Voices: Exhibit

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Exhibit Case

Fons, T.T. Goorgoorlou et Maramokho Guissané. Dakar Ponty: Atelier Fons, 2001.

Fons, T.T. Goorgoorlou et Maramokho Guissané. Dakar Ponty: Atelier Fons, 2001.

“Goorgoorlou [is] the representative of a new race of men: the Senegalese subjected to the Structural Readjustment Plan. […] Goorgoorlou, his wife Diek, his son Modou and the phrase ‘Goorgoorlou rek!’ have become familiar to the Senegalese big [audience].”
“T.T. Fons (Senegal): Goorgoorlou.” Africa Comics. Accessed September 14, 2015.
First published in 1992, in the waning days of Apartheid, Madam & Eve quickly became wildly popular in South Africa, eventually spawning an award-winning sitcom. The satirical strip features Gwen Anderson, the “Madam” or head of the household, and Eve Sisulu, the maid who really runs the house.

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S. Francis, H. Dugmore & Rico. Madam & Eve’s Greatest Hits. London: Penguin Books, 1997.

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Ghanatta. Cartoons – The Fall of a Tyrant: Kwame Nkrumah. Accra-Tema, Ghana: State Pub. Corp., 1966.

In his Preface, cartoonist Ghanatta [Yaw Boakye] notes he drew these cartoons after the overthrow of Ghanaian President and Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah in 1966: “I settled down immediately after the coup to recapture some of the events in […] the form of cartoons exposing KWAME NKRUMAH and his gang of rogues, misfits and opportunists.” In 1969 he established Ghanatta College of Art & Design, which has since trained generations of African artists.
Africa Comics is an anthology and exhibit series curated by Africa e Mediterraneo magazine to promote the work of African cartoonists. Jo Palmer Akligo, a cartoonist from Togo/Bénin, offers a story of a young girl playfully negotiating with her grandmother.

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“Juliette et Meémé Pygamou” by Jo Palmer Akligo (Kodjo Akligo). Africa Comics 2007-2008.
Sasso Marconi BO i.e. Bologna: Africa e Mediterraneo: Lai-momo, 2009.

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Joe Dog and Conrad Botes et al. Bitterkomix #8. Stellenbosch, South Africa: Bitterkomix, April 1998.

“Anton Kannemeyer (aka Joe Dog) and Conrad Botes, at that time students of the fine arts department of the university of Stellenbosch, South Africa, started the comics anthology Bitterkomix in 1992. […]The gist of the comic book is all-encompassing irony and destruction of taboos, combined with a love of cutting edge graphics.”
–Gert Meesters, “Bitterkomix.” Accessed September 14, 2015.
Originally published as a series of eight comic books and distributed free to South African schoolchildren and others, this book won the 2010 Best Book for Older Readers Award from the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association’s Children’s Africana Book Awards.

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Nelson Mandela Foundation with Umlando Wezithombe. Nelson Mandela: The Authorized Comic Book. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2009.

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Theopeters Ebonugwu and ‘Segun Olafare et al. Barack Obama: The Sun of Solidarity (Obama Story # 4).
Ikeja-Lagos, Nigeria: Literamed Publications Nig., 2009.

A five-part biography of Barack Obama, produced in Nigeria. From the introductory page: “To Africans, he [Obama] is an icon, a symbol of hope, possibility and victory over life’s circumstances and disillusionment characterizing the adventures of the average African child.”
Writer Marguerite Abouet moved from Ivory Coast to France at age twelve. “I got so annoyed at the way in which the media systematically showed the bad side of the African continent, habitual litanies of wars, famine, of the ‘sida,’ and other disasters, that I wished to show the other side, to tell about daily modern life that also exists in Africa.”
–Ajayi, Angela, interviewer. “Drawing on the Universal in Africa: An Interview with Marguerite Abouet.” Wild River Review. Accessed September 14, 2015.

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Marguerite Abouet & Clément Oubrerie. Aya. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2007.

Posters

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Slim. Slim. Alger: ENAL, 1986.

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Soccer Warrior #31. South Africa: Mamba Media, 2014.

See also: Voices IntroductionFurther Reading