The Arab of the Future

The Arab of the Future is Riad Sattouf's autobiographical story of his life in Libya and Syria, starting with his birth in 1978 and lasting until 1984.  His parents meet in his mother's home country of France, where his Syrian-born father gets a PhD in history from the Sorbonne.  When Riad is two years old, his father gets a position as a lecturer at a university in Libya.  The job pays well, but the living conditions are less than ideal, so they temporarily move back to France.  His father looks for work in Europe but takes another professorship in the Arab world, this time in his home nation of Syria.

I think we all have a story to tell, a book to write.  I've written three books, but I don't know how much of myself is in them.  The first two are about alcohol and drugs, the third about sex.  My life is rather boring right now; the most trouble I get up to is the occasional date where I have to hide my tremoring hand or order coffee to cover it up with a caffeine addiction that doesn't exist.  Riad's story is real and serious, and it's a lot better than most comics I've been reading recently.  It makes me want to step up my game.  I love my Retrofit comics, which are often autobiographical, but this is a dialogue-heavy work that takes a good two hours to read.  Moreover, there is a sequel or two coming out eventually (The Arab of the Future 2 comes out in less than four weeks).  And when I say that this is serious and real, I mean that the people in the story can be violent.  It's upsetting, it's disquieting, and it's genius.

The artwork is mostly bichormatic, meaning that it's all black with one color added, blue for France, yellow for Libya, and pink for Syria.  There are exceptions, such as the Libyan, French, and Syrian flags, which are in their original colors.  Sattouf is a very talented artist, but what he excels at is the facial caricature.  He draws simply but with a startling ability to differentiate characters from one another, reminiscent of Shigeru Mizuki.