Celebrating Black Creativity With Catalyst Press

We recently had the opportunity to chat with our friends at Catalyst Press, and one of the ways we are working more closely with them is around celebrating creators. Going beyond simply promoting the stories they're creating to tell their story.

Black History Month is an important time to reflect on the countless contributions and the impact that Black writers, politicians, actors, artists, activists, engineers, scientists, doctors, and everyday citizens have had on our global society.

With that in mind, we've teamed up with Catalyst Press to celebrate six creators that have worked on graphic novels published through their organization. You can learn more about Catalyst Press and their mission on their about page.

I now turn it over to Ashawnta Jackson, Marketing Manager at Catalyst Press, to shine the light on six incredibly talented African creators who are telling stories both past and present, to share Black history and culture with the world, while also leaving their personal marks and paving the way for future generations.

By Ashawnta Jackson, Marketing Manager at Catalyst Press.

Black History Month occupies two spaces. It’s about the historial, of course. The ways that Black people have grown and strived and created. But history isn’t just about the past. History, like so much of our lives, isn’t a static picture. We continue to learn, to discover, to recover. The names that were left out suddenly become visible again. The movements that may have seemed small suddenly become the spark for everything that came after. In that way, Black History Month is also about the future— and about possibilities. It’s a way to uncover the names that may have just been in the footnotes, or the ones that were never mentioned at all, and recast them in a different light. Each new name, or movement, or milestone then becomes a way for us in the present to realize that the past is also our link to the future. This has been the case for everything from science, to literature, to music. Every day is a new chance to learn about one of those hidden names.

This is true in the comics world, too.

There have been names that aren’t as well-known and firsts that are still happening. From pioneers like Jackie Ormes, who in the 1930s, became the first African-American woman to have a regularly published comic strip, to Matt Baker, the Golden Age (late 1930s to the mid-1950s) illustrator and one of the first known African-Americans to find success in the field; to Gene Bilbrew and his boundary-pushing pulp art in the 1950s; to Orrin C. Evans who, along with an all-Black team, created All-Negro Comics in 1947. There was Eric Orr and his 1986 hip-hop comic Rappin’ Max Robot, which brought comic art, street art, and hip-hop together in ways they hadn’t before. And in more recent times, there’s Milestone Comics, amazing Black writers and illustrators like Nnedi Okorafor, Eve Ewing, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Marcus Kwame Anderson, Ngozi Ukazu, and Rebecca Hall. (And apologies for linking to myself a few times back there. I love history. What can I say?)

And that’s before we even get into comics outside of the US.

Expanding our sights a bit, and we get Captain Africa, one of the first known superhero comics from Africa; Kwezi the first South African superhero comic; influential French-Beninese comic artist Yvan Alagbé; and this incredible workshop at the Goethe Institut, which brought together artists from fourteen African countries. To say that Black comic artists and writers have been and are doing great things worldwide is an understatement.

At Catalyst Press, our mission has been to bring African writers and artists to readers globally, and our graphic novels have been a part of that work from our first year of releases. For Black History Month, we’d like to introduce you to some of the talented artists who’ve created our books. Each line drawn, each panel filled, is another link in a chain that will inspire a new generation of writers and artists. History isn’t just a still picture of a past that once existed. It’s a promise of a future that will continue far beyond one moment, one movement, one person.

Barly Baruti: Barly Baruti is the illustrator of our 2021 release, Madame Livingstone. He was born in 1959 in Kisangani into a family of painters. After studying pedagogy, Baruti worked at French cultural centers in Kisangani and Kinshasa, where he produced his first comic work, an environmental comic titled Le temps d’agir. He is the co-founder of the Atelier de Création et de l’Initiation à l’Art (Creative Workshop for an Initiation to Art) to encourage talented youth in Kinshasa. He has lived in France and Belgium, where he apprenticed with several renowned comic artists. In speaking about the importance of African storytelling Barly said, “If there is only one thing to remember, after reading this story, it would be this: it is high time for Africans to tell the story of their Africa, and make it known to future generations.”

In addition to his work on Madame Livingstone, Barly is also the illustrator of nearly a dozen graphic novels. We’re also proud to be the US and English-language publisher of his forthcoming graphic novel Chaos in Kinshasa, a crime novel set during the historic “Rumble in the Jungle” bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. And for those who are interested in learning more about the history of African Francophone comics, be sure to check out the work of Barly’s Madame Livingstone co-author, Christophe Cassiau-Haurie, who is also a renowned library curator and comics specialist. You can learn more about both artists in this Q&A at our site.

The Trantraal Brothers, André and Nathan are a sibling-illustrator duo from Cape Town, South Africa. They have published numerous cartoons and graphic works including Coloureds (2010) and Crossroads (2014–2020, written by Koni Benson). Independently, André has written and illustrated the children’s book series, Keegan and Samier. Nathan has published three poetry collections in Kaaps—earning him numerous awards including the 2013 Ingrid Jonker Prize and the 2020 SALA Poetry Award—as well as a collection of his columns as published in the Afrikaans newspaper, Rapport.

The Trantraal Brothers are two of the seven artists who were brought together for our 2022 release, All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa, a collection of stories about resistance movements in South Africa in the years leading up to apartheid. Recently, Nathan was awarded the 2023 Philida Literary Award, which honors writers for “an oeuvre of literary excellence,” and André was awarded the 2022 South African Literary Award for one of the books in his popular Keegan and Samier series.

https://www.instagram.com/andretrantraal/

Dada Khanyisa is an Umzimkhulu-born, Johannesburg-raised, Cape Town-based multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the intersection of technology and contemporary social culture with respect to the Black experience. In 2016, they (Dada’s preferred pronoun) were awarded the Simon Gerson Prize, and a year later, completed a commission for a 35-metre mural on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. In 2018, the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town presented Dada’s first solo exhibition, Bamb’iphone, followed up two years later by the Johannesburg show, Good Feelings.

Dada is another one of the fantastic artists in All Rise. In 2022, they were awarded the FNB Art Prize, by FNB Art Joburg, Africa’s leading and longest running contemporary art fair. On their win, Dada told South Africa’s EWN News, “The black experience really inspires me. I'm inspired by the people I have around”

https://www.instagram.com/dadakhanyisa/

Tumi Mamabolo hails from Polokwane in Limpopo province. Since graduating with a degree in Information Design from the University of Pretoria in 2020, he has already won two Gold Loerie awards for his animation work. Tumi is the youngest of the All Rise contributors, and what his bio won’t tell you is that he is delightful as you’ll discover in this discussion “Archives as Storytelling,” featuring All Rise author Richard Conyngham and Tumi in conversation at Brooklyn, NY’s Interference Archive.

https://www.instagram.com/meloworx_19/

Mark Modimola, another of the talented All Rise artists, was born in Pretoria of Sotho-Tsonga parentage. Originally a graphic designer, he studied at the University of Pretoria and later pursued a Fulbright Scholarship in the United States before returning to South Africa determined to illustrate full-time. Mark is a prolific and versatile creator, with a portfolio that explores African identity and spirituality, often through the cultural aesthetic of Afrofuturism.

Recently, Mark worked in collaboration with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington on a new project that explores themes of nature, time, access, hope, healing and the future. “Being an artist is a responsibility,” Mark said in an article about his work. “You become a flag bearer for your times. So, my responsibility is to be vigilant and make a response.” And of the piece, he noted, “I felt as though it’s a great opportunity for myself as an African to represent the healing I feel we need as Black people.”

https://www.instagram.com/mark_draws

We'd like to thank Ashawnta and the team at Catalyst Press for the amazing work they are doing to help share stories by and about Black creators with the world. You can read more inspiring stories on the Catalyst Press blog.

You can also find Catalyst Press-published books here on GlobalComix, with more on the way this year. Use the links below to access their profile, as well as read releases and purchase PDF downloads that are currently available.

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