A Kinshasa Star

A groundbreaking set of interventions about the legendary comic artist Papa Mfumu’Eto 1er.

The audacious and unsettling comic zines of Papa Mfumu’Eto 1er are the central subject of this volume. This Congolese artist sold his comics on the streets of Kinshasa in the 1990s. A diverse group of scholars and artists—including Mfumu’Eto himself—engage with the found vernacular archive of this legendary cartoonist. The authors analyze his sequential art, unique framing techniques, copious use of Lingala, as well as vivid scenes of troubles, dreams, and the everyday. Combining anthropology, linguistics, and visuality with history and autobiography, A Kinshasa Star offers a wonderful mixture of interventions into Mfumu’Eto’s oeuvre and well beyond. Included are contrapuntal forays into colonial and postcolonial comics, Kinshasa lives and afflictions, the occult, Kongo shrines, domesticity, and the political turmoil of the last years of Mobutu’s twisted regime.

This book will be made open access within three years of publication thanks to Path to Open, a program developed in partnership between JSTOR, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), University of Michigan Press, and The University of North Carolina Press to bring about equitable access and impact for the entire scholarly community, including authors, researchers, libraries, and university presses around the world. Learn more at https://about.jstor.org/path-to-open/

Nancy Rose Hunt

Nancy Rose Hunt is an independent scholar, editor, and prize-winning ethnographic historian of the Congo. She has been Papa Mfumu’Eto 1er personal archivist since 2001.

Pedro Monaville

Pedro Monaville is Associate Professor of African History at McGill University. A specialist of postcolonial Congo and the global 1960s, he regularly collaborates with artists on projects that connect history and visual culture.

Papa Mfumu’Eto 1er

Marie-Louise Bibish Mumbu

Marie-Louise Mumbu is a Montreal-based writer and cultural entrepreneur whose work bridges literature, theatre, and the performing arts.

Sinzo Aanza

Sinzo Aanza is a Kinshasa-based visual artist and writer whose work spans literature, theatre, and contemporary art.

Kristien Geenen

Kristien Geenen is an anthropologist and historian whose research focuses on popular culture and urban life in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Margot Luyckfasseel

Margot Luyckfasseel is Junior Research Professor in Modern African History at the University of Antwerp.

Léon Tsambu

Léon Tsambu is a sociologist at the University of Kinshasa whose research focuses on Congolese popular culture and urban music.

Katrien Pype

Katrien Pype is an anthropologist whose research explores Kinshasa's popular culture, media, and digital worlds.

Michelle Bumatay

Michelle Bumatay is Associate Professor of French at Florida State University.

Tom Hart

Tom Hart is the founder and Executive Director of The Sequential Artists Workshop and a bestselling graphic novelist.

Emery Kalema

Emery Kalema is Assistant Professor of History at The Africa Institute in Sharjah.

Bienvenu Sene Mongaba

Bienvenu Sene Mongaba was a writer, editor, and scholar whose work was dedicated to the study, teaching, and promotion of the Lingala language.

Michael Meeuwis

Michael Meeuwis is Professor of Lingala and African Sociolinguistics at Ghent University.

Aurélie Mawete Maketa

Aurélie Mawete Maketa is a doctoral candidate in history at the Université de Montréal whose research focuses on the history of street comics in Kinshasa.

Daniel Reboussin

Daniel Reboussin is African Studies Collections Curator at the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, where he oversees the Papa Mfumu'Eto 1er Papers.

David Carlin

David Carlin is a Melbourne-based writer, artist, and Emeritus Professor of Media and Communication at RMIT University.

Philip Van Den Bossche

Phillip Van den Bossche is an art historian and curator whose work focuses on modern and contemporary art, with a particular interest in colonial and postcolonial histories.

Daniel Barroca

Daniel Barroca is an anthropologist, visual artist, and ethnographic filmmaker whose work explores the legacies and memories of the Portuguese colonial wars in Africa.

Nichole Bridges

Nichole Bridges is Morton D. May Curator at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Jan Čumlivski

Jan Čumlivski is a graphic designer, book artist, and historian of graphic design specializing in samizdat and the history of typography.

Johan Lagae

Johan Lagae is Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at Ghent University.

Alioune Sow

Alioune Sow is Associate Professor of French and African Studies at the University of Florida.

Filip De Boeck

Filip De Boeck is Professor of Anthropology at KU Leuven, whose research explores urban life, art, and imagination in Central Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.