Observers are taken by surprise by the seemingly unstoppable rise of Middle Eastern comic books | Democracy, elections and voting at Democracy Chronicles

Until recently, the Middle East and North Africa have been featured mainly as tropes in Western comic books. C haracters have included marginal villains or expendable figures battling heroic protagonists, like Batman’s Ra’s al Ghul (“Demon’s Head”) and Ibn al-Xu’ffasch (“Son of the Bat”). But in recent years, the US comic book industry has started to…