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Text_Matthew Lee Comic creator Dr Naif Al-Mutawa talks about his not-so-dastardly plot for world domination
It was more by accident than design, but there was something elegantly cyclical about the west London location Dr Naif Al-Mutawa (pictured third from left) chose for our meeting. Five years ago, during a taxi ride to this same Knightsbridge street, the Kuwaiti founder and CEO of the Teshkeel Media Group hatched the idea for The 99, a series of Islamic comic books. He aimed to teach children about the positive messages of the Koran through comics inspired by Allah’s 99 attributes.
“I wrote the business plan and raised US$7 million in the first six months,” Al-Mutawa explains. “A million dollars came from my former classmates at Columbia Business School, but most of the money came from high-net-worth individuals in Saudi.” The Islamic Investment Bank, with its conservative Sharia board, bought 30 percent of the company “at a very high evaluation”. It was a deal that also confirmed The 99 was suitable for an Islamic audience.
Teshkeel has established deals with the American comic book big guns, DC and Marvel, and published titles such as Spiderman, Hulk, Batman and X-Men in Arabic. Al-Mutawa has also launched several licensing initiatives, and The 99 products will shortly be available throughout the Indian subcontinent and parts of Europe, with the westward trade clearly delighting Dr Naif: “It is Kuwaiti-owned intellectual property based on an Islamic archetype, and a Spanish company has bought it to enter the EU market with,” he enthuses. “That’s globalisation.” Another recent breakthrough was getting permission to distribute in Saudi Arabia. “Saudi accounts for half of our sales on all our titles. It’s a huge market – the only Arab country with people and money. The others either have money and no people, or people and no money.”
And as Mumita, Noora, Widad and Jabbar leap off the page into three-dimensional life, The 99’s peaceful and positive message will reach thousands more children throughout the world. If only all taxi journeys were as productive… |
With a rapid New York drawl, acquired during a long stint in the States, Al-Mutawa rattles through so many concepts and ideas in half an hour it’s hard to keep up with him. He is, by his own admission, a nerd; his achievements include three masters degrees, a PhD in clinical psychology, several kids’ books and newspaper columns, and a career as a university lecturer – although he’s on a year-long teaching sabbatical to guide Teshkeel far beyond its Kuwait base.
Al-Mutawa believes that “fate struck” his project at the end of 2005. The New York Times interviewed him, but mysteriously, the article didn’t appear for another two months, a couple of days before the Islamic world erupted with anger at the Danish cartoon controversy. “So all these people Googling ‘Islam’ and ‘cartoons’ got our story, and you just can’t buy that sort of publicity,” he says.
Al-Mutawa is in London to meet a television production company who want to develop The 99 into a cartoon, while the theme parks are already on the way – a Kuwaiti amusement park is relaunching with a 99-theme later this year. “To be able to touch and feel The 99 outside of just pages is a dream come true,” Al-Mutawa says.