Remembering Nabil aka @Ternz : Too early to leave

I do not know how old he was or now much about him in real life except that his name is Mohamed Nabil and he was a talented online cartoonist on Twitter.

The famous avatar of Ternz on Twitter

for years

That young man whom I knew through Twitter passed away last week in a road accident that made all those who followed him for years in a shock.

I do not recall when exactly I started to follow Mohamed Nabil or as commonly known on Twitter as Nabil or @Ternz but I remember it was during the 2013 craze and he was among the reasonable funny voices on online.

His Twitter alias then was very unique and interesting “ I am a Salafist and I do not hate you”.
Yes, he was Salafist and he had this famous and cool avatar made by Egyptian cartoonist Sherif Adel aka Barbatoz.
Yes, his name was “Salafist” and he did not hate anybody. On the contrary, he was not your stereotype of Salafists who reject arts or music or even science.
He changed into Blue in solidarity with the Sudanese revolution later.

He made very beautiful and smart black comedy cartoons about social and political issues in Egypt.

#Egypt_is_happy a cartoon about the inauguration of the

Suez canal extension in August 2015

Old man #1 from older generations : That revolution was going to ruin

our future

Old man#2 from older generations : Now we can build our country

correctly

Modern caveman to the other : We will wait more , everything will

fine

Egypt as Justice lady carrying the scale weighting between

"Funny news" and "News that make you sick"

His most famous cartoon that spread all over Egypt was that comic during the Tiran and Sanafir isles legal fight.

"The solider to the other solider on Tiran: I am ready to die on this island as

long as our grandchildren to prosper it ... even after 40 years" by Nabil

Historical fact: There was an Egyptian military unit stationed in Tiran island in June 1967 which was captured by Israeli forces and its soldiers were officially prisoners of war.

It was widely believed that this cartoon was made by an Egyptian cartoonist in June 1967. Some did not pay attention to Ternz unique signature while others cropped the signature. One day, he will get full recognition for this cartoon.

Here are more cartoons by late Nabil on Flickr.

Nabil was an amateur cartoonist who could have been a professional if there was more freedom of expression and press in Egypt. He was another talent gone in the wind I am afraid.

For some reason, Nabil did not tweet since July 2019. I have missed his voice and humour online. I hoped that he was away for personal reasons and not for other reasons like political harassment reasons.
Then the bad news came.

This post is a small commemoration of a young talented cartoonist. Hopefully one day inshallah, his son will grow and knows how much his father was talented and how much he was respected even by those who did not know him in person.