Comics of the World (Part 3)

How Little Can Things Get?

Continued from here:

Uganda

Looks recent, probably because nobody can name some newspaper strips and a few artists started this as a hobby. Not to mention the conservative attitudes locals have towards comics. You know, not wanting to risk their kids attention on anything that might be a bad influence. Based on confirmation bias even when they’re not just kid stuff.

In recent times, this got a little easier by adapting folklore and history. Paulette Comics leads that charge by showing everyone, especially the conservatives that comics visuals can nurture Ugandan culture. From the story of Kato Kintu to folk tales for moral lessons. Even Unicef gives comics out for important education.

But why limit it to just kids and teens? Chris Mugarura made a lot of risks to self-publish his comics starting with Tekezesazi. This manga-inspired booklet with its visual spectacle later leads to the contest winning Children of War. This dystopian sci-fi comic was so received that the contest organizers printed it for people to see. Although the followup that Mugarura planned hasn’t surfaced despite his wishes from 2015.

He might have a better chance now though. If projects like the Elupe House of Comics and Animation and Superheroes of Uganda are any indication. While telling tales of Uganda’s glory days are all well and good, letting people tell stories for the present is even better. But it looks like it might take a while.

At the very least they’re appearing where people can find them. Libraries, museums, and especially the internet. In fact, Uganda’s Comic-Con is called DigiArtFest. You never how far comics can go.

Jordan

All I could find was Suleiman Bakhit’s body of work like Princess Heart and Element Zero. Because kids were falling for the propaganda of extremists. Enough for some of these groups retaliating by giving him a scar. Not enough to make him stop Aranim Media Factory or Hero Factor. I just hope that his efforts after dying from cancer inspire more in this part of the Arab world.

Mongolia

Apparently very slow with nomadic culture. Didn’t help that the Soviets dominated the arts until the 90s. By that point historical adventures get to be the comics genre. Including but definitely not limited to Chinggis Khaan (that’s the proper way to say his name).

But before this, Mongolia got big international attention with Bumbardai, first under the Nomadic Comics Foundation. This series showed that the nomadic ways still had value despite how slow it was to accept comics. So much so that the company made it in several languages to promote it in international comics events. It won a few awards and got an equally acclaimed animated short film.

There are comics with more material like. irmuun has a couple of kid aimed stuff like Dinza popular in both Mongolia and China. Some groups like Women For Change make comics to spread messages, a couple are lucky to get animated. Might be more coming.

El Salvador

Couldn’t find much. Their most recent comic con was celebrated more for other pop culture businesses. The most I could find on a google search was an independent company called Crash Comics. Specific titles? Most I could find are El Destino del Nahual and The Legend Dawn. But there might be more that I just can’t find.

Barbados

So far, the only thing to find is Beyond Publishing Caribbean. Definitely not a bad thing since this company and its titles have won plenty of awards. Offset alone makes great waves. Plus Beyond goes… well they celebrate other achievements like Roger Marshall’s Captain Barbados.

Bahamas

Most I could find was a magazine called Yea Bey. But it basically stopped everything in 2022. It’s best remembered titles are Super Nova and Kayos Gaiden. If there’s anything recent, it hasn’t gone viral.

Virgin Islands

Only name that comes up is Karim Callwood. Mainly because the guy worked to be the most evocatively presentable. His superhero title VI Guardian after a name change gets enough success for Callwood to start teaching a class. Which inspired another title called VI Young Paladins. Hopefully this is the first of many other creators.

Luxembourg

As a neighbor to France and Belgium, it got a lot of exposure to bande dessinee. Arguably it started in satire in newspapers that got influence from outside including the traveling newspaper strip Monsier Pietje(Pitche?). Then…I couldn’t find what happened next. Just that by 1988, the iconic strip Superjhemp debuted. Europe sure likes its superhero parodies.

Only other title that the locals praise as much is something from Superjhemp’s publisher, Editions Revue. De Leschte Ritter is a fantasy comic about this noble called John the Blind, he comes to the modern day to take the fight to the most threatening, evil force… real estate speculators!

These as well as neighboring countries give comics huge attention. There’s even an annual festival that’s been going for over 30 years.

Estonia

There’s a website for Koomisid and a couple of titles to learn Estonian. And… that’s basically it.

Slovenia

Earliest stuff came from editorial cartoons satirizing aristocrats. Before newspaper strips show up.

The ones with the most influence started in the 50s with Miki Muster. Of course he used the pen name Draško Šajić in then Yugoslavia. His first strip was for a national hero.

But the nickname “Miki” is not a coincidence! This guy really wanted to be a Disney animator. It’s just that the closest he could get was a magazine publishing Disney comics because of the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain. In 1952, when the Disney stuff didn’t show up for the deadline, Miki published his first Zvitorepec strip to fill it in.

Of course the Soviets didn’t like that, but it took more than Yugoslavia breaking up with the Union for comics to thrive. At the very least artists were paid well. But Miki had to leave the country for his animation dreams until Slovenia broke up with the rest of Yugoslavia. There Zvitorepec, Trdonja, and Lakotnik become stars in those strips, moving from publisher to publisher. Among Muster’s other works, even after Muster’s death, they’re icons.

Of course the same can’t be said for every cartoonist. Most of them need another job to get by…like everywhere else. Even Muster considered himself an animator before a comic artist.

Others like Kostja Gatnik and Marjan Manček made children’s books out of their art. Manček’s Hribci follows a prehistoric family who got around as Slovenian language learning books. They even appear in carnivals, acting as ways to spread Slovenian culture around.

Lemme guess, people think comics are just for kids right? Not unless you count the erotic stuff in the 80s. But not much on names.

The 90s meanwhile use the new wave/punk scene to show off the freedoms of expression. You don’t get to tell a story on all sides of a war if it’s propaganda.

But the important part of this era is the anthology magazine Stripburger. Young or old, local or foreign audiences, this fanzine welcomes all. It even hosts workshops and contests to train and nurture cartoonists. Plus with a few specialty stores, local and neighborly comics get around.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

A neighbor of Slovenia and a receiver of liberated artists from there. Enough to give an unbiased look at the Bosnian War. As for local stuff, the most I could find was a “Bosman” a propaganda hero in the fight against Serbia in said war. Basically their Captain America. Even some people who work in comics are in Slovenia instead of their birth country.

Paraguay

Do a search and the first thing you find is a guy named Robin Wood who worked in Argentina and Europe with characters like Dago. But he came back to Paraguay with an artist for a bestseller called 1811. Kind of a given with a country’s biggest historical event. That’ll get every printer, newspaper, publisher company and co-op to get it to as many people.

They even do it again with more creators with historical titles. Some even get to be Paraguayan literature for schools. Including the chupacabra hunting Carpincheros. Because textbooks are a boring way to look at history.

Frankly comics have it a little easy here because TV, movies, and video games don’t have much support. But not so much with editors and distribution. Which might be why you can find a lot of them on this website. …For free! That and the Covid lockdowns give readers the perfect excuse to read Coquitoman.

But not the older stuff way back in the 60s starting with the strip Ivo for a children’s magazine. Didn’t mean kids didn’t know about serious subjects like Spanish Conquest in 1978’s Avaré. The creator of that made Paraguay’s first comic magazine Quimera. Even got a rival in 1984 called El Raudal. Although this was for people to escape from the dictatorship at the time til it got censored.

Zimbabwe

Before the push from the artist collective Comexposed, comics were mostly for education like HIV/AIDS and girls becoming more aware of their society. Then there was the political rhetoric during the Liberation War. But they didn’t really catch on because the presentation wasn’t that great.

With Comexposed came more serious artists. Despite an economic crisis, that didn’t stop artists from trying to create characters unique to their home. Or organize a convention for artists and fans to meet.

One of the most notable names to come out of this is Bill Masuku. His comic Razor-Man among others is not afraid to reflect life at its best, worst, and more. Despite a lack of access to services like Kickstarter and bookstores carrying comics, these creatives never stop.

Even if some of them have to leave Zimbabwe for places like South Africa. Including Masuku who folded his old publisher Enigma Comix into his brother’s company and had to get a day job. Times are tough, and with the age old outlook that comics are just for kids, it’s an uphill battle. Even the ones with some fame like Themba couldn’t get the budget for anything beyond a limited series.

Doesn’t keep them from trying, especially with Comexposed’s titular convention. They just had to find more help from parties like Kugali and SquidMag.

Macao

This place mostly focuses on animation, but animators like Michael Wong make comics as a side hustle. Mostly for education for kids to get into both mediums. As well as competitions to help get experience and exposure. Often they share space with China and Hong Kong.

Zambia

First mention of comics appears to be in the 70s with the Orbit magazine. Under the Secretary of Cabinet and Head of Civil Service in Zambia’s first day of independence. Not that there was too much of a grudge with Britain since passionate artists from a London News Service helped make it. In those days it was for easier reading, especially for science education. But instead of PSAs, the comics were adventures meant to inspire especially the Space Safari strip. So successful a wildlife conservation group tried to follow its lead.

Anything else of note doesn’t show up until 2014 for education and the first leading comic book publisher Foresight Comics. While it’s been a while since I’ve read The Fifth Element, it has inspired fans to act.

The Zambia Comic Book Creators Association (Zacoca) and Lusaka Comicon are the places for every Zambian creative to show their stuff. Each new member celebrating their latest breakthrough no matter how small.

Mozambique

Apparently comics were around since the 80s thanks to an organization called Instituto Nacional do Livro e do Disco. At least 3 comics go into artsy anti-colonial perspectives despite narrations from Portuguese colonials. Using local traditional images over Portuguese influence gives them a distinct identity. But they lost influence around the end of the 90s. Probably because Mozambique didn’t need to fight as hard.

But that doesn’t mean colonialism is gone, especially inside its borders. That’s what OS Informais is all about. This ambitious project has a group of informal worker vigilantes fight against a real estate baron. The creatives behind it are driven to get as big an audience as possible including the Brazilian market. But why stop there when they want to go into animation, they already have a soundtrack.

Latvia

This part of the Baltic mainly uses kuš! to get its stories around. Koosh covers just about everything countries do to nurture local talent and get international audiences. Exhibitions, workshops, events, anthologies, and accepting artists from oversees to spotlight with their residency program. All to make comics just a little more popular.

Belarus

Not a ton of them, most I could find were usually strips as extras in books, educational (enough) web comics, and stuff with cats.

Armenia

Not a ton, but they’re trying. Since back in the 90s with newspaper strips that got albums. But the ones that come up the most are usually historical or spreading events when news and national holidays come up short. Usually the Armenian Genocide or more recently The Armenian Velvet Revolution. Aside from crowdfunding, these comics get support from organizations like the defunct APBDA (because it could only support so many) or Entrepreneurship and Product Innovation Center at the American University of Armenia.

Tanzania

Starting the 70s, most comic strips were usually artists first steps into exhibitions. The ones that didn’t go to Kenya anyway. One of the earliest pioneers is Majuto. But I can’t anything specific about it. Unlike Shujaaz which got around multiple ways. Not least of which because of international reach within Kenya.

Mauritius

Really into manga. Among the many creators, one called Shank MC got the Sora Brothers onto the news. Two kids on a journey of self-discovery grows on an audience.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Started around the 50s. Most of it came from European influences of the colonial days under Belgium. Portugal is another story.

While Tintin managed to scrape off its worst influences there, other propaganda bits took locals to change the narratives they grew up on.

With Congo’s independence titles like Jeunes pour jeunes took a new direction to show how big a divide exists between Congo’s capital Kinshasa and the rest of the country. How? Language for one; only a few places speak Lingala or Hindoubil, while everywhere else speaks French. As well as passionate if clunky views creatives couldn’t speak before.

Didn’t mean they could always get away with speaking their minds. Most artists ironically went to Europe for more acceptance in 80s.

The 90s had some local talent come out like Papa Mfumu'eto Premier with his “mystic-religious-secret” comics like The Python That Ate A Woman.

Soon enough, workshops came in to help more artists move past the dated art styles of Bande Dessinnee of the 70s.

Not that content wasn’t worth forgetting. There were plenty of strips showing off life in Congo, from the lively music to the deathly wars and massacres of refugees. A lot of these collected in Congo 50 to help spread messages of sensitisation for the international peace effort.

It’s still hard to make a living as a cartoonist, especially with an ongoing war. Festivals are one way to at least sell books. A couple get help thanks to services like Vortex Corp. Kiyindou Yamakasi manages to publish Orisha Pikin here. Now he’s been trying to rebrand it as Little Little Orishas and go into animation.