The Sunday News
Peter Matika, Senior Life Reporter
RENOWNED comic book writer and artiste Boyd Maliki, whose collective cartoons have been featured in several newspapers and magazines in the southern African region and abroad, has released a full colour comic City Life, which is now also available to the international community online.
City Life comic book is a humorous look at city life through strip and panel cartoons. The comic book is now available on Amazon, an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company, which Maliki said has over 300 million visitors and buyers weekly.
In an interview Maliki revealed that he was initially not for the idea, as he was afraid of falling victim to piracy.
“Despite all the hype about my comic being available online and internationally, I was not for the idea of having it being sold online as I was wary about piracy. However, because of the publicity and attention I got for my work, readers across the globe couldn’t access my comic and having it available online was the best way of getting it to them. That is how it dawned on me that the medium I was using to get my comics to the masses was no longer effective, due to technological advancements,” he said. He added that the other reason he had migrated to Amazon was that most readers preferred eBooks to traditional type of comic books.
“Another reason I have moved to Amazon is that most readers of periodicals are migrating to eBooks, which have affected sales of leisure publications by the few bookshops that are still operating,” he said.
City Life is Maliki’s 15th publication since his first comic book — Black Man in 1978.
He has worked with several publications across Southern Africa, including Zimpapers’ Chronicle and Sunday News.
“I joined Zimpapers in 1982. I was the first black person in the art section of the advertising department. I introduced occasional single panel cartoons to the Chronicle, which made the publication grow popular. This we discovered through a survey. The arrival of Geoff Nyarota in 1983 saw us teaming up to introduce daily topical cartoons, which proved very popular,” he said.
A few months later Maliki initiated the introduction of a strip cartoon section, which was known as Nyathi.
“In later years I went solo and started a series of comics, which were featured in a publication called City Tales, which later changed to City Life as we know it. It has been running since June of 1995,” he said.
Maliki’s cartoons have appeared on quite a number of newspapers across Southern African region. Namely: Times of Zambia, Herald, Chronicle, Sunday News, Daily News, Southern Times, Southern Eye, Parade, Inside Zambia Magazine and Zambia Daily Nation.
“I must say that this edition is the best of my work as it is available in full gloss for those that want to buy a hard copy,” said Maliki.
Maliki has had the opportunity to tour United States through his work and has also lived in Zambia, where he developed himself as a well-seasoned cartoonist.
“I am a fan of comic books and my best were Batman and Spiderman. While I toured America I wined and dined with the authors and all that were involved in the publication of the comics,” he said.
Maliki mentioned that he was inspired by real life events, where instead of focusing on the gloom and serious side aspect of situations he focused on the humour side.
In one of his early comics — Nyathi, which rather shot him to fame locally, Maliki comes close to mentioning the name of a tycoon — an elderly friend of his in Kitwe, Zambia several years ago, whom he bases some of his script on.
He drew his inspiration when the concept of launching a cartoon strip featuring a rich and naughty “sugar daddy” began germinating in his mind.
“If you were a fan of the Nyathi, comic series, you should know that my current lead character Sande comes closest to the antics of this rich man who had many social climbers in town jostling for friendship with him,” said Maliki.
He said the same rich man ironically funded the printing of his first comic book in Zambia, despite the comic’s resemblance to the man’s lifestyle.
