Geek Syndicate

Outta Space….Outta Sight. These are the voyages of Afroella! 

Whilst strolling around the Thought Bubble Comic Festival in the North of England a few weeks back, trying desperately to get my five month old daughter to absorb the delights of comics and embed them firmly in her subconscious landscape, my sight was arrested by a very bold image of a funky afroed black woman with a laser gun.  There was a comic, a 3D display and even a replica laser on the table and that was my introduction to Afroella.

I was immediately impressed by the effort and professionalism that the creators Gemma Bedeau and Lee Fenton Wilkinson had put into the promotion of their product and even more impressed to see a Black woman on the cover of a comic.

Lee’s art is bright and bold with strong colours that grab you from a distance. Despite its cartoony style the artwork is not too unrealistic and very clear.

The story follows a member of the Ella’s, the Elite Lunisolar Liberty Agents. In this case Afroella.  With her sidekick, DIVA, her Digital interactive Virtual Assistant, she flies throughout the galaxy righting wrongs and kicking ass and wearing sparkly nail varnish.

This comic blatantly owes homage to Barbarella, numerous blaxploitation films and the late 60’s/early 70’s in general.  If you love disco, jive talk, black pop culture and sci-fi, you have a combination here that can’t miss.   Gemma has managed to blend these elements seamlessly and I was in funky wonderland with a huge grin on my face.  I’m still grinning from the moment I clocked the countdown on Afroella’s mini grenade.  In fact the comic is chockablock full of easter eggs for those that know.

There were moments where I thought the funk was a bit incessant and I hope that Gemma doesn’t have funk burn out by issue 4. There were also moments where the segues from one page to the next were a bit sudden and jarring.

However this is Lee and Gemma’s  first comic and it’s a blooming good one.  In the words of Afroella herself:

Boom! Boom! Pow!

I was so impressed with this comic I decided I wanted to have a chat with Lee and Gemma about the whole thing.

So here is a short interview which was a lot of fun -

Afroella interview

You can check out the Afroella blog at http://kromatroncomics.tumblr.com/

GS Reporter: Monts