Episode 27: African Comics Before WW2

A somewhat scattershot (sorry) chronology of the development of comics and graphic narrative in the colonies and countries of Africa before the beginning of World War Two.

In this episode I discuss Paleolithic Algerian rock art, Madagascaran funerary pole sculptures, the King of Cameroon making his own alphabet and the artists who helped him and went on to make proto-comics of their own, caricature and comic art in newspapers in South Africa, the early history of comics in Egypt, the history of comics in Mauritius and the island of Reunion, some surprising developments in Kenya, racist and antisemitic cartoons in South Africa (quelle surprise), the first Cameroonian comic, the Belgian Congo of all places being a relative hotbed of graphic narrative (albeit horribly racist), and Egypt surging ahead of everyone else.

Enjoy!