The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is delighted to announce that Palestinian cartoonist Safaa Odah, creator of the critically-acclaimed work, Safaa and the Tent, has been awarded a LICAF Special Award.

The Award has been made not just for her published work, created despite living in one of the most dangerous parts of the world, but her efforts to encourage and support young Gazans through running comic workshops, in defiance of the daily danger resulting from the ongoing conflict in her country.

Safaa Odah is an animation artist and cartoonist living in Gaza. She holds a Master’s Degree in Psychology, and her work aims to inspire better physical and mental health. Besides appealing to a Palestinian audience, her ambition is that her work touches others worldwide and leaves a positive impact. 

Earlier this year, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, working in collaboration with celebrated Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, published Safaa and the Tent, the diary of cartoonist Safaa Odah, translated by Nada Hodali, from Ramallah, with all profits from sales going to Safaa. 

Created between October 2023 and December 2024, Safaa’s thought-provoking cartoons – some actually, originally drawn on a tent – offer insight into the day-to-day trials of Palestinians in Gaza.

The project was an instant success, buoyed by praise from graphic reportage author Joe Sacco, author of Palestine and War on Gaza.

“Some of the most powerful and poignant images to come out of Gaza are not photos,” he said. They are to be found in this incredible collection of Safaa Odah's drawings." 

In addition to creating comics, documenting life in Gaza on her Instagram, Safaa has been supporting young Palestinians with “Little Painter” workshops, providing a space for comic creation, drawing, entertainment and distraction from their daily troubles.

When LICAF Festival Director Julie Tait and newly-installed Young Comics Laureate Mollie Ray visited Palestine at the invitation of local comic creators and the Power Group, a youth-led cultural initiative based in Bethlehem, Safaa’s work, despite her situation, left them awed. Having already published Safaa and the Tent – a limited edition first printing now sold out – the Festival team agreed Safaa deserved further recognition, and unanimously agreed she should be the recipient of the first-ever LICAF Special Award. 

Her efforts in Palestine reflect the underlying message of LICAF’s Development Agency, “Comics Can Change the World”.

“Safaa’s cartoons, conjure so many emotions,” says Julie Tait. “Some funny, some thought provoking, some sad, all empowering. There’s no question her work has reached beyond borders and into many hearts.”

Remaining copies of Safaa and the Tent were sold over the Festival weekend in Bowness-on-Windermere, alongside other new works by Palestinian creators, some also published by LICAF, copies available soon the Festival’s web store.

This year’s Festival saw the launch of three new comics by artists from Gaza, to be published by LICAF, following up on the previous publication of, Safaa and the Tent.

They included copies of a comics anthology,Qusasat (“Snippets”), created by 13 young Palestinian artists at a summer camp near Bethlehem co-led by Mollie Ray from the UK. This was the culmination of a new collaboration between LICAF and the Power Group in Bethlehem, supported by The Amos Trust.

The anthology includes the work of Hana Ibrahim Mhani, Dalia Nidal Dar Abed Alhai, Tuleen Hanna Asmari, Shahd Izz Aldeen Alruzze, Nermin Anees Naifeh, Natalie Alz, Karma Ihab Barghothi, Ward Nayef Al-Hantouli, Majd Rafat Wahbeh, Abdalrahim Mutaz Zalloum, Mohammad Majed Al-Raie and Dima Iyas Nassar.

Also offered was Strategies of Surviving, a powerful work by talented animator and illustrator Abod Nasser, which was only  available in very limited numbers. Abod says of his work that his sketches are not meant to avoke pity “nor to scenes of war and suffering”, but are about the Gazan in understanding life… “When he was forced to reinvent it from scratch.”

• For more on the Lakes International Comic Art Festival’s Comic Development Work please visit Comics Can Change the World at comicscanchangetheworld.com | Follow Comics4Change on BlueSky