cartoons category, was nominated by Cartoon Home Network International in Norway among the Top Ten Cartoonists in the world (2018), and won First Prize at the Women Cartoonist International Award (2020).
@doaa.eladl.cartoon
He has written, co-written, edited or contributed to more than twenty books on comics and has curated exhibitions at institutions such as The British Library, the National Comics Centre in Angoulême, The Centre Pompidou, and The Barbican Centre, where he organized the first exhibition of Asian Comics, currently touring museums in the USA.
His upcoming projects include curating for the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, opening in London 2026, and contributing to a new museum of graphic narrative in Brussels. More details can be found at www.paulgravett.com and @paul_gravett.
In 2004, she illustrated her first book and has since illustrated over 44 books for publishers in Lebanon and internationally.
Fidawi has received nine national and international awards, including the Etisalat Children’s Book Award for Book of the Year (2014) and Best Illustrated Children’s Book (2017), as well as the 2nd Mahmoud Kahil Award in the Children’s Book Illustration category (2017). In 2024, she was nominated for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award.
She has conducted illustration workshops in Brazil, Morocco, Italy, Turkey, UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Based in Beirut, she runs regular workshops and is a part time instructor at AUB and ALBA, teaching both manual and digital illustration.
@mayafidawi
Jad has received several awards for his contributions to the field. His works A Thousand and One Nights and Shehrazade are part of the permanent collection at Le Musée de la Bande Dessinée (The International Comics Museum) in Angoulême, France.
georgeskhouryjad.wordpress.com
Facts &
Figures
Arab
Countries
11
Number of
Submissions
184
Female
Participation
35%
1st Mahmoud Kahil
Award Winners
March 2016
Editorial Cartoons
Amjad Rasmi | Jordan
Member of the Visual Artists Association and a founding member of the Cartoonists Association in Jordan. Rasmi won the Arab Journalism Award and was a returning member of its jury thereafter. He is presiding the jury in the Naji Ali International Award.
Graphic Novels
Ahmad Nady | Egypt
Studied Oil Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University. Nady started his career as the designer of Sesame World’s characters in its first season, as well as the creative writer and storyboard illustrator of the Cartoons intervals between episodes. He participated in the production of many animations in studios and production companies, and drew comic strips and illustrations for several comic newspapers.
Comics
Mohammad ElMu’ti | Jordan
After having studied graphic design for two years, I spent five years working in animation as a cartoonist, character designer, and storyboard artist. One day, I took an animation course in Los Angeles, came back to Amman and decided to work in comics and storytelling.
Graphic Illustration
Bahij Jaroudi | Lebanon
Studied graphic design at the Lebanese American University. In 2009, Jaroudi completed MA in animation at Kingston University. He works at the animation department of Future Television, while doing freelance illustration and children’s books. In 2012, he received the “Kitabi” prize for Arab children’s literature. He maintains a zeal for cartooning and animation.
Children’s Book Illustration
Azza Hussein | Lebanon
Studied Fine Arts at the Lebanese University and the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, and Image Synthesis & Computer Animation at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (Netherlands). She is a part-time Instructor in Digital Media, Drawing and Sketching at the School of Architecture & Design – Lebanese American University.
Lujaina Assil
Mrs. Assil is a Syrian artist born in Damascus 1946, where she later received her BA in visual communication and Interior Design from Damascus University. Since 1969, she has worked in illustration and art direction in several children’s magazine and books in Syria and in the Arab world., among which is the art direction of Touta Touta Magazine and Ahmad (Lebanon) from 2002 to 2013. She is currently art director at the Arabic advertising institution in Syria. Mrs. Assil contributed to several animated commercials, and wrote numerous scripts and illustrations for animated children’s series on TV. She participated in specialized workshops on children’s art and is a member of several international, regional and local festivals in this field. A selection of her work is exhibited at the museums & in personal collections. Mrs Assil is the recipient of several awards, notably The Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustrations award at the (NOMA 2006, Japan) and the Arab Children’s Book Publishers’ Assembly award.
TokTok Magazine
TokTok is the first quarterly Egyptian comics magazine for adults. It is a satire and humor oriented comic. For adults that aims to actively produce comic strips in a free spirit, drawn and edited by its own artists. The founders and contributors are artists Mohammad Shennawy, Makhlouf, Andeel, Hicham Rahma and Tawfiq. Tok Tok won the second prize for Best Fanzine in FIBDA festival in Algeria in 2011, and now reaching its 14th issue it represents more than 15 artists.
1ST Mahmoud Kahil
Award 2016 Finalists
Abdallah Derkaoui | Tunisia
Doaa El Adl | Egypt
Ibrahim Rais | Morocco
Omar Ennaciri | Morocco
Mohamed Shennawy | Egypt
Salam Al Hassan | Syria
Hanan Kai | Lebanon
Joan Baz | Lebanon
Maya Fidawi |Lebanon
Lujaina Al Assil| Syria
Meet the Jury
Patrick Chappatte
USA
Habib Haddad
Lebanon
Magdy ElShafei
Egypt
Jihad ElKhazen
Lebanon
Michele Standjofski
Lebanon
Emad Hajjaj
Jordan
George Khoury (JAD)
Lebanon