Cover story
Laughing at the world
Poking fun at some very serious global issues
Cartoons & illustrations by Hadi Farahani
April 16, 1999
The Iranian
Hadi Farahani was born in 1968 somewhere in Tehran, he says.
He lived an extremely boring life and to make it a little more interesting,
he constantly tried to find little funny things about his small home and
even smaller neighborhood.
He considered Gol Koochik, Haft Sang and Alak Dolak extremely violent
games and while other kids were busy playing, his most exciting activity
was reading Tin Tin and Asterix comic books.
He started drawing cartoons at an early age. But it was not until he
was 18 that he realized, despite what everyone had said, he could enjoy
drawing cartoons AND make money at the same time.
He started drawing illustrations for Soroush magazine in Tehran
where he worked with people at least twice his age. Being a cartoonist
and having to draw illustrations for the magazine gave him a certain approach
to subjects. He tried to find funny things even in the driest articles.
Farideh Esfandi, a charming and beautiful colleague at Soroush
magazine, made him realize that there was more to life than just cartoons
and there was more in cartoons than just drawing them. She gave him the
courage to take himself and his funny job seriously and before he knew
it, he had four successful exhibitions, most of them landmarks in Iran's
post-revolutionary period.
Farahani has won several awards. His works have appeared in seven countries
and in more than 30 magazines and publications. He lives in Toronto, Canada,
and feels proud to know that every single penny he has made has come from
drawing cartoons and illustrations. Go to first
cartoon:
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Hadi Farahani was born in 1968 somewhere in Tehran, he says.
He lived an extremely boring life and to make it a little more interesting,
he constantly tried to find little funny things about his small home and
even smaller neighborhood.
