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Beyond ‘Black Panther’: Afrofuturism is Booming in Comics

Afrofuturism is enjoying a heyday in a raft of new books and comics that interweave African culture with science fiction. The meteoric success of ‘Black Panther’ seems to have opened up the floodgates of creativity and interest in the genre, resulting in a wealth of new content telling tales inspired by outer space, diasporan folklore and even pop stars. Many Afrofuturistic narratives are nonlinear, something that comics, with their ability to move and stack panels to play with notions of time, can convey. Comic artists can also employ visual elements such as images from the Black Arts Movement, or figures from Yoruba and Igbo mythology, in ways that aren’t available to prose writers.                     
        

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES