A musical person is Carlos Isaacs. She takes many avatars of a pianist, a keyboard player, accordion player and a cartoonist. But Carlos loves music and started life as a musician. She started playing piano when she was four years of age and knew that her life would revolve around music. "My parents told me that at a tender age I went next door and played their piano. Maybe music was my life."
She openly admits that getting into music was for a job and now she is a professional musician playing for international bands like Irish singer Sinead O'Connor and also for American and European music. Carlos lives in England and wishes to learn the music of her heritage.
She came to know later that it's not just music alone but drawing too is her forte. Drawing was an accident and out of the accident emerged the debut book of a lost memoir. The author through her drawings brings to life a lost world. Her debut motion comic Wolf of Baghdad narrates about the homesick author who has not visited her birthplace at all. The narrative is illuminated by the drawings of her family history giving a description in words. "There is also a rhyme and one can follow the rhyme" she says.
Carlos lives in England but she has a lost world in Baghdad. Says Carlos "The book, a semi animated version, explores the different communities in Iraq and I hope to promote the book in a large way. I have been invited by the Iraqi Embassy and they displayed the book live on screen accompanied by music. Seeing this, many people told me that watching the animated series brings them back to their memories and they could relate to it."
Carlos has no family living in Iraq but would love to see her book translated in Arabic.
A person for whom music was everything and drawing came very late, she did not want music to be left out. Hence while drawing for the book, she made sure that music from her heritage must be added to give life whenever the book is showcased on screen.
Carlos family come from Iraq and has a Jewish faith. She loves to draw the absurdities of life and her book is something very personal talking about her family. She likes touring the world and calls herself a musical nomad.
Carlos second love is cartoons. She says that the representation of women cartoonists is very low not only in her country but also across the globe. She is still clueless on the reasons but feels it's time to celebrate women cartoonists.
Carlos uses a pseudo name Surreal McCoy to draw and jokingly admits many times she gets mail addressed to Mr McCoy which only shows drawings have no gender attached to it.
What is Carlos upto next? She is interested to do something about Burma where her family members remain scattered. She recently visited Burma and maybe after the first book, the second too would be a narrative of the long lost relationship which she is trying to stitch.
