Welcome to this Blog, and my first posting; October 2nd 2011.
Although the journey we were initially meant to take during this course, was to be from Damascus, riding the train from the historical Hijaz train station (hence the title) all the way to Serghaya, our itinerary was altered. The location will no longer be in Syria, but in Lebanon, and the course remains based on a railway journey.
The class started last Tuesday. We discussed the plans for our trip, how long it would take and what we would need to prepare for it.
I also presented an overview of alternative comics, different genres such as memoir biography, BD reportage, travel journals and many others.
On Thursday we screened the movie Train,Trains where's the track, by Lebanese Film Maker Rania Stephan. The film documents her adventure discovering the railway tracks of Lebanon in 1998. The film covers the west-east railway starting in Beirut and ending in Riyak, that has long been terminated (we learned that its activities had diminished immensely before the civil war, for political reasons and was completely early in the civil war). The film takes us through the journey discovering the stations, tracks and inhabitants of the railway.
Hopefully we will be posting our adventure here, on a weekly basis if not daily!
Hijaz Railway: Illustrated stations in time, is the Blog of a Graphic narrative of a journey through the Beirut|Riyak Railway line, from west to east; running through villages in Lebanon.
