THE CONTENT FACTOR

THE NIGERIAN COMIC INDUSTRY:
A Candid Diagnosis by Ayodele Elegba

THE CONTENT FACTOR

I’m not saying we don’t have good stories to tell because we do (I like the resolve of comic publishers trying to also Publish Nigerian oriented stories too). I have heard so many nice materials from various creators, lovely stuff. Fantastic motives but you know, I’ve come to realize that most of us still don’t know what a comic book story should look like. We have a good story but we don’t yet understand how to tell it in panels and pages. A good comic story is collaboration between a writer and an artist, this I have discovered is usually lacking either because most times the writer hardly or never collaborates with the artist. What happens most times is that a person (a lay comic reader, lets call him Golibe) has an idea, there is a flash in his head. “This story is fantastic” Golibe tells himself. He immediately calls an artist (if he doesn’t think he can draw too) and tells him about the concept. The artist is like well it’s a good idea but where is the script.

Golibe scrounges up his lips and goes back home. He hasn’t really written anything before except his final year exam but he decides it’s a challenge and in a week or two he writes down his ideas and because its his thought alone he is so much in love with the idea that he doesn’t see any fault at all. He rushes down to the artists and gives him the script. The artist reads the script (or tells the writer that he has) and immediately confesses that he would be ready to work on the script if Golibe could pay such and such amount of money. Golibe is excited, he bounds off and clears up his account (or gets a lone from his rich uncle)and immediately heads back to the artist so that he can finish the artwork in less than two weeks. Golibe goes home leaving the artist with the script. Our artist lets call him, Akpan, doesn’t pick up the script until after a week because he’s either drawing another comic book or just looking for other means of surviving. He only remembers the script when Golibe calls to ask “How far?” “Its going fine” Akpan responds, “In facts I am almost through”.

Akpan is confused, he doesn’t do his thumbnails, neither does he run his pages by the editor (who doesn’t exist), and immediately he begins to draw twenty pages of comic book in less than a week. As predicted Golibe comes for the finished work and because the artist has this thing with shadings and because its his strory, and off course because money has already changed hands Golibe doesn’t seem to have any choice because he has a deadline to meet. He thanks Akpan and rushes off to the press. He doesn’t know jack about printing except that he has a particular price in mind and is ready to stay within that budget even if it affects his quality (Can you really blame him, I mean when you think of how much he will have to sell his book).
The printer also wanting to have a sizeable amount of profit cuts so many corners that the comic book has so much shrunk in size, paper quality and off course print superiority. The printer wraps up the comic books quickly before Golibe comes and stick the finest print on the package to create the illusion that Golibe requires. Golibe is excited, he cant wait to get home and begin marketing the comics. He chatters a cab to carry the one thousand copies(Its better if ) of comic book home and as the taxi driver tries to spark off a conversation, Golibe flips through the decoy copy carefully. His smile slowly transforms into a frown, his excitement fizzles out slowly like a HEART OF AFRICA Re-branding project by Nigeria. He is alarmed, he notices that the paper quality was of lower quality, the size of the book was smaller and there are so much blurred images he begins to wonder if the whole comic book was a flashback. He immediately picks up his phone to express his displeasure to the printer but all he got was the “Network Busy” ring back tone. Having tried over a hundred times and with his battery blipping empty Golibe realizes what had just happened. He calms down slams the comic book on his lap and begins to think if readers would still be willing to pay the cover price for such a shoddy quality.

Golibe has no choice now, he has already invested so much money and with just a little enthusiasm left he goes on ahead to put his comic book on the supermarket shelf (that’s after many rejections) and a customer comes by and picks it up. Immediately he realizes its Nigeria by the poor quality and he is finally put off by the cover price. He puts it back on the shelf and works away not buying a copy. Golibe is on his knees at home praying for sales.