Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore how comics were appropriated by key institutions and local populations in the Copperbelt (DRC-Zambia) around independence. This, as will be argued, allowed them to be used both to promote a vision for a prosperous industrial future and to bemoan its failure to materialise.

Paper long abstract:

The Copperbelt mining region, straddling the border between Zambia and DRCongo, has long been associated with various influential forms of popular arts. One such artform has, however, remained relatively under the academic radar: comics. Yet not only were they an integral part of life on the Copperbelt by the 1950s, but they also became a major channel through which to vehiculate ‘messages’ and hold public conversations. In the wake of independence, acknowledging the popularity of the medium, several institutions began producing their own youth magazines. This included southern Congo’s all-powerful mining company, Gécamines and Zambia’s Ministry of Education and Franciscan Mission. These magazines were created to ‘educate’ their young readers, ‘steer’ them towards certain careers, and generally inspire them to help building the country’s future, the expectation being that this future would be industrial and prosperous. The audience responded by indicating which comics they preferred and producing their own, while also discussing their hopes and doubts in the ‘letters to the editor’ section. While such magazines were commissioned by the ‘powers-that-be’, they provided aspiring cartoonists with the opportunity to appropriate and transform the medium. Crucially, this reappropriation took place against the backdrop of fast economic, political and social changes, especially after the dramatic downturn in copper prices of 1974–75. In this context, this paper will explore how comics were both deployed to promote a vision for an industrial and ‘modern’ future and later to critique the failures of modernity and the corrosive effects of economic decline.