Kobane Calling
Kobane Calling, titled Kobane Calling: Greetings from Northern Syria in the English edition, is a comic illustrated book written and designed by the Italian author Zerocalcare. Part of the work was published in January 2015 on Internazionale, an Italian weekly.
The work is a graphic reportage of the journey that Zerocalcare took to Syrian Kurdistan and the Syria–Turkey border, a few kilometers far from the besieged city of Kobanî, among the Kurdish leftist defenders of democratic autonomous region of Autonomous Administration of [North and East Syria|Rojava], where its people have been fighting against the forces of the Islamic [State of Iraq and the Levant|Islamic State].
Plot
In the first part of the comic, Zerocalcare recounts the reasons that pushed him to go to the small town of Mehser, on the Turkish-Syrian border, a short distance from the besieged city of Kobanî, which is the symbol of the independence of the Rojava autonomous region, mainly Kurdish populated, and has fought against the forces of the Islamic State.The illustrator humorously recounts the results of the announcement made to his parents of his departure towards Kobanî, with a group of Roman volunteers to support the Kurdish resistance and objectively narrate the conflict with first-hand testimonies. The arrival and permanence are then dashed in the cartoons with humor and digressions typical of the Zerocalcare style but with a critical spirit towards the contradictions with which the interventions are conducted internationally and a very strong emotional involvement towards the known people and volunteers.