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I have been extremely lazy in publishing this. Hassan Nozadian, an original contributor to the project 300 gallery told me about his ambitious graphic novel project a few months ago. He also sent me these cool samples to share with you.

Hassan has an MA in industrial design and is currently the art director in a newly established animation company Zagros Film, in Shiraz, Iran.

Here is a bit more about the comic project from Hassan himself:

It is a legendary epic based on a short story we (me and my frien Mojtaba Nik-akhlagh, himself a screenplay writer) wrote together some years ago. last year we decided to make a persian comic-book based on that old short story written by ourselves because we really did believe in it

The legend (so we called it "Hargezian" in farsi or "Neverians" in English) is about grey heroes (if I can say so, that means who weren't so bad or so good) in such a long times ago and so far that no myths and history can remember it. It sounds like never such these things happened and never such those men existed and no one like those people and heroes lived ever after. Or even maybe this title indicates in ever-lasting (eternal) existence of our characters during the time. That's why we called it Hargezian (Neverians), and that's why we applied some Persian motifs or themes into drawings and characters and locations names but didn't mention a specific historical age.

Hassan goes on to say that as classic comic book fans, he and his friends always wondered why there aren't any comics in Iran. That's why they decided to create this very cinematic graphic novel.

The story is now written and the preliminary sketches and character designs have been finished. Hassan is now working on the pencils and the inking. He is also going to do the colouring himself. It looks like they have also found a publisher and if everything goes well the graphic novel should be complete by the end of next summer. It is going to be about 90 pages.

I'm really glad that Hassan and Mojtaba are doing this. Doing all artwork (Pencil, Inking, Colouring) by one person is an extremely daunting task and I admire Hassan for tackling this. I certainly look forward to seeing the finished result. If this graphic novel is published, it's certainly going to be the first graphic novel of its kind published in Iran.