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I came across this last week thanks to a friend (aka Fatso). There is a japanese manga called "The Heroid Legend of Arslan" which is based on the popular Persian epic of Amir Arsalan.
The series, authored by Toshiki Tanaka, was started in 1986, and was later turned into a manga and an anime series. (source: wiki)

As an interesting side-note, the only Persian comic I remember from childhood was based on the very same epic of Amir Arsalan. It was an old-school black and white series published in the comic weekly "Hezaar Ghesseh", with realistic illustrations and no speech bubbles (the text was given underneath each panel of drawing). I remember skipping it for more fun comics like Yakari, which was being syndicated in the same mag.
related links:

• Anime clips on youtube
• Google image results
• A fan page

Yas, one of the emerging Persian hip-hop artists has released a new track which is sort of a rebuttal against "300". I have added it to the playlist. From now on, I'm going to simply add to the playlist and bump the player up whenever I receive new music.

Farshid seems to specialize in drawing evil monsters, even though his monsters are more cute than evil. His gallery is full of drawings of his monster character in different poses, and some of them are simply hilarious.

Despite the numerous limitations, alternative Persian music has been enjoying a revival of sorts in the past few years. After pop music was largely banned around two-and-a-half decades ago, Persian pop artists fled to the States and continued their brand of pop music in LA.

For decades, the sounds coming out of the exiled Persian pop music industry lacked originality and was subsequently labelled "LA style" music because of a similar style; Persian dance songs based on 6/8 time signature.

With the easing of restrictions on music inside Iran, and with the new generation of musician's growing thirst for alternative music styles, the recent years have seen a flurry of vibes coming out of the Persian music scene that were never heard before.

No other genre has seen a bigger growth than hip-hop, with virtually hundreds of new rappers sprouting both inside Iran and out. Recently the addition of a few female artists has broken the trend in this largely male-dominated playing field. My newest discovery is Entegham, the girl hip-hop duo of Farnaz and Sogand. You can check out their sounds here.

Another alternative band with female leads is sweden-based Abjeez, who'se music has a more folk sound to it. Here's a funny promo they've made for their upcoming US tour:

While foreign-based artists like Abjeez benefit from better music infrastructure, it should be noted that few bands inside Iran can actually sign deals with record labels since the few official labels that exist can only sign state-approved artists. The others continue their music in the underground scene, distributing it through the internet, and often without any financial return.

The incoming links to this site have now passed the 3,000 mark. According to technorati, the number of sites linking to this page is now at 3,094. That is absolutely overwhelming considering the fact that the site is barely a month old and it all started with this little post (and this slightly bigger one on my Persian blog.)

As a result, we are now on the first page of google searsh results for the term "300 the movie".

While the release of "300" was the original trigger for starting this project, it has now grown to something far beyond a simple reaction to the movie 300. Project 300 is now a place that displays the "forgotten side" of the Persian (pop) culture; the side that is becoming increasingly rare to see in the media today.

I have to thank everyone for their continued support for this project. I have received a lot of interesting material that I simply haven't had time to put on the gallery or here on the blog, but I'll promise I'll get to them soon.

26-year-old Hamed Talebany's gallery shows great flexibility in style, but his underlying comic inspirations are evident in most of his work. His great body of work shows amazing range and includes everything from fantastically devious portraits to fun disney-esque character designs. While there are no comic stores in Iran and finding comic books can be very difficult (specially in his native Shiraz, I assume), Hamed's command of the comic-book genre is nothing short of amazing.

A kind reader (Farhad) has sent us some images from the book the Greek and Persian Wars 500-323 BC containing illustrations of Ancient Greek and Persian soldiers. The accuracy of these have been contested in some reviews, but they're still nice to look at.

I was looking at some similar historical illustraion books last week and I found a few: Rome's Enemies (3): Parthians and Sassanid Persians (Illustrations by Peter Wilcox), Sassanian Elite Cavalry Ad 224-642 (illustrations by Angus Mcbride), and The Persian Army 560-330 Bc (illustrations by Simon Chew). I have ordered these and will let you know how good they are when I receive them.

Faraz Shanyar is the essence of what Project 300 is all about. He is one of those great artists that I have gotten to know through Project 300. His phenomenal CG paintings can make anyone green with envy. His speedpaintings have an aura of effortless quality to them that are a joy to watch and he has a perfect sense of form and lighting.
Check out his gallery on Deviant Art. It's definitely one of the galleries that I'm going to check frequently. You can also check out his Project 300 submissions in the gallery.

London-based hip hop artist Reveal (aka Prince of Persia) has joined our project and has been kind enough to send us his new track "Prince of Persia" to feature on our site. He has also recorded a message regarding project 300 which you can check out below. What's more is that he's sent us an exclusive recorded verse from his soon-to-be released track. We thank Reveal and we hope to feature more of his great music on Project 300 Weblog.

p.s. While you're at it check out this video of Reveal with Hich-Kas, the Tehran-based rapper. The video is also shot in Tehran:

22-year old Pendar Nabipour hasn't updated his website for a couple of years, but if his portfolio is anything to go by he must have produced a lot of great art since then. His pencil sketches have a flowing raw quality that are quite pleasing to the eye, and his unique 'zazzima' creations are a fun mix of tribal and modern elements. He has also made a poster for the 300 Project which I will put in the gallery in the next upgrade. p.s. we share the same first name and he's in fact the only other Pendar I have met in real life.