In the year 2019 of the New World Order of the Council of the Seti, the current Moongirls are four African Supersheroes who fight a physical and philosophical war. Their mission: to restore Truth, Propriety, Order, Balance, Justice, and Harmony. Ma’at.
Little girls need to hear stories of their greatness and humanity in a patriarchal world that tells them otherwise. Women need to be reminded of their capabilities in a world where rape, for instance, is the weapon of a gender war.
Drama Queens Ghana is proud to present, “MoonGirls”, an Afrofuturistic graphic novel series. Through an Afrofuturistic lens, “MoonGirlsfollows the adventures of 4 African supersheroes with varying superpowers to save the world from a diverse range of forces; from patriarchy, rape culture to pollution and global warming.
Acknowledging the intersections between race, class, gender and historical context, this comic will feature supersheroes battling forces of all these for a better Africa. All issues will explore the notion of Black women’s persistence within a globalized, racialized and gendered contemporary world. MoonGirls will not be afraid to question harmful norms, it will not be afraid to offend and will frequently invite its readers to think more critically through the lens of:
- Afrofuturism;
- Comics as coded texts (eg. survival manuals, confessional space, cautionary tale, subversive, fantasy, experiment);
- Black bodies and representations of beauty in comics;
- Discussions of power, powers and superpowers;
- Conceptions of evil or villains in comics;
- Role of science and philosophy in comics;
- Conceptions of gods, goddess, religion, spirituality and the occult in comics;
- Comics as an unmediated, autonomous feminist space; and
- Notions of flaws in superheroes.
The superhero culture is a zeitgeist of our times. People project with their imaginations powerful beings who save or do not save, have extraordinary abilities and push intellectual thought to deeper levels of reasoning. In a way, the concept of supersheroes shows us how much more extraordinary we can be if we just let ourselves. Humans need to create super-beings to imagine our very own great possibilities and capabilities.
As a Pan-African feminist theatre group, Drama Queens strongly believes that in response to the existence of a system of patriarchy, women often have no choice but to be everyday supersheroes navigating a violent world that places them as a “lesser” gender of humans. This comic captures these great stories of everyday supersheroes from the lens of Afrofuturistic fiction while immortalizing them in feminist art.
The first issue of MoonGirls will be launched in December, with a 5-day exhibition from the 27th to the 29th at the Kuenyehia Trust for Contemporary Art and the 3rd to 5th January 2020 at Basecamp Initiative.
MoonGirls was created by Akosua Hanson, with art by AnimaxFYB Studios with initial art by Kissiwaa, Julia Shika Odamtten, Hanson Akatti. The graphic novel was collaboratively written by Akosua Hanson, Suhaidatu Dramani, Abdul Rashid Tsiddi Can-Tamakloe and George Hanson. It is produced by Drama Queens.
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