African Graphic Novels

Definition

This essay explores graphic novels written and illustrated by writers and artists who identify themselves as African and create for a predominantly African audience. Tracing the historical development of such works from colonial to contemporary African nations, the essay considers issues of colonialism and postcolonialism, varying cultures and traditions, concerns with literacy, and how graphic literature is distributed throughout the continent and the world.

Introduction

Poor distribution, a reliance on English and French, widespread illiteracy, and prices considered expensive for “disposable material” are issues that have affected the writing, publishing, and interest in graphic novels in Africa. Still, writers and artists have adjusted to their audiences, argued with governments to improve distribution, relied on various organizations to distribute under the guise of “educational comics,” and challenged African, French, and Belgian publishers to produce their works. African creators make more use of pictures than words, keeping the dialogue simple, and encourage readers to share the books rather than throw them out. At least in part, all of this is to counter the Eurocentric ideas of the comics that appeared in Africa until the 1970s and to provide either a more Afrocentric perspective or a national one, since a number of writers and artists are Africans of European descent who identify themselves as African rather than European. Gone are the days when British writers and artists, such as Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland, were hired to produce comic books like Powerman (collected into an English graphic novel entitled Powerbolt, featuring an African version of Superman) for a readership more used to imports of Marvel Comics, DC Comics, or Disney characters.

There is a wide variety of African comics, which are either published as graphic novels or collected, because of storyline continuity, into graphic novels. Some of the comics rely on European authors; others are cultural hybrids, coproduced by African artists and European writers. Still others are African (not necessarily black African, but produced by artists and writers who identify themselves as Africans by nationality). The latter deal in particular with politics, sports, societal events, and traditions. There are also a number of comics and graphic novels that have been published anonymously, either because of political and religious concerns or because they are published through organizations such as the Red Cross and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

The audience for African graphic novels has also changed and grown. Originally, comics were generally thought of as being for children, but with the rise of satire magazines such as Bitterkomix in South Africa and the more expensive graphic novels such as Aya (2005-2010; a kind of soap-opera series featuring the Ivory Coast), they are increasingly being consumed by adults and by the newly affluent in some African nations. Though most often written in French or English, African comics and graphic novels are easily read because of simple word use and a reliance on pictures. In fact, some artists and writers, such as Kenyan Anthony Mwangi and Congolese Fifi Makuna with Christophe N’Galle Edimo, produce work without any words whatsoever. In the latter’s graphic novel Les Enfants, Makuna and Edimo create a variation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1862) in which a starving child gets stuffed in a tire and set on fire for stealing purses. Some artists and writers choose to use fumetti or fotoromanzi, Italian-originated forms of photographs with dialogue. There are an increasing number of comics also written in Arabic. These, like Japanese manga, must be reproduced backward, read from what westerners would consider the last page to the first page, and be read, in their original language, from right to left.

Comic strips, books, and graphic novels fall into two types. The first is educational. These are either biographical (several in South Africa on Nelson Mandela) or deal with social problems, notably AIDS (I Need to Know from Botswana), hygiene (UNICEF’s seventy-four-page “novel” Facts of Life), abuse of women, illegal migration, agriculture (Eating with Hope from South Africa), and concerns about illiteracy and the benefits of education.

The second type of graphic novel is for entertainment. These stories usually begin as magazines and, depending on popular response, are collected. One of the most notable is a magazine entitled Serial Killer published in Nigeria, which features murder mysteries. The most popular of these serialized stories are frequently collected and released as graphic novels. South Africa’s Supa Strikas, based on a popular English strip, Roy of the Rovers (1954-1993), features a popular soccer team and its star player. Rwanda’s De Wraak van Bakame´ (2010; The revenge of Bakame´) features an anthropomorphic trickster rabbit who reinforces folktales and tradition. The Goorgoolu series from Senegal has been turned into a play and a live television series and has been collected in a series of graphic novels.

Creators

The artists and writers labeled European are usually from Western Europe or the United States. They create works that are distributed exclusively in Africa to an African audience. An example would be Serge Saint-Michel and Bernard Dufossé, French artists who published the magazines Calao and Kouakou from Paris, which feature new African artists and writers. These creators are sometimes hampered by not knowing local customs or traditions.

During the 1970s, there was an increasing number of graphic works being produced by a combination of European, American, and African writers and artists. Critics of African graphic literature label these works as a combination of “northern thought” and “southern artwork,” which suggests that the writer is “guiding” the artist, who is African. There is an assumption that colonizers and postcolonizers know more about the culture than those within the culture. While some of this production is collaborative, some of it is not. Stereotypes of African culture still infiltrate the work. Nonetheless, many African artists like this form of production because it gives them exposure, helps them financially, and usually guarantees the reprinting of the comics as a graphic novel in Europe.

African creators are those artists and writers who consider themselves African by nationality, whether white or black. They constitute the largest number of comics creators and graphic novelists on the African continent. Their work is usually nationalistic, acknowledging history, culture, and tradition. It is often produced first in Africa, encouraging their respective nation’s economies, and is produced with an African audience in mind.

Reversal of Eurocentric Stereotypes

Hergé (Georges Prosper Remi), a Belgian artist-writer, created Les Aventures de Tintin (1929-1976; The Adventures of Tintin, 1930-1976), twenty-three completed graphic novels that frequently made use of African stereotypes, depicting all Africans without nationality and with one look and human qualities that rendered them as humorous, rather than as three-dimensional personalities. Hergé’s influences were other works of popular culture, particularly Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan series, showing Africans to be passive, unintelligent, and ineffectual and, thus, worthy to be controlled by Europeans; these novels were popular throughout Africa. Still, a number of contemporary African artists and writers such as T. T. Fons (Alphonse Mendy, of Goorgoolou) and Joe Dog (Anton Kannemeyer, a founder of Bitterkomix) credit Hergé as their inspiration to produce radically new graphic works that reverse stereotypes.

Other writers and artists reverse the stereotype perpetuated in the United States of connecting African and African American characters with animals or nature (e.g., Marvel Comics’ Black Panther and Storm and DC Comics’ Vixen and Black Lightning) by dealing with daily African life rather than with superheroics. An example of this reversal of stereotypes might be the Albert Cossery and Golo (Guy Nadeau) graphic novel Mendiants et orgueilleux (2009) from Cairo. The graphic novel is based on Cossery’s novel of the same name, published in 1955 and translated into English as Proud Beggars (1981). The work focuses on Cairo’s slums and their various inhabitants trying to succeed in life: notably, Gohar, a former university professor who works as a bookkeeper in a brothel; Yeghen, a drug dealer; El Kordi, a revolutionary; Naila, a prostitute who Gohar would like to marry; Set Amina, the madam of the bordello; and Nour El Din, a corrupt politician. These characters encompass a variety of lifestyles and hopes in Egypt, and their comedic interaction allows for satirical commentary on Egypt’s people and government.

Postcolonialism and African Graphic Novels

During the 1960s, with many African nations becoming independent after European colonization, there was a rise in self-published and tribal African comic books. These books, called kinoseires, are rare. They were written in native languages, such as Lingala, Tshiluba, and Kikongo, and featured local news events and gossip. As nations became independent, there was a rise in the publication of newspapers and magazines and a wider introduction to television. New publications encouraged new artists and writers, while television encouraged certain formats that these artists and writers would follow, such as the soap opera or detective drama.

The soap opera set the format for graphic novels such as the Aya series, written by Marguerite Abouet and drawn by Clément Oubrerie. The series features a teenage girl, Aya, on the Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) during the 1970s. The novels contain discussions and depictions of history and culture but focus primarily on female-male relationships. An interesting aspect of the series is that it highlights a period during the 1970s when the Ivory Coast benefitted from its former colonial status with France. Agriculturally rich, the Ivory Coast has been a major producer of coffee, timber, cocoa, and bananas. Referred to at the time as the Paris of West Africa, Aya’s city, Abidjan, is transnational, featuring people, fashion, and music from all over the world, but especially from France and the United States. The series was first published in 2007, by which time the Ivory Coast had become impoverished, Francophobic, and embroiled in civil war. One of the criticisms of the text, therefore, is that it harks back to an era when Eurocentric empowerment made the country better rather than identifying positively with its Africanness, separate from European influences.

Issues in Modern African Graphic Novels

Most popular contemporary African graphic novels for an older audience are either satirical or naturalistic, dealing with current issues, communal values, government insensitivity and corruption, racial strife, and redemption. The latter is particularly common of white writers and publishers, like Conrad Botes and Anton Kannemeyer’s Bitterkomix in postapartheid South Africa, and frequently represents guilt or sympathy for black South African violence. In white writer Andy Mason’s Vusi Goes Back (1982), South African history is revealed from the point of view of a black grandfather to his grandson. Kannemeyer’s Bloedrivier (1995) argues that the black Africans should have “killed the colonialist pigs” upon first contact. He revisits this issue in his other graphic novels Heaven Help Us (1998) and Fear of a Black Planet (2008). Another frequent contributor to Bitterkomix, Paddy Bouma serialized and then published a graphic novel entitled The Guilty Bystander, in which a white South African reevaluates the way he and his family participated in apartheid.

Black African artists and writers have different concerns, though many of these concerns involve revising history and telling myth from a black African perspective. In a series of graphic novels entitled Mandrill (1998- ), Congolese artist-writer Barly Baruti focuses on French colonization of Africa. Eric Salla, another Congolese creator, uses photos from newspapers to re-create life in the country beginning in the 1930s. Africavi (2008), by the Togolese brothers Anani and Mensah Accoh, takes place starting in the seventeenth century, when Africato, king of a small African village, enlists his men to search for European ice, which becomes a symbol of Eurocentric values. In his journey, he has to agree with many of his people that African values are as important as European.

While social issues and issues of colonialism are important, they are also sometimes present in indirect ways, especially as contemporary artists and creators move to explore new content. For example, in Loyiso Mkize's Kwezi series, which began publication in 2014, Kwezi is a normal-kid-turned-superhero from South Africa. It has been published in numerous languages and has appealed to a broad audience. The rising popularity of superheroes worldwide was not lost on Mkize, and the uniqueness of his character's story has created additional appeal, particularly for African readers.

Feminism and African Graphic Novels

African ideals of women’s rights have radically changed in the graphic novels world. Most of the artists and writers support the idea of women in nontraditional roles and, either gently or overtly, make those around them aware of this shift.

Samba Ndar Cisse’s graphic novel Oulaï: Pour que cesse l’excision (2005; Oulaï: To end infibulation) argues against female circumcision. The novel shows a blood-soaked girl who runs toward the reader. In the novel, after the event, a woman says she will never allow this to happen to her daughter. Cisse does not make her African nation known, preferring to be known as an expatriate who resides in France.

La Vie de Pahé (2006; the life of Pahé), an autobiographical graphic novel by Gabonese writer-artist Patrick Essono, begins by describing his father’s life as village chieftain with ten wives. The wives yell at the father, “a real polygamist,” to which Pahe’s father responds, “Zip it, chickies.” Though gentle in nature, the novel suggests the changes occurring in Africa; the son is not as successful as the father is in getting women to “zip it.”

A number of series are focused on the health of the country’s peoples, though most of these are published in the United States. One such series is Emma Says (1994), published by the AIDS Technical Assistance Project, created by Lahoma Smith Romocki, and written and drawn by unnamed writers and artists. Emma is a middle-aged African woman who goes about sharing wisdom about women’s health care, particularly in regards to AIDS.

Censorship and African Graphic Novels

In 2008, Egyptian writer-artist Magdy El Shafee created the first graphic novel published for adults in his country, entitled Metro (English translation, 2012). The novels were confiscated by the police, and El Shafee and his publisher were put in jail, charged with creating and disseminating work that was “offensive to public morals.” While the work contains depictions of sexuality, it was likely banned for it revelations about governmental corruption. After a lengthy trial, El Shafee and his publisher were released from jail and fined 5,000 Egyptian pounds. In 2012, Metropolitan Books in the United States published Metro. The book's condemnation helped him garner support throughout the world and helped El Shafee build a name for himself as one of Egypt's, and Africa's, greatest contemporary comic artists and writers.

Many African artists and writers have found themselves unable to work in their native lands and have become expatriates, shipping their work back to Africa for consumption. Along with Belgian Carl Norac, Simon Mbumbo, a Cameroonian, writes and draws a comic strip collected into a graphic novel entitled Hisham et Yseult (2005; Hisham and Isolde), inspired by the European medieval tale Tristan und Isolde (1210; Tristan and Isolde, 1899). Hisham is an African refugee, while Isolde is biracial from a family that defines itself as French. The cultural clash, particularly the introduction of a biracial love affair, displayed in the novel forced Mbumbo from Cameroon.

Patrice “Pat” Masioni was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has created graphic novels on Rwandan genocide, but his most popular work is L’Appello (2005), in which a series of dreams by discontented Africans become acknowledged and, in some cases, realized. Nigerian cartoonist Tayo Fatunla lives and works in London. Salla saw his drawings destroyed by the police and was granted political asylum in the Netherlands.

In some African nations, African artists and writers are continually challenged because of concerns over antinationalism or historical revision. They are also jeopardized by challenging culture and tradition. Some who remain on the continent choose to censor themselves, preferring not to release works until a time when their work will seem more acceptable.

Impact

Popular in many African nations, African graphic novels have also earned fan bases in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, England, and the United States, especially since many African artists speak and create in these respective languages. Supa Strikas is a highly popular South African comic series, which was first published in 2001 by Strika Entertainment. The series is about a male, African football (soccer) team and their rivals. In 2008, the series was so popular that a television spin-off began and has been produced in more than one hundred countries and twenty-seven languages. The reach of the series demonstrated the potential popularity and impact of African comics.

Because of this reach, African artists and writers have also started to work outside Africa. The Tanzanian artist Godfrey Mwampembwa has done animated cartoons for MTV. Masioni has published a series of graphic novels in the Netherlands about the Plains Indians of the United States. Mauritania’s Man Keong Leval created a medieval saga published in England. A show of African graphic artists was displayed at the prestigious Studio Museum in Harlem in New York City. Similar shows have also taken place in France and throughout Africa, allowing nations to cross borders by identifying common concerns.

Artist and comic creator Gaspard Njock, born in 1985 in Douala, Cameroon, had his work showcased in an exihibit titled, Kubuni, les bandes dessinées d’Afrique.s in 2021 at the Cité Internationale de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image in Angoulême along with other African comic creators. Njock, whose comics are written in French, attributes influences on him and his art to Western art and comics. Njock, who researched musicology and the relationship between music and art at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, enjoys focusing on music in his work, like in Maria Callas, l’Enfance d’une Diva (2020) where he illusrates the relationship between music and graphic comics. Njock has also covered social issues in his work. In his graphic novel Un voyage sans retour (2018), Njock exposed the realities of immigration for a young man from Cameroon. Like many contemporary artists around the world , Njock has been interested in exploring new spaces in art, and for him, this space is between music, often opera, and graphic novels or comics.

Within Africa, there has been a rise in the number of artists and writers associations. These have encouraged fan clubs and better publication quality and distribution for graphic novels. Abetted by increased popularity, artists and writers are able to request and receive more money for their creations. Furthermore, they are able to showcase their work in new ways. In 2018, the first Comic Con event came to Cape Town, South Africa. Though the event took a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as of 2024 the event has continued to grow and showcase popular as well as up-and-coming comic artists in Africa.

The major impact of these graphic novels lies in their ability to reshape the African landscape. Whether by increasing literacy, aiding in health concerns, dealing with communal or national news, reinforcing or reinterpreting folk culture, reshaping stereotypical portrayals of African peoples, or exploring new avenues of artbe they personally or collectively newthese novels aid and serve the continent’s emergence as a literary and artistic force in the twenty-first century.

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