Who is Mazen Kerbaj?
The son of a famous stage actor and prominent visual artist, Mazen Kerbaj was born at the onset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. He was born and raised in the city of Beirut and has a deep physical and emotional connection to the city and his home. Kerbaj led a relatively privileged lifestyle and was considered a member of Beirut's middle class. Researcher, Rana El Kadi writes, "After earning a degree in graphic arts and advertising with an emphasis on illustration, Kerbaj began working as a freelance illustrator while teaching graphic design and advertising at Lebanese universities."
He is a unique and multifaceted artist whose made a name for himself in both the music industry and the visual arts, namely the comic scene. He toured the world with some of the world's premiere jazz artists in the early 2000's and can be credited with starting and fostering the Beirut Jazz culture. During this same time also put his degrees to work, illustrating novels, publishing his own short stories and graphic novels, and releasing pieces online, in magazines and various other mediums. He is best known for his work surrounding the tragic July War in Beirut that took the lives of well over 1,000 people. This includes his jazz piece, "Starry Night", a haunting accompaniment to the cacophony of Israeli bombardment and a series of comics released on his aptly named blog, "Kerblog". These comics were eventually compiled and translated into French, Arabic, and finally English and formed the basis for his 2017 book, Beirut Won't Cry. In recent years, Kerbaj has worked primarily on his music, but his comics offer up an equal part horrifying and hilarious look at daily life in Beirut even in the face of extreme violence and tremendous turmoil.
He is a unique and multifaceted artist whose made a name for himself in both the music industry and the visual arts, namely the comic scene. He toured the world with some of the world's premiere jazz artists in the early 2000's and can be credited with starting and fostering the Beirut Jazz culture. During this same time also put his degrees to work, illustrating novels, publishing his own short stories and graphic novels, and releasing pieces online, in magazines and various other mediums. He is best known for his work surrounding the tragic July War in Beirut that took the lives of well over 1,000 people. This includes his jazz piece, "Starry Night", a haunting accompaniment to the cacophony of Israeli bombardment and a series of comics released on his aptly named blog, "Kerblog". These comics were eventually compiled and translated into French, Arabic, and finally English and formed the basis for his 2017 book, Beirut Won't Cry. In recent years, Kerbaj has worked primarily on his music, but his comics offer up an equal part horrifying and hilarious look at daily life in Beirut even in the face of extreme violence and tremendous turmoil.