Born in Saudi Arabia in 1974, El-Aidi arrived in Cairo at the age of 15 -- a consequence of the 1990 Gulf War. Having failed to achieve high grades in the notorious "thanawiya amma", he has enrolled at the Open University to study marketing -- a drawn-out programme that gives him plenty of time in which to "stare at the computer screen, talk to the computer and listen to it talking back". El-Aidi did undertake work as graphic designer, satellite television show script-writer and editor.
The first draft of "Abbas Al-Abd", in fact, was to be the second installment in a series of comic books he was authoring for Dar Al- Mubdi'oun, a private-sector publishing company that, in a series entitled "Al-Maganin" (Mad People), attempted to produce a text-based, Egyptian version of "Mad" magazine. Following the dissolution of "Al-Maganin", a project to which El- Aidi had contributed, the publisher started several series of comic books by individual authors, one of which -- on the Arab Israeli conflict and equivocally entitled "Beace ya man" (as in the Americanism "Peace, man") -- was dedicated to El-Aidi.
The technical excellence of the first book in that series, "Kitab Al-Junoun: Qissa Sycobatiya Mumilla" (The Book of Madness: A Boring Psychopathic Story), led to the publisher, in a gesture of trust, asking El-Aidi to write what he will, be it within the comic genre or outside it -- something to which the young author responded instantly, with relief. Although the publisher was extremely disappointed with the completed text and Aidi almost lost hope of ever getting it published due to various rejections, his text An Takoun Abbas Al-Abd was eventually published by Miret publication and has proved so successful an entire first edition sold out within months of its appearance.Born in Saudi Arabia in 1974, El-Aidi arrived in Cairo at the age of 15 -- a consequence of the 1990 Gulf War. Having failed to achieve high grades in the notorious "thanawiya amma", he has enrolled at the Open University to study marketing -- a drawn-out programme that gives him plenty of time in which to "stare at the computer screen, talk to the computer and listen to it talking back". El-Aidi did undertake work as graphic designer, satellite television show script-writer and editor. The first draft of "Abbas Al-Abd", in fact, was to be the second installment in a series of comic books he was authoring for Dar Al- Mubdi'oun, a private-sector publishing company that, in a series entitled "Al-Maganin" (Mad People), attempted to produce a text-based, Egyptian version of "Mad" magazine. Following the dissolution of "Al-Maganin", a project to which El- Aidi had contributed, the publisher started several series of comic books by individual authors, one of which -- on the Arab Israeli conflict and equivocally entitled "Beace ya man" (as in the Americanism "Peace, man") -- was dedicated to El-Aidi. The technical excellence of the first book in that series, "Kitab Al-Junoun: Qissa Sycobatiya Mumilla" (The Book of Madness: A Boring Psychopathic Story), led to the publisher, in a gesture of trust, asking El-Aidi to write what he will, be it within the comic genre or outside it -- something to which the young author responded instantly, with relief. Although the publisher was extremely disappointed with the completed text and Aidi almost lost hope of ever getting it published due to various rejections, his text An Takoun Abbas Al-Abd was eventually published by Miret publication and has proved so successful an entire first edition sold out within months of its appearance.
