Republicans in ski for granting him a pardon on Christmas Eve hes been serving a twenty five Year Prison Sentence for corruption and crimes against humanity committed during his time in office of the one nine hundred ninety s. James hear the news great in a little over twenty five minutes on aljazeera right after the stream next. We understand the differences and the similarities of cultures across the world. So many times when you call home ill just bring you the news and Current Affairs that matter to. Aljazeera. Hi emily could be. Welcome to the stream live on aljazeera and now you to move over marvel theres a slew of african comic book creators showing the world what an african superhero looks like. A major first for marvel the comic book powerhouse is introducing its first ever nigerian superhero the name is and goes the understory is written and created by Award Winning author cora four but as some know marvel is a bit late to the game for the past few years africans have been creating their own comics inspired by the world around them its a trend thats becoming a booming business so how do their stories differ from those told in western comics and why is that so important here to discuss that we have paul movies released c. E. O. Of my this monkey and creator of the pack and you say to africa inspired comic books in Lagos Nigeria today martin a comic creator and c. E. O. Of comic republic in cape town south africa so in hes a creator and illustrator of the quezon comic series and in harare zimbabwe Eugene Ramirez hes a multimedia media designer and creator of owns english welcome everyone to this day take a look at my laptop here ive pulled up lagos comic call dot com youre just back from comiccon in Lagos Nigeria what is the comic scene like in the here you describe it for our audience. You know its very very engaging and very interesting you know since we came in to see about four years ago we had just about two comic houses and at that point in time comical probably because like leaving comic household right now we have to still like. You know its really interesting that people i mean like the comiccon was full we had a convention with for the comiccon that convention was full of people were now its just crazy it was packed we had fans we had people signing buying stuff we had you know costly competition where we had close to fifteen percent print it was really cool so the vibe is really heavy right now so you of course werent just there as a fan of comics you were also there as a creator pulled up on my screen here this is guardian pry tell us about your creation what makes this character tick. Mostly because hes a representation of what human beings should be you know i grew up here its like superman for example and i thought you know i used to base most of my decision on what superman do and i thought why dont i create an icon that you know people that my skin and my clothes would appreciate and one that will inspire the world generally which is why these them feet hes only as strong as he believes he is going to be as fast as he believes and most importantly he looks african so its all four of you are comic creators and we want to talk about your work paul weve got some praise for your work here take a look at my screen tweeted in your hansei is a breathtaking experience for the reader instantly immersed within that gorgeous work and storytelling now paul i have to admit this morning i was just getting out reading your comic its just i just got pulled in i love preparing for the show thank you can you tell me about the world with your hands what is it that you created you hansei was a bit of. A very quick idea actually like oh ive always loved star wars ever since i was a little boy and that wasnt my original my my original foray into the world actually started with another series called the pack and i did a whole lot of research for that trying to create a mythical african fantasy scape but then afterwards because of that the scope of the project was so large i wondered why i ever get to explore all the other parts of my imagination and theres always a little kid inside me always wanted to be in a spaceship or or fly so i did so one day i decided to make a poster which is the first course of your hansei to see if friends would like it and it went viral within minutes and it showed me this is something that we should they should try to do so i buckle down a few months after theyre all whole story for it and she wants out of the first issue dropped and its just been spreading like wildfire people are crazy about it people really enjoy seeing this. Futuristic world that captivates the fantasy that has every every pillar necessary from him for more specifically space opera which is the star wars but more importantly having every detail every element every alien race every clothes every piece of clothing one hundred percent of sorts from african aesthetic sources now thats a very very large undertaking to do that because. Unlike some people of when they try to. They try to envision a futuristic version of africa they look at for the they seem to forget sometimes the fascinating is still has many different influences. As a result of postpone wisdom is quite fascinating what theyve done by mixing those influences but if you truly want to have something thats one hundred percent african if you go to the source of africa take those these preclude the civilizations of the golden age of africa you know the then empire of the oil in part of the monday kingdoms. And newbie and you have to understand what makes them tick aesthetically. To break down what makes these cultures tick to break down what so that inspires your work today which is that were living in this modern age people of course still have interests you know you mentioned and paul mentioned the main characters of your creations and theyre good guys so i want to talk about the villains because that is really everyones favorite character that they love to hate youve seen lets talk about villains how do you see them and how are your villains different than ones we might see in the west and western comics in marvel or d. C. Comics. Thats a great question. That ive tried to incorporate in. My comics. And. Example not. Found within the human being a type. Of explored that. You know you need to affix and given them a title example i have a comic book. Where the villain is actual. Whole system is embodied in the system which carries out a form of oppression psychologically enormously and you know the way i looked at it it was a way of giving a type of mindset. A figure so that people can challenge it all address it or address what kind of things. Overwhelm african. Economic hardship unemployment or whatever and in some cases i do have believe that people on the cover can get to believe in the back to morgan and shed. Like to hit that idea and. Metaphor for many things. Neo colonialism for example and. Not something that you see every day so your they will in is a hit man or hit woman who represents an colonialism shes a metaphor for it in the same way that both of the characters are women and theyre both metaphor or african countries and countries that might have interests in africa apart from the action and you know the dynamic combat and all of those things. Metaphorical figures that may be more maturing to pick up on but the younger readers can get Something Interesting out of it by looking at the. Character designs on that. But i guess that i play. A villain to give them that and also to give it to the. Right so i want to get in this conversation lisa youre in south africa i want to ask you about the veil of self publishing we got this tweet from colleen media take a look at says why have these comics increased so much on the african continent kamali media such short answer the internet this generation has the tools to create and self publish comics instead of waiting for big publishers can you talk about that how has self publishing revolutionized the industry for you. Well of course what it actually speaks to is access rights so people are able to access you know materialism as you posted on facebook or instagram interest definitely the case was asked back in two thousand and fourteen written much rests so im just the comic book crazy. Free comic book day comic convention here in cape town. I think what what was important about it is that the character is nineteen years old hes a city doing the base in johannesburg or gold city as we know it and because of that the point of departure is the fact that hes a cool kid right hes South African definitely african and has those traits but also lives in the twenty First Century and obviously has those question. We use that that device and and use how he could actually migrate from the comic book to to to social media and exist big and what he started doing was realizing the capacity that we had with the internet the fact that we could reach so many thousands of people and then started obviously engaging celebrities as well so he crazy would have engaged lips with celebrities here in south africa that we really know and understand you dont understand the twinkle in the standard the nuance and then the music and the culture in south africa and that helped us win over the particularly the local demographic here in south africa but as the property grew it was much easier to to to gain and have people like you know stop communicating with with african create as and to see what good doing and seeing those parallels as well i think its it is a state thats assisted us in in reading marketing our work very aggressively and greedy kirby that that an issue of access to all stories no College South african or african stories as well because i wouldnt you know i and i could be thinking about are there and if you think i dont first of all you finish up after. I had today. You know. The concept of bugs things are really interesting im going to think youre trying to become a public not just objects of playing villains ice people bar also our situations and problems so for example we had a comic book where superhero was trying to fly to the us to solve a problem and then in nigeria and who had been who had migrated and become a us citizen and now superpowers have to stop me there and told him to get a visa visa and so he couldnt just basically get a visa. Out of some very very real and true to life exactly he wasnt a bad guy who was doing his job. He was doing his job and so that made him a bad guy and the comic boy he naturally wasnt a bad guy after their low just because they do bad things. That dont exactly work for africa and you know the worst thing is that after theres a kind of stories you also it doesnt have to be somebody like the joker or somebody like you know but you know basically things that are so regular africans they actually take a completely different approach and of course the villains. Actually dont write villains or heroes of. Both of my series of. I prefer using the approach of three dimensional characters where there is. The creator of game of thrones when no one no evil person just wakes up in the morning and says i want to cover the world in darkness and spread my evil many and theres no one who thinks like that anyone who is evil actually does not see themselves as evil they have their own albeit twisted ideology the reason behind it and the same thing as the heroes too i mean the hero that thinks that hes the best gift to the world is probably pretty egotistical and actually ironically my end is actually more in line with what a villain would think than actual hero hero just does what needs to be done and as humans many times we find ourselves in situations that we just have to rise to the occasion we have to overcome that so my character is worse of your hansei do not start off as heroes at all your answer is actually hes a thief and hes completely morally ambiguous and. To his the the other interesting character that you meet right off the bat is the assassin cain or. My wife cant. Actually her so you see that thats actually. The exact opposite personality of cain. I like in your hearts into the personality of him of a monkey love monkeys as animal themselves was loved about them is this this this cheeky cleverness they have they know theyre smarter than. But the feeling in the public sharing is so has the arrogance which is not like one thing you want to see within a hero but the thing that makes him the entire guinness the protagonist of the of the series is how hes thrust in the middle but through selfishness he starts into the middle of this intergalactic conflict and trying to make through with it now whether or not he will rise to the occasion and overcome something will happily accept it. And so speaking of characters modeled after people you know so i know that you model the character out of someone you know i want to show a trailer for a series that you made for your character. Everyone take a look. So tell us about. Kudos to your branding here and youre so on brand here and letting everyone know about your talents and where he came from. Well the short answer to that is two thousand and thirteen and ive been thinking about this process project for a while i didnt come up with a name yet but i just knew that i wanted to create us i fricken stupid you know story right and you know all the material is there you know the thinking was there and motivation definitely was there but not the direction really it was only after i asked my younger cousin c. P. A. Shout out to him hes into his big at the moment and he was in the trick at the time that is the twelfth grade. And i often like this generally what would you do if you had superpowers and you know his answer was absolutely amazing and of that to get it straight you know it and get as many followers on twitter and get some girls now you know how people move up if he. Doesnt its all about swag it was all about being the cool guy it was all selfserving and that was the point of departure for crazy it was to just start up the start of the story as an anti superhero again im speaking to a much Younger Group of people to my comic book i just wanted to to address that the fact that you can you know if you you can be human its ok to start a human but with with you know as you grow and you understand the responsibilities that you have to you cant manage to feel to to do you do it you have to appear and you start realizing that theres a lot of play with it thats in the superhero who realm and then the whole human being realm and dispense that story is that type of story its a story of becoming if you will right of passage if you will and it ties in very nicely with the type of culture that we have here as well youll notice that crazy has got three companions the nia coy and know how and those arent characters that well theres alucard to the muscle to culture and the quezon culture native to south africa and that also has a very good you know took advantage of the device because i also wanted to. Celebrating the coaches and imposing the. Actions and then john edwards it was. Visually speaking you can listen to the speech in section in the internalising. Change it make it two to a few groups fifteen years and it does. What im hearing its all of you all are bringing something to the table that wasnt necessarily bare but that said youre going up against powerhouses youre going up against marble youre going up against d. C. Comics take a look at my screen here this is luke cage recently on netflix this is a marvel character africanamerican character based in harlem in new york we also got this tweet referencing another marvel character this is Rafael Griffiths on twitter he says i hope africans we wont jump on the black panther bandwagon but create an authentic industry like the japanese did with manga so for those of you who arent comic heads marvel introduced the first black superhero the black panther to mainstream comics in one thousand nine hundred one hundred sixty six excuse me his kingdom is what conned and its a futuristic land of tech and its never been invaded by colonialist so take a look at the trailer for this movie coming out next year. Or. Or. Or. Or. Or. Great trailer eugene what do you make of it would you make of the depictions of african and africanamerican characters. Well i really appreciate would be. Appreciated. Attempts at depicting african. And i have to you know take my head off that. Theyll always. Look at. Something that i wouldnt then the movie the war with black panther media but i think that a bit of trouble with pick now you know what language you use and then you without a. Hell of any problem with that to. Me was actually soso so there is the other problem that i have a problem with it. I have. Well all of them finished i mean im totally impressed you know african acknowledged. That every other country or. Territory have managed to figure out i appreciate one african but. Im terrific and gated and able to manipulate what element that people can because one credit or not go on. Frank but for mental aptitude and i think that lacking in Mainstream Media a long time however i dont think its a perfect. Example of what an african you know could be or is. For now that of my. Luck that. The biggest problem here i think is the way that they were they went about it though i feel that if youre going to depict a futuristic afro Futurist Society then you have to apply the same rules that you would in creating ause card for instance so they did for thor which is what it was very simply is creating a fictional advance society based off of a nother other preexisting ancient society and making it read on the screen as believable as authentic the problem i have with the black panther is the this ignorance in the west towards what africa is so theyre used to seeing africa in a primitive sort of way so the problem with that is that many people in the west have a hard to fathom in what a futuristic African Society would look like because it was never given a chance to evolve on its own to that point so the problem i have the black person you see is that yes it looks good to western eyes because i think africa seems off and it seems exotic to them so they have no reason to question the authenticity but when you study africa you study the exact same things the. Concept art created the creators for thor which i want to go the same ones behind the black panther it will be disappointed on that is that they set the bar pretty pretty low i mean if you look at the trailer again i mean its also they cherry picked the different parts of africa without actually even creating any any real conceptual work behind it you know in the Film Industry is a whole industry of the conception of creating worldbuilding the rules that go along with that you have to simulate. Five hundred six hundred years of growth that never happened from the same source as in let it grow in a green egg and i dont know that im going to have a logic i want you to go do this its hard to do you know we have a debate i want to i want to advance a little bit i want to ask you about what each of you are doing and how it relates to what were talking about g. D. Take a listen to this video comment we got from karma there are characters in the west are considered african like fix in storm and black panther but they were not created by africans they were created by westerners so theyre looking at africa through a western lens which when its not saying typical is sometimes a little misinformed comments coming out of africa right now arent just black versions of western superheroes theyre telling their own stories sometimes theyre not even superhero stories sometimes theyre based on folklore i mean africa has which oral history so all of that mixed together is letting the rest of the world kind of see in africa that we normally dont see its not the africa thats pretrained in the media so ga what kind of takeaway do you want western audiences to have from your work. Crazy that africans in general are very smart people were not were not linked to animals which is one of the problems that have a black president every single process of technology and looks like some kind of animal and im wondering that you know its technology why does africans out to be linked to animals so for example and you know we create what im going to celebrate is what im guilty of this is im not going to do it as an african car that is the. I dont see why its impossible to believe because we had we had weapons and i dont see why it was before us to calve things out of you and i only the marks are all men no substance that you can find anywhere and is the same thing we can progress without looking primitive and so i want the rest of the world so you know get used to africans that actually not mediocre africans that actually use modern jazz africans or they gave some of the money i dont know here and then i have to pause you there im so sorry because were out of time theres this conversation could go on forever but well have to continue on line on twitter hash tag day stream a big thank you terry guest in our community mostly on mine. Thats what were talking about ill talk about shooting people are not able to shoot to burn themselves and their other countries have managed to solve this problem but you worry that this conflict could erupt into an outright open war thats the sort of security issue where the people who pay the price clearly the writeup unprejudiced setting the stage for a serious debate up front at this time on aljazeera. A new era in television news. And those insurgencies atol still do things in secret that we had actual victims who had survived torture detention and saying this was the cause of my arrest if you could. Just stay would you have stood by this conviction that everyone has a deep reservoir of thomas but if you give them the opportunity that wonderful things start to look at the actual distance theres at least twenty thousand or hinder refugees who live here we badly need at this moment leadership until president supposed to know but as resides donald trump is going to be the next president vicente should we beg her to go go back shes very kind of stuff of gas subsidies to the best to prevent the behavior getting anywhere in the pacific or that. We achieve something that never happened before. This is al jazeera