LUCERNE, Switzerland — The works of Iraqi cartoonists have inspired both curiosity and awe at Fumetto 2018, one of Europe’s leading festivals for graphic design, but the Iraqi graphic artists who drew them were conspicuously absent.

“We were expecting to land in Lucerne, Switzerland, two days before the festival began on April 14,” Iraqi graphic novelist Hussein Adil, 23, told Al-Monitor. However, the visa applications of his team of comic animators — four men and one woman — were rejected by the Swiss Embassy in Lebanon. “Everyone attended, except us. We are Iraqis,” Adil said, sighing at this lost opportunity to attend their first European comix festival.

Jana Jakoubek, the artistic director of the festival, told the Swiss French-language paper Le Temps that she felt both angered and saddened. An appeal filed by festival organizers accepted by Switzerland on April 16 came too late to enable the Iraqi artists' participation.

Adil and his colleagues are from Mesaha, Iraq’s first-ever comic strip collective. Founded in 2015 by four graphic designers including Adil, the group first came together to publish a comic book for adults. Mesaha, which means "space" in Arabic, publishes a magazine and provides workshops for graphic designers and cartoonists.