A snapshot of the NYrobi Comic Fest 2024

The NYrobi Comic Fest 2024, the first in the series, run at the Alliance Française Nairobi from March 12 – 15, 2024.

Earlier in March, Alliance Française Nairobi announced a new initiative called the NYrobi Comic Fest curated by Msanii Kimani Wa Wanjiru. Sharing a stage over four days of the festival were artists like Joëlle Epée Mandingue, Paul Kelemba (Maddo), Anne Defreville, Oscar Oswe, Veronica Paradinas, Naddya Oluoch-Olunya, Eric Dubois, and Kyansimire Oroni with moderation by Marcelline Akinyi, Marine Cavaillon, James Murua and Grace Kerongo.

Some events they took part in were an artists’ forum, conversations, and panels with names like “Status of the African Comic Market,” and “The Future of Comics.” There was also the “Siri Ya Samaki wa Upanga” exhibition produced by the Belgian Comic Strip Centre in collaboration with Editions Blake & Mortimer & the E.P. Jacobs Foundation. This exhibition is based on the works of the famous comic strip series Blake and Mortimer by Edgar P. Jacobs, one of the founding fathers of the Franco-Belgian comic strip. It offered a fascinating journey through the history of what is commonly known as the 9th art in the Franco-Belgian tradition, exploring its unique storytelling techniques and the artistic conventions that distinguish it from other forms of visual storytelling.

Another unique offering was the Kubuni exhibition built around three focal points and dedicated to the discovery of comics from Sub-Saharan Africa, from the past, the present, and the future. These comics draw their inspiration from long-standing pictorial and narrative traditions, but also from more recent, often foreign cultures, conceived and distributed in the Western world and on the African continent in album form, in newspapers, or even as smartphone apps.

Here are some more from the concluded festival;