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The European colonialism in Africa from the XIXth century onwards had the visual culture as an important support for the circulation of the colonial discourse within the metropolitan audience. Beyond that, visual culture was also responsible for the renovation and elaboration of a varied quantity of stereotypes about the African continent and the peoples living there. From this context, the major objective of this paper is to comprehend which colonial stereotypes are there in the comic Tintim in Africa and, foremost, how they relate to the colonial discourse in this series published between 1930 and 1931 with a clear intention of colonial propaganda destined to a youth audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a pedagogic proposal concerning the applicability of the graphic novel Aya de Yopougon (vols. 1 and 2) (ABOUET; OUBRERIE, 2011, 2012), well-known for its format as a series of comic books, as a didactic resource for teaching History at High School. The graphic novel’s plot follows the life the 19-year-old character Aya, who lives in the district of Yopougon, in Abidjian, in Ivory Coast, in the late 1970’s. The narrative focus moves among the life experiences of the friends Aya, Bintou, and Adjoua, as well as those of their respective nuclear families. We present an analytical proposal based on the core discussions found in those comics which can be discussed in the classroom, such as, for instance: feminine sexual liberty and affective and family relationships in the African culture. Methodologically, this is a bibliographic study in which we go over critical works on the themes found in the article, such as: comic books and education, Africa’s history, and African gender epistemology. Our theoretically framework comprises authors such as Waldomiro Vergueiro (2012), Carlos Serrano and Maurício Waldman (2010), among others. This work will contribute to the academic community as it proposes a reading of the teaching of the History of Africa from a text genre perspective according to which comics may be positively used in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Despite its hallmark cutaneous presentation, most Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) in Africa is diagnosed too late for effective treatment. Early diagnosis will only be achievable if patients with KS present earlier for care. We hypothesized that public awareness about KS can be enhanced through exposure to common media. Methods. We developed educational messages regarding early detection of KS for the general African public portraying a three-part theme: "Look" (regularly examine one's skin/mouth), "Show" (bring to the attention of a healthcare provider any skin/mouth changes), and "Test" (ask for a biopsy for definitive diagnosis). We packaged the messages in three common media forms (comic strips, radio, and video) and tested their effect on increasing KS awareness among adults attending markets in Uganda. Participants were randomized to a single exposure to one of the media and evaluated for change in KS-related knowledge and attitudes. Results. Among 420 participants, media exposure resulted in increased ability to identify KS (from 0.95% pretest to 46% posttest); awareness that anyone is at risk for KS (29% to 50%); belief that they may be at risk (63% to 76%); and knowledge that definitive diagnosis requires biopsy (23% to 51%) (all p < 0.001). Most participants (96%) found the media culturally appropriate. Conclusion. Exposure to media featuring a theme of "Look," "Show," and "Test" resulted in changes in knowledge and attitudes concerning KS among the general public in Uganda. High incidence and poor survival of KS in Africa are an impetus to further evaluate these media, which are freely available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of silent comic illustrations can facilitate the communication and transfer of scientific recommendations about sustainable land management (SLM) to local communities in countries where many people are illiterate. However, since there are cross-cultural differences in "visual languages", visualization styles need to be carefully selected as well as locals' comprehension of the illustrated recommendation evaluated systematically. Three agricultural recommendations were chosen for comic-style illustrations, distributed to six communities in the Mahafaly region of southwestern Madagascar and evaluated using a three-step, interdependent approach. The silent comics illustrated (i) composting of manure and its application to improve soil fertility; (ii) cautious utilization of succulent silver thicket as supplementary forage; and (iii) sustainable harvesting practices of wild yam. Results revealed that general understandability strongly depended on the community that was surveyed and on the environmental subject that was illustrated. We found a strong relationship between the general understandability of comics and the divergence that exist in communities' socio-economic structure. Education level was an important factor that explained a better understanding of respondents for the comic illustrating compost production, but not for comics that illustrated sustainable usage of silver thicket and wild yam harvest. Willingness to follow the recommended practice was impaired when respondents valued no change to the improved technique compared to the common one. Effects of respondents' socio-economic characteristics on the implementation of the recommended practice could not be clarified within this study due to the small subset of data. Based on the evaluation of recurring comments made by respondents and interviewers, we conclude that comics can be a useful communication tool to increase locals' awareness and comprehension for SLM practices. This, however, requires that drawing details used to facilitate farmers' ability to adopt a point-of-view inside the comic story are used thoughtfully as they might interfere with the central message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen growing academic interest in the proliferation of a distinct genre of African superheroes. There is, however, a much longer – and at times, problematic – history of superheroes in and from Africa, a history often heavily infused with colonial and imperial ideology. Using the 1970s South African Mighty Man comic book series, this article highlights how popular culture and media can be used as covert and mundane tool of governmentality. Mighty Man can be understood as a technique of power deployed in service of the apartheid regime's philosophy of separate development, illustrating the use of popular culture as a technology of (colonial) governmentality. The landscapes, narratives and additional content of Mighty Man were used in efforts to instil and frame a conduct of conduct amongst Black subjects – both in accepting separate development and the apartheid government, and in framing the everyday practices and dispositions that would allow for governing at a distance by the white minority regime. Mighty Man provides a powerful example of state-commissioned, covert comic propaganda which was indelibly framed by government policy and an ambition to create and impose a set of values and ideals around the dispositions, behaviour and actions of Black subjects. Ultimately, Mighty Man embodied a segregationist fantasy in which the absence of non-Black characters both denied the possibility of inter-racial contact and normalised social and spatial segregation – as well as class-based aspirations – while simultaneously promoting the conduct of conduct amongst subjects that would maintain these divisions. Through the construction of moral township landscapes, the Mighty Man series not only sought to regulate the conduct of the colonised subject through the condemning of 'immoral' behaviours but also attempted to offer illusory hopes of aspiration and freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses initiatives he started or was involved in that aimed to promote comics and cartoons from Eastern Europe, Southern America, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa. He talks about how his explorations of comics in Africa have taught him about the lack of an infrastructure for the financing, publishing, and distributing of comic art in the greater part of the continent. He also talks about the unequal spreading of comics as an art form in Eastern Europe.

The article offers information on African comics. According to the author, non-African readers easily make stereotyped assumptions about African comics because too often their storylines and drawings rely on stock characters and recurrent themes, such as witchcraft. In this way, they also contain references that are easy for readers, lay and academic, to identify and store. He cites that African comics are more versatile than its European counterpart. He also mentions that African comics did not arise out of collectively preserved local memory but are part of the global flux of ideas and images in a world undergoing rapid changes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine one mass media AIDS education project, the "Emma Says" comic series. Created by an international health research organization based in the U.S., the series is designed to educate women in rural Africa about the need to protect themselves from AIDS. The "Emma Says" series aimed to deliver powerful messages about AIDS in an easy-to-understand format using the caricature of an African woman working as a health educator in her community. By examining the medium, the message, and the messenger, this analysis seeks to determine the impact of the "Emma Says" series among its intended audience.

The article focuses on the first-person narrative in African literature. Every day all sorts of narratives are presented to the article author and his colleagues, orally or in written form, be it comic strips, cartoons, jokes, newspaper articles, letters, tales, or autobiographies. Some of these genres seem to adhere to a particular narrative form. Normally, "the news" on radio or television is presented "neutrally," in the third person, while letters and diaries are typical first-person genres. First-person narrative does not necessarily coincide with autobiographical forms of expression. It has often been argued that the change from third-person to first-person narrative form is not a question of pure formality but indeed affects the text structure.