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Hello, I’m Red Naima, a lover of quiet mornings and thunderstorms. I make graphic novels. Comic books.

With my stories and art I’m committed to create and share beauty, love, joy, energy, power

On sunny days I can be found painting on the beach of Positano, and when it gets chill, I’m probably training in a dojo in Rome or belly-breathing at a yoga studio.

 

As a kid I wanted to be everything. I yearned to sing in the back of a jeep launched at full speed in deserts, to paint with street buskers in Positano, to explore the tropics for hidden treasures, to fight like a ninja.

As little girl living in the countryside, for the time being there was one way to had it all in that moment. Drawing it. That’s when I started drawing my stories, and passing them to my class mates and beach friends under the table.

When I left my hometown Sorrento and moved to Rome to attend the art academy, my life became much more interesting. I started attending the ethereal Roman art world and the much less ethereal graffiti scene. All that experience was of course sublimated in my graphic novels.

There is a Scorpion song that says “Make it real not fantasy”, so after the art academy I did it. I left for my first trip for Indonesia, then Australia, then Singapore, then Cambodia, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia…

Over the years I became an *ahem* art-critic-and-curator-specializing-in-contemporary-art-from-Southeast-Asia-working-for-International-publications. A mouthful to say: I started exploring the world as a journalist.

I still do, and it’s the best job in the world. I never stopped drawing, but as was establishing myself as a journalist, comics slipped aside for a bit. I couldn’t put graphic novels on paper anymore. I felt like I had lost my superpower.

So I devoted a few years of my life to the effort of becoming ninja – well, I started practicing Bujinkan and developed a passion for the bo staff. That’s when I felt I needed to put all of that into a new comic series, EVENFLOW (after the Pearl Jam of course!)

From there, the superpowers came back. But with a difference. This time I could live AND write.

Today I draw stories because I must. Creating my comic series and graphic novels is a way to experience the world and reflect on our shared condition. Creating and sharing beauty is necessity of our collective spirit.

Who am I to pull back?