IACC Events

April 2005 Meeting: "The Comic Book Business"

Speaker: Bruce Bahmani author of "Rostam: Tales of the Shahnameh" a comic book adaptation, speaks on the "business" of making a comic book.

In February 2005 Bruce Bahmani, Cameron Douraghy and his brother, Jamie Douraghy realized a 5 year dream. The adaptation of the story of "Rostam and Sohrab" one of the many, from the great Shahnameh by Ferdowsi to the American Comic Book genre.

Friends since childhood when they spent countless hours reading American comic books like Superman, Batman, and Spiderman in Iran during the 70's, the trio have accomplished something very exciting this year as they published their comic book to the Iranian and American communities.

The book has been published by comic book publisher Hyperwerks, and will be distributed to comic book shops nationwide later this summer. The comic made a huge splash during this year's NoRouz events as Iranians around the US and UK excitedly bought the comic at fairs and festivals as well as online.

The comic has even gained popular mention inside Iran. Iran's largest daily "Hamshahri" gave the book a glowing review and dedicated a full color page to the comic in March.

Bruce Bahmani, originally came up with the concept 5 years ago while working on an anti-smoking ad campaign for the Chinese-American community, aimed at teens. As a result of choosing the concept of the comic book format to send out the anti-smoking message, Bruce was put in contact with veteran comic book artist Karl Altstaetter, who sent his portfolio to Bruce for consideration in the Chinese-American project. In the Portfolio was an image that immediately reminded Bruce of his imagined depiction of what the Shahnameh's Pahlavans might have looked like in comic book hero form, and the idea clarified in Bruce's head.

After telling Jamie and Cameron about the concept of adapting stories from the Shahnameh into comic books, the trio began to collect the funds for the project and to hire out the long and hard work of trying to explain to non-Iranian artists, the emotionally charged task of attempting to depict Iran's greatest literary achievement, the Shahnameh, and its dearest hero, Rostam.

This took 5 years and the result is an all new depiction and adaptation of the story of Rostam and Sohrab into the American Comic book. The project had several objectives which made the adaptation even more of a challenge;

- To re-introduce the Shahnameh to a generation of middle age Iranians who having become consumed by their careers and life, had all but forgotten the Shahnameh and did not read it often, if at all.

- To depict the Shahnameh in a new modern and "Cooler" way for Iranian teens who having grown up surrounded by western entertainment had forgone the old fashioned Shahnameh.

- To present the rich heritage of Iran through the Shahnameh, it's power as myth, legend and folklore to the non-Iranian comic book reader.

We think this has begun in a positive way. The Chamber wishes these 3 gentlemen the best of luck in their endeavors!

IACC Founder Kayvan Tabari Honored

Kayvan Tabari one of the original founders ofthe IACC was deviously invited to this month;s meeting using a ploy. You see Mr. Tabari has often been unavailable to attend the IACC meetings due to work or previous commitmentsand we rarely see him. This is unacceptable, so in order to get to see Mr. Tabari, the chamber was "forced" to present him with a lifetime achievement award!

On a serious note it is the pleasure of the chamber and it;s members to see Mr. tabari at one of the chamber events, as he has been one of the stalwart supportersof the chamber and has provided us all with inspiration and leadership, in making the chamber an ongoing success for Iranians in the Bay Area.

Elahe Enssani Appointed to the SF Immigrants Rights Commission

IACC co-founder and former board member, Ms. Elahe Enssani was recently nominated to become a commissioner in the SF immigrants rights commission, chartered with reviewing and monitoring rights, conditions and issues pertaining to immigrants in the city of San Francisco.

The commission's task is to promote quality of life for immigrants, education, health and civic participation. Commissioners are nominated to the Mayor, and once approved are confirmed by the board of supervisors.

This is the firsttime an Iranian has been nominated for this post, and one cannot think of anyone better prepared and qualified to represent Iranians and immigrants on this commission and to handle the duties, than Elahe.

Congratulations from all of us at IACC, you have made us all proud!