The MoonGirls Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Dec 27 2020

Location: 

Online, Ghana

Drama Queens Ghana's “MoonGirls” is an Afrofuturistic graphic novel series. Through an Afrofuturistic lens, “MoonGirls follows 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 features "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 questions harmful norms and invites 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.

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 superheroes navigating a violent world that places them as a “lesser” gender of humans. This comic captures these great stories of everyday superheroes from the lens of Afrofuturistic fiction while immortalizing them in feminist art.

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.

External sources: 

https://squidmag.ink/moongirls-graphic-novel/
https://moongirls.live/frontpage/
https://www.psp-culture.com/literature/moongirls-a-graphic-intervention/
Posted by ChrisC on Apr 21 2024

Staff rating: 

0

Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Amplifies (issue or campaign)Brings public and political attention to an issue or campaign.  Can include prefigurative action, making the invisible visible.
Strengthens (community)Strengthens, builds and celebrates community through ritual and/or symbol.
Shifts (culture)Shifts the cultural landscape in order to imagine and enable change.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear long-term goal. Long-term goals tend to be things like: end racism; end homophobia; make the sun stand still in the sky. A campaign with a long-term goal also needs to have some kind of theory of change.
The long term goal of this project is to shift culture and harmful notions of gender, sexuality, and race through graphic narratives. Similar to the "supersheroes" of the novel series, this project aims to "save Africa from a diverse range of forces" oppressing women, queer people, and other marginalized identities. These forces include sexism, rape culture, homophobia, patriatchy, and capitalism.

Notes

This project seems to be very affective by presenting interesting, futuristic, but still very relevant plots and themes within the novel series, while also using the space of graphic novels for greater representation of marginalized groups. It is unclear how much of a direct effect this novel series has had on the sociocultural environment in Ghana, however, the project maintains a level of effectiveness in amplifying sociocultural and political issues towards a range of audiences by means of a free online and visual format. This way, the information/message is accessible to anyone over 18 with access to internet. This, at the same time limits the audience to only those who can afford devices and internet services. Having this series printed and available in public libraries could be a helpful addition to this campaign.