When to Pick a Pomegranate by Yasmeen Abedifard

“I want to tear these thoughts out of my flesh. How could I forget just how rotten I am?”

In this collection of contemplative and cathartic short comics, the pomegranate Anar and the woman Guli exist as reflections of each other — repellent to one another and yet inexorably drawn together once more. As they evolve through each story, proceeding through the stages of the plant life cycle, they take on new roles: muse and artist, gardener and seed, lover and fruit. The iterations reveal new revelations, exploring the themes of shame, grief, destiny, and survival at each turn.

Abedifard’s comic form evokes Persianate storytelling and draws on stylistic elements found in illuminated manuscripts, building an experience as rich and complex as the taste of pomegranate on one’s tongue.

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🧱 2023 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Minicomic (Death Bloom) 🧱

"Yasmeen Abedifard does the impossible — using her mastery of form, she melts together seemingly firm panel structures with rich visuals and sparse narrative so visceral, so intimate, it rips open the casual cruelty of every day, making you feel as though the story was actually pulled from the corners of your guilty soul — she does this, and makes it look like a breeze." – Nadia Shammas, Squire

"When to Pick a Pomegranate is an intoxicating labyrinth made up of the torture and exaltation of interconnectedness, rendered with such a lush sensuality that even the grotesque becomes alluring. Abedifard manages to evoke the poetic gravitas of a mythic text with a visual flair so modern and refreshing that the result feels entirely and exhilaratingly new. She has cemented herself through this decadent, unsettling, cathartic work as a voice that rises above the din of the crowd to sing a song uniquely its own. It is both a triumphant wail of release and an ode to the prison of destiny, with drawings so viscerally evocative they will sear themselves into the reader's mind permanently." – Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, Don’t Go Without Me

"In this mesmerising and lyrical story, Persian motifs about cyclical time thread through the story of Guli and Anar, whose dance takes them through the landscape of love and death, change and desire. A work that will stay with you and call you back into it over and over again." - Taymiya R. Zaman, historian

"Weaving together the mythological and the raw, blistering personal, When to Pick a Pomegranate cements Yasmeen Abedifard's position as one of the most exciting cartoonists working today." - Leo Fox, Boy Island

"A rich text that invites slow contemplation and is complemented by Abedifard's elegant cartooning, drawing the reader forward with great momentum. In my mind, that is as perfect a combination as the refreshing contrast between cold fruit on a hot summer day." – Adam de Souza, The Gulf

"Yasmeen Abedifard's work reads like the heartbeat of a pomegranate: overflowing with deeply felt emotions sweet and bitter, created out of an endless enveloping desire to understand the spirit with a truly singular devotion." – Floyd Tangeman, Cowlick 

“Open this book and bask in the beauty of what is generously given to you — do you deserve it? Yasmeen is a serious artist who works her talents in a way that's like a magic spell on your beauty-starved mind, the images will burn themselves into your brain and it will be the only thing left when you try to go to sleep or blink your eyes. On your deathbed you will remember Yasmeen Abedifard and her book When to Pick a Pomegranate, but nothing from your waking life! And you will be happy about that.” – Jonni Phillips, Barber Westchester

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Paperback; 80 full-color pages; 7.5"x 8.5"; ISBN: 979-8-88620-053-9; SRP: 14.99; Release date: 09/25/24