The Rebel in We

We take steps sometimes in faith, fearful of the consequences we are not sure to exist. We take them sometimes confident it leads to something. We do so, sometimes, out of a persistent or sudden push. Now that we have your attention, you can replace “we”, with “I” or “Me”, whichever is appropriate.

Let’s begin.

My knack for scribbling and passion for journalism combined into the desire to own a comic brand, coupled with the anger of little to no media house dedicated to cartoons like Charlie Hebdoo in Nigeria, or Africa (Don’t take my word for it, it what I currently think I know, I might be wrong) was the push I needed.

I reached that conclusion when, at a campus journalism luncheon in 2018, a hero of mine broke my heart with the truth. There is barely enough space for what I brought to the table in the news media sector. And so, the rebel in We took a leap of faith and started my own dedicated to that. I called it The Artivists NG.

?It had no proper direction and jumped from one thing to the other depending solely on my intuition and passion. I even changed the name to The Artivists Africa at a point and niched down to addressing African societal and political issues with visual satires. ?It’s 2024 and I would not boast I am proud of how far it came.

You see, as of that year, 2018, a well-wisher had given me an idea of a different direction to take—one which I never heeded. And as of 2024 when we worked on a project called Comic-Con Ibadan for the second year running, he repeated it. And yet again, the rebel in We won’t heed until another push comes.

It all made sense weeks after the Comic-Con Ibadan event. Top brands like Comic Republic, Spoof Animations, Brown Roof Studios, and many others surprisingly graced the event. We did not know how well we had planned the event until testimonials started pouring in save for one. The media organization we hired to cover the event misrepresented it as a children-themed event in their editing. Now that was a blow 'cause I remember vividly that I could count the number of children at the event with my fingers.

This was the moment the words of the well-wisher started making sense. The rebel in We needed more though. So, it searched through the heart of Google, Bing, and every search engine out there for information about the African comics and animation industry. The results were disappointing. Articles available were barely up-to-date and studies were barely in-depth. That solidified it. The African comics and animation industry had a publicity image problem.

Starting this July, The Artivists Africa will be pivoting into filling that gap. Just think of Bleacher Reports for football or MTV and Sound City for Music. We will be building something niche for comics and animation from Africa and by Africans. I wanted to christen it The African Comics and Cinematic Universe, but the rebel in We found another passionate lot from Sierra Leone using a name similar, African Cinematic Universe, so it had to be tweaked.

Long story short, watch out for The African Comics and Cinematic Empire, TheACE. The Rebel in We continues.