Dara Naraghi and Brent Bowman: creators of Persia Blues

-Andy Ross This past December, local graphic artists Dara Naraghi and Brent Bowman released Persia Blues Volume 2: Love and War on independent publisher NBM. The story interweaves ancient Persian mythology with the story of young Minoo Shirazi coming to … Continue reading →

The post Dara Naraghi and Brent Bowman: creators of Persia Blues first appeared on Craft: Exploring Creativity.

-Andy Ross

This past December, local graphic artists Dara Naraghi and Brent Bowman released Persia Blues Volume 2: Love and War on independent publisher NBM. The story interweaves ancient Persian mythology with the story of young Minoo Shirazi coming to The Ohio State University for graduate school. I spoke with Naraghi and Bowman for Craft on WCBE.

Andy Ross: Tell me a little about your collaborative process. How did you two initially become connected?

Dara Naraghi: We both were in a group called Panel. It’s kind of a loose collective of writers and artists. That’s where we originally met over ten years ago. Everybody [in Panel] had their own projects that they worked on, but we would also collaborate with each other and publish little comic anthologies twice a year. For the most part, every member of the group had worked with somebody else, except for the two of us. We never really did anything together. I knew his artwork, so when I came up with the idea for the book I thought of him.

AR: You talked about Panel. Do you think Columbus is conducive to graphic novelists and comic book artists?

Brent Bowman: Definitely. Columbus has a great arts scene in general, but there’s a really big comics community here.

AR: Dara, you’ve said that Persia Blues is your most personal work yet. Are there any elements that were drawn directly from your own experiences?

DN: I wouldn’t say directly, but a lot of them are composites of either my experiences with my parents, my cousins, or friends that I know. A lot of the themes are things that either I’ve experienced personally or just in general. It’s a common experience for Iranian Americans.

AR: How fully realized was your idea for the whole trilogy going into that first book and has it changed at all since that time?

DN: It definitely has changed.

BB: The middle part is always the hardest. You’ve got the beginning and the end, but you have to get there somehow and still make it interesting.

AR: Any word on Volume 3 yet?

DN: The idea is to finish it this year. It will probably go on sale in early 2017.

Persia Blues Volume 2: Love and War is now available in bookstores or online at www.persiablues.com. Listen to the full interview on WCBE (90.3) Wednesday, March 16th at 8pm.

The post Dara Naraghi and Brent Bowman: creators of Persia Blues first appeared on Craft: Exploring Creativity.