SA artists at the fore of comics

French bandes dessinées meets South-African comics in the Art of Comics Exhibition: French Bandes dessinées and SA Comics in Conversation, an exhibition that showcases the fascinating worlds of South-African comics and French bandes dessinées, the famous French comic style.

“For many people, comics are kind of the first encounter with art and storytelling. Comics came from fine art – they have a very long history and the two fields are not as far apart as we might think. We wanted to showcase comics as art,” said Tara Weber, co-curator of the South-African part of the exhibition.

The Johannesburg Art Gallery, Embassy of France in South Africa and French Institute of SA spurred a much-needed conversation about the state of South-African comics and where they are headed. The exhibition will be showing until 17 November at the art gallery and offers visitors a rich variety of contemporary South-African comics and graphic novels that explore themes related to history, folklore, science fiction, autobiography and new developments in the field, such as augmented reality comics.

The exhibition also includes a special section on French Speaking Comics Today, curated by Thierry Groensteen, one of France’s leading bande dessinées researchers and theorists.

Showing the relationship between fine art and comics, French comics are considered the ninth art and pit against theatre, literature and fine art. Local artists Loyiso Mkhize, Nkululeko Sedibe and more are working tirelessly to bring contemporary South-African comics to the front line – on both ground and institutional levels.

“There’s an inner conflict created by consuming content that’s not specifically tailored or tell the story of someone that looks like you or who shares the same kinds of aspiration. I’m from a perspective of empowerment and positive representation, I create work that’s within that space,” Sedibe said.

The exhibition coincided with Comic Con Africa, the continent’s largest comic festival, to give the public a wider look into the world of comics and animation. An estimated 80 000 people attended the inaugural event in South Africa last year, highlighting the popularity of this art form.

Mkhize said the exhibition puts the local comic industry in a good position in its recognition of the plethora of talent in the country.

“As a young South African who does comics and is in the business of comics it means that we’ve been recognised and pin-pointed as an emerging culture point for comics,” Mkhize said.

Mkhize is the talent behind South Africa’s first real superhero, Khwezi, and behind The Art of Comics’ visual identity. The artist said it was important for comics to receive societal grand standing because of their encouragement of reading and immersion into a grand world and a celebration of authentic stories.

“It has to be a recognised art form and established art form… I’d like to see more illustrators and more comic book artists making more content, new content and a better confidence coming from publishers.”

The work of important South African artists, including Loyiso, Nkululeko, Mogorosi Motshumi, Luke Molver and more showed that local comics can go toe to toe, pen for pen and strip for strip with the best in the world while staying true and representing truly authentic South African stories.

“I explore a theme of Afro-futurism. It’s the ability to tell our own stories and also be able to imagine ourselves in spaces that we were either initially marginalised from or that were not necessarily empowering us initially,” said Sedibe.

Weber said showcasing contemporary South-African comics and have them in the gallery and framed as art in museums was going to be quite powerful for the comic industry in South Africa.