Earlier in 2018, Lion Forge published Kobane Calling, the autobiographical memoir of a young Italian cartoonist writing and drawing under the nom-de-plume Zerocalcare. Due to US immigration policies in place following travel to the Middle East, his attendance at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con seemed to be in jeopardy. BAO Publishing in Italy has notified Lion Forge that Zerocalcare’s travel to the states has been approved.

Zerocalcare will be appearing in the Lion Forge booth to sign copies of his moving memoir, Kobane Calling: Greetings from Northern Syria at the following times:

Thursday, July 19: 3:00–4:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 21: 4:00–5:00 p.m.

Kobane Calling chronicles the cartoonist’s experiences volunteering with the Rojava Calling organization and heading into the Middle East to support and observe the Kurdish resistance in Syria as they struggle against the advancing forces of the Islamic State. He winds up in the small town of Mesher, near the Turkish-Syrian border, as a journalist and aid worker, and from there he travels into Ayn al-Arab, a majority-Kurd town in the Rojava region of Syria. As he receives an education into the war from the Kurdish perspective, he meets the women fighting in the all-female Kurdish volunteer army (the Yekeineyen Parastina Jin, or Women’s Defense Units), struggling to simultaneously fight off the Islamic State even as they take strides for Kurdish independence and attempt a restructuring of traditional patriarchal Kurdish society. In a story and style at once humorous and heartbreaking, Zerocalcare presents clear-eyed reportage of the fight against the Islamic State from the front lines.

Originally published in the Italian weekly International and then collected and expanded in an edition by Italian publisher BAO Publishing, Lion Forge published the first-ever English language edition earlier this year to rave reviews.