Mohammad Ali Sepehr-afghan, creator of “Illustrated stories”, believes that the low statistics of book reading among the children and young adults is due to a missing piece named “Illustrated stories”.

IBNA: Talking about the publication of “Illustrated stories” in Iran, Sepehr-afghan said: “In Iran, the formulas of releasing “Illustrated stories” (Comic strips) are challenging. The publication of such collections is a difficult and expensive work; accordingly most of the publishers are interested in publishing translations.” 

Emphasizing on children and young adult’s interests in comic strips, the Iranian illustrator and painter added: “Children really like reading comic strips and if the publications of such books increase the per-capita reading will boost as well. I believe the low statistics of reading in Iran, between children and adolescents, is due to a missing piece named illustrated stories (comic strips).” 

He added: “Releasing comic strips in low copies increase their price which creates difficulties in the sale and marketing. Launching the magazine of Sahel, I tried to gather the creators of comic strips. I succeeded as well and 20 issues were released in which we tried not to include translations.”
The designers of comic strips become attracted in making animations since the field of comic strips fails to have financial stabilities, he noted. 

Comic strips will revive in Iran if the government pays heed to the specific field, he said and added: “As the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) supported animations, the governmental centers should back the publication of comic strips as well.” 

Emphasizing on the abilities of Iranian illustrators in creating successful comic strips he said that foreign heroes make the children interested as well; for instance stories like Tintin are among the Iranian children’s favorites which are released in millions copies. 

He then talked about his personal efforts in using the world’s characters who are the favorites of Iranian children saying: “I did my best to release a book entitled “Tintin in Iran” which didn’t receive a publication license; although it was my M.A thesis and several professors had confirmed it.” 

Many fiction writers think that they works won’t be read anymore if comic strips are promoted, however I believe that they can make children interested in reading, he finally said.

Id : 144633