This month’s Words Without Borders has a special issue on graphic novels from around the world.

I loved this short extract from series by Pahé (Patrick Essono) whose childhood experiences bring to life two myths. One the myth of a Europe with streets of gold and the other, the myth of returning to the glorious homeland.

The story starts with Pafe as a little kid in his small town in Gabon, playing with his friends, sharing in the stories of relatives returning from far off places and dreaming of going to France. His dream comes true and off he goes with his family to Paris where he is the only Black kids in the class. Here he has to endure the racist mockery from his white class mates. The irony is back in school in Gabon, he is once again introduced to his class mates, this time as Mr Frenchy to which all the kids start shouting “whitey” “whitey” but the taunting doesn’t stop there. Eventually tired of the “slaughter” he challenges another kid to a fight which he looses and has to return home feeling ashamed having got his face “rearranged”.

Tags:
Life of Pahé
Gabon
African Comics
Africa + Graphic Novels

When we think of the history of Black people in the African Diaspora, cartoonists and graphic novelists rarely come to mind so here I thought I would mention a two Black artists, one cartoonist Morrie Turner and the other graphic novelist, Lance Tooks, who have made significant contributions to their profession. Starting with Morrie Turner, who created the “Wee pals” (1965) comic strip and later “Kid Power” an animated TV show from the 70s.

Both Wee Pals and Kid Power involved a group of kids from various ethnic backgrounds and it was this multiculturalism that is woven through all of Turner’s work.

It’s this particular care for detail that makes Morrie Turner, the creator of the first truly integrated comic strip, Wee Pals so successful as a cartoonist. His work pivots upon the issue of sensitivity to others. Awarded numerous awards for his work in cartooning, Morrie Turner’s KID Power, Rainbow Club, Wee Pals characters are used to promote brotherhood & multi-culturalisim. Long before ‘Multi-Culturalism’ became the politically correct catch phase of the `90’s Wee Pals presented that message as early as 1965.

The second artist is the more contemporary graphic novelist, Lance Tooks, author of a number of graphic novels including “Narcissa” As well as his graphic novels, Lance also writes comic strips and blogs at Lance Tooks (more sketches here). His work is amazingly beautiful with strong images of Black woman like this one below.

Also check out his “Unpublished Symphony series here.

Links: More on Lance’s graphic novels

NOTE: There will be a celebration of the work of Morrie Turner as part of the “Drawn in Black and White: a panel discussion on African Americans in Cartoons and Comics” on February 16th, Museum of Pittsburg

Tags:
Black History Month
Morrie Turner
Lance Tooks
Black Cartoonists
Graphic Novels
Narcissa
Comics
Cartoons

Santa Anastacia, Anastácia Escrava, an Angolian princess, kidnapped and forced to become the mistress of her white master in Brazil. Anastacia resisted her capture, her rape and abuse and for that she was forced to wear a metal muzzle - common practice in Brazil and the Caribbean. Muzzles were used to prevent slaves from eating the sugar cane and as a general punishment for acts of resistance. Anastacia contracted gangrene from the muzzle and eventually it killed her. Below is a sculpture by a friend, Matt Branson, of Anastacia muzzled.

Ancestors

A wounded body is one who turns day into night
one who returns to the womb
A wounded body is one who turns laughter into tears
one who weeps under blue skies
A wounded body is one who faces the wall
one who no longer smiles
A wounded body is one who bleeds from inside
one who can no longer dream
A wounded body is one who reaches out
but finds only silence and nothingness
A wounded body is one who cannot smell the roses
one who only feels the pain of thorns.

For some the wounds are timeless, stretching back in history
for others they are but moments in the present
Listen to my wounds, feel my wounds
taste the wounds of my ancestors, if you dare
Do not deny my wounded body
do not mistake my wounds for weakness
on the contrary, my wounds are my strength

© Sokari Ekine

Links: Quilombo Country

Tags:
Anatacia
Brazil
Slavery + Bahia

Two not so new blogs but definitely worth regular visits. The first is Dogonland which was started by one of my best friends, Del Hornbuckle about a year ago but was shut down due to technical difficulties. She has now relaunched the blog and it is looking good! Neat and beautifully presented with some excellent commentary. Her last post is on a flim called Lomo about a Congolese woman, Lomo Sniai who survived rape by soldiers and as a result developed traumatic fistula. Del watched the film on PBS wrote a review here.

The second blog is one I discovered on MySpace by Nigerian writer and poet, Chinwe Azubuike - “African Writers”. This poem is on female circumcision

Our Dilemma

You, our gods of immortals and living
Of seas and lands
Of all visible and not
we beseech, hear our cry this day
and come to our rescue.

Our sacred weapons of pleasure
are being destroyed by the day
rendered useless by our overseeing Lords and Ladies
of ancestral descent.

They perform a barbaric operation on our ‘flesh of honour’
and call it ‘Female Circumcision’
in the white man’s language.
They mutilate our pride and say it is ‘tradition’
“The initiation to womanhood.”

They cut us!
Oh yes, they cut us with the blade……… Continue.

Leigh Raiford of CODEZ interviews revolutionary Black artist, Emory Douglas.

–For those of us born in the seventies, the post-soul generation, the artwork of Emory Douglas, Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party (1967-1979) and Revolutionary Artist (4Life), is wedged deep in our political unconscious. Our revolutionary imaginings have been fueled by Douglas’s powerful thick-lined drawings of armed and determined black children, stern-faced black men, righteous sisters, and avaricious pigs in uniform getting what was coming to them.

Leigh Raiford: What is revolutionary art today?

Emory Douglas: Overcoming obstacles. I mean then, now, in the future. Once you achieve a certain success, or establish a certain criteria as it relates to concerns then you have to implement that thing. And once you implement it it’s revolutionary. So it’s about overcoming obstacles, it’s dealing with change, the process of change. And giving people some insight into the issues that we’re dealing with. Racism. Racism is a rampant thing. In a way, it’s been almost mainstreamed now, to justify it. Apologists for it. These are things that perhaps can be thought out. How can you express that so people can see that? They may be thinking about it but they don’t see it visually.

But then again what you had then we had organizations. But now you got electronic media where you can access and reach millions of people in that way. But the actual out- there organization that we did during that period when the art was art of consciousness it was… You know you were out there, you had that connection, actual physical connection. So it’s a great difference now than then in a lot of ways. Because lots of people put their stuff on electronic media for people to look at. They get inspired, they’re moved they do something.

Read the entire Emory Douglas/CODEZ interview here.