Blue Lotus – 8-Page Teaser

Story originally written by M.H. Matar. Illustrated by Luka Japaridze. All rights reserved.

© 2025 M.H. Matar & Luka Japaridze. No part of this work may be reproduced without permission.

What if your favorite movie wasn’t just a movie? What if it was a portal to a forgotten golden age, and a chance to rewrite your fate?

The Blue Lotus of Cairo is a nostalgic, time-bending, metaphysical love letter to Egypt’s cinematic golden age. It follows Ali, a devoted moviegoer obsessed with an old black-and-white film starring Abdel Halim Hafez. When a mysterious ticket master hands him a blue lotus — a ticket to the past — Ali is thrust into 1960s Cairo, where he finds himself on the set of his beloved film. But the past isn't a polished reel of memories; it's a volatile, fragile world on the cusp of revolution and war.

Caught between the fading glamour of Egypt’s cultural heyday and the brewing Six-Day War, Ali blurs the lines between observer and participant. As he tries to preserve the sanctity of the movie he loves — and perhaps his own existence — he realizes that nostalgia is a dangerous drug, and sometimes the only way forward is to let the past rest.

Visually lush, emotionally rich, and thematically timeless, The Blue Lotus of Cairo is about obsession, memory, the impermanence of beauty, and the existential ache of witnessing a golden age slip away. A speculative historical drama with metaphysical overtones, it speaks to anyone who's ever wanted to live inside their favorite story — and been haunted by what that might cost.

For the first time, I'm sharing the opening 8 pages of my graphic novel, Blue Lotus.

Enjoy the journey.

Click the link below to download the first 8 pages of Blue Lotus.

© 2025 M.H. Matar & Luka Japaridze. No part of this work may be reproduced without permission.