Maya Zankoul found unexpected
success when she started her graphic
blog “Amalgam” – using her
quirky illustrations to comment on
daily life in Lebanon.
What were the things that led you to start your
blog “Amalgam”?
I started the blog at a time in my life when I was
questioning what I want, or should be doing with
my time. I felt unchallenged at my job, and found
By expressing your feelings on these issues in
that I was not using my love of illustration in my
graphic form, does that help to make them more
work. All of this combined led me to start a blog
effective?
where I share my thoughts, and ideas, using a
medium that I love, which is illustration.
People nowadays are very busy and have no time to
read long paragraphs of text. That’s why expressing
What are some of the particular issues of life in
those ideas in one single or a few images is very
Lebanon which you blog about?
practical. I believe that the medium chosen has
helped the message become more effective.
I have taken a break from blogging for a while now
and only update my Facebook page with occasional
Were you surprised by the way that people
comics. However, the issues I blogged about the
reacted to your blog?
most are the daily life challenges and troubles, such
as the extremely limited infrastructure (electricity,
I was happily surprised of course, especially in a
transport) and the antiquated rights...
positive way, since I did not expect this kind of
reaction. To me, it was just something I was doing