This Weekend: South African Comics Fest In Cape Town

I fucking love comics. American comics, British comics, whatever. But I’m particularly happy to inform you about the comics being made by South African artists. Especially over in Cape Town where, when people aren’t attending meetings about their personal brands or producing some of the best music in the country, it appears they’re cultivating a decent comics art scene. The annual Open Book Festival is a pretty good place to get in touch with the SA comics scene, by way of its subsidiary event, the Comics Fest event that includes a marketplace and some event panels focused on the art of making comics.

The original purpose of the Open Book Fest, which started three years ago, was to encourage kids to read. Even though I was raised on children’s books, weekly trips to the library and a handful of psychology magazines my mom had lying around, my one true childhood love will always be comics. Like I said, I fucking love them. I love reading them, collecting them, sharing them and figuring out how they’re made. And they make for a pretty easy fix for kids looking to learn to read since they’re image heavy but their content is usually as complex as any novel, or can be as entertaining as any kids book.

Or, as the guy in charge of the Comics Fest marketplace puts it:

“As the reader develops confidence, the ratio of image to text can be changed (Tin Tin and Asterix for instance both have a significant amount of text). This method can work for readers learning a new language as well. Comic books also offer an incredible breadth of genres and comic books can be aimed at all age groups, from young first time readers to adults.”

Those are the words of Moray Rhoda, a guy I’ll go out of my way to mention here because he’s more than just a comic fan. He’s the South African comics guru. He’s the guy you speak to if you’re looking for advice or direction when you want to make comics. He’s the guy I turn to and the same dude many of my friends who make comics do as well. He’s also responsible for Comics Fest’s key feature (in my mind anyway), which is its discussion panels and workshops.

This year’s discussion panels will include US/UK comics writer Mike Carey (X-Men: Legacy; Lucifer) who, along with Another-Day homey Sean Izaakse, will discuss the teamwork between writers and artists when making comics. That’s at Cape Town’s Homecoming Centre this Saturday (20 Sept at 2pm). Sean will also be in attendance at one of this week’s workshops with Moray, focused on writing comics (that’s on Friday 19 Sept at 4pm at Central Library).

On top of that, there’s a comics marketplace featuring over 40 comic book writers, artists and writer-artists, including Daniël Hugo (Oneironaut, The Souvenir), Gavin Thomson (Mama Taxi artist), Chris Beukes (Wrath artist), and the creative teams behind Ma The Tree Of Life Trilogy, Kwezi, The Lil 5 and Josh Ryba, the artist of the Rebirth graphic novel.