Will there ever be a Nigerian Incredible Hulk...

Will there ever be a Nigerian Incredible Hulk, a Batman from Abuja or Judge Dredd on the streets of Lagos? A new generation of Nigerian graphic artists say no: their comic heroes will be homegrown, writes Waldimar Pelser from Lagos.

The reincarnation of Nigerian dictators and democratic activists, Lara Croft-like super-heroes, and the kings and warriors of Nigerian legends has begun – between the covers of comic books. From Secrets of Allen Avenue, where male prostitutes lurk near the shadowy Orchid of Sin, to June 12, a graphic novel about the annulment of Moshood Abiola's election victory in 1993, a new breed of comics is giving young Nigerian readers a fresh take on what their country is about and what it could become. Their creators, driven partly by the success of Hollywood blockbusters with roots in the comics world(Batman, Superman, Sin City, Stardust), want to immortalise Nigeria's own heroes in graphic novels that may one day too hit the silver screen. A dearth of funding is hampering the realisation of this dream. Their work was at display this month at the thirdLagos Comics & Cartoons Carnival, where school children were taught the basics of the art, and some of the industry's young masters showed their work.

"We want to start something here," says Sewedo Nupowaku (30), a six foot plus Lagosian who studied law until creative urges drove him into the arms of animation art and comic strips. "Lots of kids are hooked on MTV and don't know anything about their culture. We as Nigerians, our fathers were kings, our mothers warriors. Everybodytalks about Churchill and (Napoleon) Bonaparte. Where are our own heroes?" Hoping to inject TV-watching youth with a sense of history, Nupowako conceived a comics series which includes The Legend of Moremi, the tale of early settlers from Saudi Arabia in the Nigerian town of Ile Ife, said to be the oldest town of the Yoruba people. This is a fabled world where forest demons live and boys listen as their mothers recount stories of bravery and conquest.

In the same volume Nupowaku tackles contemporary Lagos in Secrets of Allen Avenue. Based on an actual street in Ikeja, the Lagos state capital and part of today's metropolis, Allen Avenue is home to Linus the gun runner, The Orchid of Sin (where bar girls leave customers "fully satisfied"), and a cast of sleazy characters. "It used to be called 'cocaine avenue'," Nupowako says, referring to the Ikeja street, and his fictional rendition. "The good, the bad, the ugly, people with financial clout, banks; we want to chronicle howdifferent facets of Nigerian life interweave." What emerged is a world he calls "Tarantinoesque", after Quentin Tarantino, director of Pulp Fiction (1994).

The comics at the Lagos carnival tackle anything from futuristic fantasy to questions of ethnicity and identity, and most are presented in a racy style pitched at young readers of between 10 and 25 years old. What would Nigeria look like in 2145 AD? Nupowako's ACE Comics takes a guess in Naija Hardkore, with its totalitarian but orderly world where Lagos's yellow Molue taxi buses are jet-powered and fly, but policemen still accept bribes. In several other series, characters are saved from desperate and often realistic situations by the intervention of superhuman powers, as if nothing elsecould save the day. Pandora includes two such stories. Aisha, an orphan, is a computer sales lady to herfriends but morphs after hours into a Nigerian Lara Croft – a fearless street-fighter with exposed abdomen, a spandex suit, mask and a gun. In S.I.E.G.E., also in Pandora's story box, police commissioner Chiduem Okoro's daughter is kidnapped in Nigeria's oil rich Port Harcourt, until a flying hero snatches her from the hands of an armed gang.They may resemble the Ninja Turtles, but are far from mere fiction: kidnappings in the Niger Delta around Port Harcourt grab headlines here every other day. Nigeria's most brutal civil war also gets a mention in Kenway Oforeh's Kinetic. It is the story of a troubled young man whose father had been a soldier in a "civil strife" in 1967 (thesecessionist war in Biafra that claimed a million lives). He saves passengers in a hijacked Lagos public bus from murderous robbers by invoking supernatural powers inherited from his father, the retired major. Ofore (29) never mentions Biafra, the name given tothe eastern part of Nigeria by Igbo secessionists, some of whom still campaign for independence today. Also, he refers to Nigeria as a "marriage of convenience", so-called because of the belief that the country actually contains numerous distinct nations,united merely for the sake of convenience by British colonial rulers.

But by building into his narrative a character with roots in the Igbo east, Ofore feels he is doing his bit for integration and tolerance. "The trouble with this country is that most people don't know much about each other. If I tell people my middle name is Afam, short for Afamefuna, most of them will not know it is Igbo. The best way to educate people is to excite them; once I can excite them, I can educate them," Ofore says. "We have too many Yorubas in this country. Too many Igbos and Hausas. We don't have enough Nigerians." Sales of Kinetic are still modest, and like Nupowako, Ofore craves proper funding to increase his printing run and quality. In this vast market where distribution channels are mostly informal and artists rely on street vendors and a handful of bookshops to sell their work, few comics sell more than 2,000 at a time. But if a story is strong enough, it will find a way of being told, even at huge cost. Arguably the most ambitious project in recent years has been a graphic novel by Abraham Oshoko (27) which documents events around the 1993 presidential election in Nigeria.

June 12, The Struggle for Power in Nigeria shows how a northern political élite, led by the former Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, pressurised the military regime of genl. Ibrahim Babangida ("IBB" as he is known) into annulling the results. Despite promises he would hand over to civilian rule in August that year, IBB allowed the election results to be annulled after it became clear a Yoruba, the business magnate Moshood Abiola, had won. Five more years of military dictatorship followed. The story has been told, but never in graphic form. Oshoko, who did the research, story and drawing, calls it a "non-fiction work of art".

"People, even elderly people, read it now and can't believe that all this happened. It is a warning to African leaders: whatever you do will be recorded." Will audiences in Johannesburg or Cairo or New York one day watch full-length animated movies produced by the likes of Oshoko, Nupowako and Ofore? Or will the soap opera-style video movies produced in their thousands in Nollywood, the vast local filmindustry, continue to dominate? "Abroad, comics and animation is a legitimate medium of expression," says Nupowako. "Japanese and Europeans are very serious about their comics. In the third world people still sometimes see comics as a kiddy medium." Institutional support is also sometimes lacking.

Ofore, a former psychology student, had "never seen an invoice before" when he started his comics business, and had to teach himself business skills. And then there's the funding hurdle, which often means comics like Naija Hardkore, Pandora and Kinetic remain paper-bound. The medium has its advantages, Nupowako believes. "It makes for muscular mental athletics. Comics have a way of igniting the mind."

As published in SA's CITY PRESS by Waldimar PelserLagos bureau chief, Media24 (South Africa)c/o Media24 Nigeria11A Adeola Odeku StreetVictoria Island, LagosMobile 1: +234-805-477-6310 (MTN)Mobile 2: +234-703-406-3150 (glo)waldimar.pelser@media24.com waldimar@gmail.com