Father and son team up to write comic book By Laura Wilkinson

Special to The Daily StarTuesday, March 04, 2008 BEIRUT: Daydreaming in class ironically proved to be very productive for Joseph Nader, 9, author of a newly published French-language comic book entitled "Luc Magic."

The journey began as Joseph, a grandson of opposition MP Michel Aoun, returned from school one day and his father, Sami Nader, asked how his classes had gone. Hesitantly, Joseph relayed how he had been "in the clouds," thinking about lots of things, but he did not want to elaborate.

The following day however, the boy asked his father whether he really wanted to know what he was daydreaming about. "Of course" said his father. "I imagined a character," said Joseph, "his name is Luc ... Luc Magic."

Thus began an unusual project by which every Tuesday, Joseph rattled off the adventures of Luc Magic while his father took careful notes. Sami Nader eventually decided that the stories were publishable, and on Friday the result was the object of a book-signing event at Virgin Megastore in Downtown Beirut.

"Luc Magic" follows a young boy who suddenly finds himself with a magical power: the ability to change things with only an utterance of "Abracadabra."

The subsequent episodes encompass diverting the school bus, various magical pranks on his teachers, bringing drawings to life, tidying his room with the help of toy soldiers and other save-the-day amusements.

The book-signing featured "Luc Magic" cookie-lollipops, scores of fellow schoolchildren and a group reading of the magical bande dessinee.

Joseph got through the event with considerable aplomb given his age the flurry of journalists and TV cameras. Smiling and chatting, he signed several copies of the hardback that he insists was a team effort between him and his father. "He was always an imaginative boy" said Sami Nader.

The opening pages of the book show Joseph's initial drawings of his characters alongside the finished works of illustrator Antoine Ghanem, whose work stays true to the boy's concept.

"Luc Magic" is available in hardback at Virgin Megastore