A section of the popular ‘Akokhan’ series, now in book form
“Tell me, Day, why do you follow me?” asked Night. “We are twins, don’t you know?” answered Day. “I am the one who brings out the Fire and you the Smoke; I am the one who brings out the Light; and you the Dark. It is useless for us to fight, Light and Shade, Good and Evil... What a pair! Where you go, I must follow.”
These are the words that introduce the new book compilation of the Akokhan comic series by the evergreen Frank Odoi, a spellbinding tale that interrogates the age-old question of good and evil.
The series centre on two deadly opposites, Tonkazan and Akokhan.
The former, who represents the “dark side,” is a scheming, evil and often murderous villain, while the latter is more reasonable and fights for the good side.
Their rivalry is age-old as they seek to possess and control the strength-giving Eye of Kofi Larteh, which is seemingly the holy grail, the ultimate prize in the never-ending battle of good and evil.
The verses are surprisingly well crafted, serving as the foundation of the Akokhan tale that was influenced by a number of events, friends and foes, environmental upheavals and the diversity of African culture, especially Ghanian myths and legends.
“Most of the shrines and locales are real but they transcend time and space,” Fran says. “One difference between West and East Africa is the perception of local religious beliefs and rites.
Traditional religions in Ghana and West Africa are culturally accepted and respected, but they are frowned upon and referred to as voodoo, juju and witchcraft in East Africa.”
Nonetheless, Akokhan has captured a large audience in East Africa and parts of northern Europe, despite the strong West African folklore theme.
Introduced to the East African market in a weekly series that was intermittently published by the two leading newspapers in Kenya, it has had diehard fans.
One fan, Dr Bantu Mwaura (the late), loved Akokhan so much that he sought Fran’s permission to stage a play by the same name and theme.
A screen version of Akokhan is also in the works.
There is no doubt that Akokhan is an excellent addition to the fast diversifying African literary scene.
Going by the subsequent works of art that it has inspired, the comic has demonstrated that this could be the continent’s next literary frontier.
Compared with the novel, poetry and drama, the comic genre is still in an embryonic stage.
Yet the storylines are abundant, if not endless.
“The comic book format — this union of literature and art, words and pictures — has contributed immensely to social cohesion of those societies in which it has taken root,” says Terry, a pioneer editorial cartoonist and comic author in Kenya.
He adds: “No successful industrialised economy has emerged anywhere in the world without spawning a comic book industry to assist in the necessary balancing of forces and education of the young into the social process. It has happened in Europe and North America, and also indigenously in China, Japan and eventually India, Central and South America, and the Mahgreb. “But clearly, this is not yet the case in Africa, south of the Sahara.”
The genre has had a stunted growth in Kenya and East Africa.
But some of the few comics that have been published by various cartoonists and illustrators have made a mark in the regions’s literary landscape.
In Kenya, the mark was made by works such as the Pichadithi series by Terry.
The series title was coined from two Kiswahili words picha (pictures) and hadithi (story).
First published in the early 1980s by Kenway, the Pichadithi series was one of the longest published comic series.
It was grounded in African traditional oral literature and had over twenty 30-paged comics developed from popular fables, myths and legends of various Kenyan communities.
“The series was conceptualised in 1982. Kenya had just gone through the trauma of the attempted coup d’état,” says Terry. “The mainstream media had become politically repressive. I had been forced out of my job as an editorial cartoonist on a national daily shortly before and my re-appointment as a lecturer in graphics at a public university was not confirmed. So I was faced with the usual artist’s problem of how to make a living. To enter the market economy with your work, you need a patron — or an agent.
“I persuaded the publisher, who was very much into the existing markets, that an unexplored market existed that we could both benefit from. The publishers were my patron/agent and would pay me upfront on receiving the completed, camera-ready artwork monthly, thus financing the completion of next month’s issue. The series was popular from the start and soon achieved a monthly circulation of over 20,000 copies.”
Traditional stories are an important part of African culture, handed down orally over the years.
The Pichadithi series was based on these stories — told in words and pictures that made use of a well researched material culture that needed no explanation.
It not only added colour but made the series easy and fun to read. Each story has a message and a moral that is relevant to modern living.
“After the attempted coup and the subsequent crackdown on the plotters, the food shortages and the coffee scandals of the Eighties,” Terry says, “my wife and I felt that the country — particularly children — needed “healing”.
“We agreed that traditional stories from all over the country, stories that everyone could relate to culturally, would soothe, entertain and underline the unity of our diversity.”
The series had memorable stories, such as the Kenyatta Prophecy, The Greedy Hyena, Wanjiru the Sacrifice, The Amazing Abu Nuwasi, Lwanda Magere, The Ogre’s Daughter, The Adventures of Hare, The Wisdom of Koomenjoe, A Poor Man’s Bowl, Terror in Ngachi Village, The Cunning Squirrel, Omganda’s Treasure, Children of Sango, Simbi the Hunchback and others.
While Terry could be credited with creating the series, many other cartoonists like Fran and Maddo were invited to illustrate the stories.
The number of young artists attracted to the genre continued to grow in East Africa.
Comics strips such as Bogi Benda by James Tumusiime, a Ugandan agriculture economist turned journalist, Kazibure, also known as Ndumilakuwili, by Tanzania’s pioneer cartoonist, the late Philip Ndunguru, were very popular in Kenya and in the region.
They were an alternative to the then dominant Western strips such as Andy Capp, Eb and Flo, Popeye, Hagar the Terrible, Flash Gordon, Modesty Blaise, Donald Duck and The Tramps.
When the Pichadithi series was discontinued in Kenya, a big void was left for over 10 years.
Then Laila Luce, an American entrepreneur, set up Sasa Sema Publishers that set out to solely publish comics.
It churned out titles like Macho ya Mji and Abu Nuwasi.
The storylines were a mixture of comics derived from narratives to fictional works of art.
“Laila Luce did her best with the Sasa Sema series before a sluggish readership put paid to her efforts.”
Maddo, who was also the first Kenyan cartoonist to caricature a seating President during the clamour for multi-party politics in the early 1990s, says: “The comic industry is tiny. It is in limbo because of our poor reading habits. We are good at glancing at cartoons; cartoons in a single frame or a composite, which tell one story or two, laugh it off and we’re fine. Somehow, we find it extremely difficult to read comic books.”
It is an uncertain industry and most cartoonists have been confined to drawing editorial cartoons.
This artform has grown immensely.
It is hard to imagine a newspaper without an editorial cartoon.
A number of these illustrations have been turned into insightful and fascinating books by creative cartoonists like Godfrey Mwampembwa (Gado) in Kenya and Jonathan Zapiro (Zapiro) in South Africa.
However, the cartoonist finds himself in a small, crowded sector where one has to be absolutely good to make a career.
Though newspapers today have in their employment several artists producing different work (single frame cartoons, comics and illustrations), there is still a limit to how many one media house can have on board.
Cartoonists say that while daily cartoon commentary is popular, the field is crowded. They are, therefore, pushing their creative ideas to new heights.
“I love comics more than cartoons. That’s what I want to be remembered for,” Fran says. “I would like to sit back and create comics for children and adults, especially those with story lines like Akokhan. Hopefully, someone will come along and create movie versions of my creations.”
Cartoonists would like other publishers to follow the lead of East African Educational Publishers, who have published Akokhan.
They would also like private and government literary departments to promote a reading culture.
Locally produced 2-D and 3-D animation series for television might just revamp interest in comics.
