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11 artists 20 comics

Republic of the Congo.

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Republic of the Congo

1956

In short

Comics in the Republic of the Congo began with Kizito, a Catholic mission bulletin that told Bible stories in pictures in 1956 and 1957.

Jeremie Bindika, who created the hero Petit Piment in the mid 1980s, is called the father of Congolese comics, and the youth journal Ngouvou then brought comics into classrooms from the late 1980s. Many of the best-known authors, such as Willy Zekid and Bob Kanza, built careers abroad, while collectives in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire and the Bilili BD Festival keep a small home scene alive.

Republic of the Congo in numbers · 01 • 04

11

20

1956

2000s

Artists

Artists from Republic of the Congo in the archive.

Comics from Republic of the Congo in the archive.

Kizito, the earliest comic from Republic of the Congo in the archive.

The decade when the most new comics from Republic of the Congo began.

bande dessinée

bande dessinée · Comics from Republic of the Congo

History

Republic of the Congo in 4 chapters

  1. 1956

    to 1985

    Chapter 01

    Kizito and a long gap

    Kizito was a teaching bulletin of the Catholic church of the Uganda Martyrs that retold the Bible in comics, with the painter Michel Hengo among its artists. It stopped in the early 1970s, and a long gap followed until the mid 1980s.

  2. 1985

    to 2001

    Chapter 02

    Petit Piment and Ngouvou

    Jeremie Bindika created Petit Piment, the first Congolese comic hero, in the mid 1980s and sold his self-published albums for 600 CFA francs. The youth journal Ngouvou, created by Ferdinand Kibinza in the late 1980s, printed up to 7,500 copies and was used by teachers in class. Willy Zekid, Djobiss and Cyriaque Goma began drawing for it in the early to mid 1990s.

  3. 2002

    to 2014

    Chapter 03

    Collectives and fanzines

    Djobiss and Teddy Lokoka founded the comics association ACPBD in 2002, and its fanzine Super Mokoua appeared in November 2003. The Graphik'Noir group published the satirical fanzine Yi wiri ! from 2004 to 2006, and the Ponton BD collective formed in Pointe-Noire after a 2007 workshop, but printing costs and weak distribution kept most pages unpublished.

  4. 2015

    to today

    Chapter 04

    Festival and new voices

    KHP moved to France in 2015, and his album Les dessous de Pointe-Noire won the Prix de la Presse panafricaine in 2019. The Bilili BD Festival, founded by the Cameroonian author Joelle Epee Mandengue, now shows Congolese and African comics in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire. Younger authors such as Sayane Kid and Jussie Nsana publish by themselves and run local workshops.

Essentials

The comics to know

Essentials

The people to know

Artists

More artists from Republic of the Congo

Comics

More comics from Republic of the Congo