Middle Eastern Superheroes Coming To Comic-Con
AK Comics’ Jalila, Rakan, Zein and Aya hit Comic-Con via newly published U.S. issues featuring AK’s roster of caped Middle Eastern superheroes.
From a booth, attendees will be introduced to pages of four U.S. titles featuring the visually striking superheroes, as well the creative team bringing them to life. The L.A.- and Cairo-based company also will assemble artists, writers and editors for a panel to be presented 10:30 am in Room 8 on Thursday, July 20, 2006.
Established in 2002, AK Comics is a global comicbook publisher of original action titles, with superheroes and storylines based in the Middle East. Current titles include JALILA, THE PROTECTOR OF THE CITY OF ALL THE FAITHS, RAKAN, THE LONE WARRIOR, ZEIN, THE LAST PHARAOH and AYA, THE PRINCESS OF DARKNESS.
The AK Comics titles are distributed throughout the Middle East and Europe in both Arabic and English. The company launched retail distribution of its core titles in the U.S. in May, with four comic titles now available through direct sales and soon via the corporate website, www.akcomics.com.
AK stands for Ayman Kandeel, the founder whose love for Western-style comic books inspired him to launch his own comic publishing company. Its U.S. editor, Daerick Gross Sr., boasts a background steeped in comic book culture. After working with AK founder/ceo Ayman Kandeel and managing director Marwan El Nashar to launch four titles in the U.S. in May, Gross believes the San Diego event will prove watershed as the company officially introduces its caped superheroes to the U.S. market.
“The launch has been going well,” Gross says. “But we at AK Comics believe the 2006 Comic-Con could serve as a major springboard for rapid further growth in the U.S. market.”
In AYA–THE PRINCESS OF DARKNESS, as a child, a terrified little Rania Mokhtar hides in a closet and watches when a couple of mobsters murder her father. The men then arrange the scene so her mother will become accused of the crime and stand trial and she receives a life sentence. These two events shape Rania into a tough and determined young woman, willing to stand up against all evils and never to feel helpless again.
With this mindset, she enters law school as an adult and begins searching for a way to free her mother. She becomes a brilliant and motivated student who happens to rescue a mugging victim in an off-campus alley, an event that again changes her life profoundly.
The mysterious Number Zero, who witnesses the event, offers her an opportunity to improve her skills and become a force for good. She accepts and, unknowingly, joins the worldwide underground crime-fighting organization “The Umbrella,” an enterprise funded by some of the richest people on the plan–including Zein. Rania undergoes extensive training and masters all forms of martial combat, forensics, disguise and other detective skills, emerging to begin her ‘secret career’ as Aya, the Princess of Darkness.
In JALILA–PROTECTOR OF THE CITY OF ALL FAITHS, after leaving her two misbehaving, younger brothers behind with the nanny, 16-year-old Ansam Dajani and her parents attended an awards ceremony at the nuclear reactor/laboratory where her father and mother worked. But a group of terrorists attack the plant and set off a horrific nuclear blast that later became know as the Dimondona Devastation. There were only two known survivors at ground zero: Ansam and the terrorist that set the blast, Aton. Ansam was wearing an anti-radiation suit designed by her father, and Aton was … just lucky.
The suit was only designed to protect against radiation, and not a full-scale nuclear explosion and through the staggering blast she gained nuclear-based superhuman powers.
Thinking she was killed with her parents, relatives from another city stepped in to raise her brothers, not knowing that she was being cared for, and trained intensively by “The Umbrella.” With their help, she learns how to harness and control her power. She emerges as Jalila the “Protector of the City of All Faiths.”
From a booth, attendees will be introduced to pages of four U.S. titles featuring the visually striking superheroes, as well the creative team bringing them to life. The L.A.- and Cairo-based company also will assemble artists, writers and editors for a panel to be presented 10:30 am in Room 8 on Thursday, July 20, 2006.
Established in 2002, AK Comics is a global comicbook publisher of original action titles, with superheroes and storylines based in the Middle East. Current titles include JALILA, THE PROTECTOR OF THE CITY OF ALL THE FAITHS, RAKAN, THE LONE WARRIOR, ZEIN, THE LAST PHARAOH and AYA, THE PRINCESS OF DARKNESS.
The AK Comics titles are distributed throughout the Middle East and Europe in both Arabic and English. The company launched retail distribution of its core titles in the U.S. in May, with four comic titles now available through direct sales and soon via the corporate website, www.akcomics.com.
AK stands for Ayman Kandeel, the founder whose love for Western-style comic books inspired him to launch his own comic publishing company. Its U.S. editor, Daerick Gross Sr., boasts a background steeped in comic book culture. After working with AK founder/ceo Ayman Kandeel and managing director Marwan El Nashar to launch four titles in the U.S. in May, Gross believes the San Diego event will prove watershed as the company officially introduces its caped superheroes to the U.S. market.
“The launch has been going well,” Gross says. “But we at AK Comics believe the 2006 Comic-Con could serve as a major springboard for rapid further growth in the U.S. market.”
In AYA–THE PRINCESS OF DARKNESS, as a child, a terrified little Rania Mokhtar hides in a closet and watches when a couple of mobsters murder her father. The men then arrange the scene so her mother will become accused of the crime and stand trial and she receives a life sentence. These two events shape Rania into a tough and determined young woman, willing to stand up against all evils and never to feel helpless again.
With this mindset, she enters law school as an adult and begins searching for a way to free her mother. She becomes a brilliant and motivated student who happens to rescue a mugging victim in an off-campus alley, an event that again changes her life profoundly.
The mysterious Number Zero, who witnesses the event, offers her an opportunity to improve her skills and become a force for good. She accepts and, unknowingly, joins the worldwide underground crime-fighting organization “The Umbrella,” an enterprise funded by some of the richest people on the plan–including Zein. Rania undergoes extensive training and masters all forms of martial combat, forensics, disguise and other detective skills, emerging to begin her ‘secret career’ as Aya, the Princess of Darkness.
In JALILA–PROTECTOR OF THE CITY OF ALL FAITHS, after leaving her two misbehaving, younger brothers behind with the nanny, 16-year-old Ansam Dajani and her parents attended an awards ceremony at the nuclear reactor/laboratory where her father and mother worked. But a group of terrorists attack the plant and set off a horrific nuclear blast that later became know as the Dimondona Devastation. There were only two known survivors at ground zero: Ansam and the terrorist that set the blast, Aton. Ansam was wearing an anti-radiation suit designed by her father, and Aton was … just lucky.
The suit was only designed to protect against radiation, and not a full-scale nuclear explosion and through the staggering blast she gained nuclear-based superhuman powers.
Thinking she was killed with her parents, relatives from another city stepped in to raise her brothers, not knowing that she was being cared for, and trained intensively by “The Umbrella.” With their help, she learns how to harness and control her power. She emerges as Jalila the “Protector of the City of All Faiths.”
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