Mfumu’eto

Mfumu’eto Magazine

Editor	Mfumu'Eto Nkou-Ntoula
Categories	Political Magazine
Frequency	infrequently
Company	Private
Country	Democratic Republic of the Congo
Language	English
Website	[1]

This magazine was established in the 1990s by a high priest named Mfumu’eto.This individual ran a one-man guerrilla publishing empire on the streets of Kinshasa. His arsenal of little comic books, written in Lingala, Tshiluba and French, were made on low-quality paper.These comic books were self-produced using stencils and photocopying machines and distributed informally in the market place.The comic books quickly gained notoriety for their controversial attacks against the political powers of the 1990s in the DRC.

Along with other low-cost and locally distributed magazines such as Fula Ngenge, Mfumu'eto's comics inaugurated the era of the author as the producer in the Democratic Republic of Congo's literary world. Like other comics produced in Kinshasa at the time they were heavily influenced by urban culture.Mfumu'Eto also drew inspiration from local traditions, combining African traditional medicine with religion, pulp fiction with politics,and irony with attitude.This culminated into an eclectic display of interdisciplinism that directly contested dominant colonial systems of knowledge.

His most famous series includes the politically propulsive A Nguma Meli Muasi Ya Na Kati Kinshasa, first published in 1990 and which was subsequently banned by the authorities. Mfumu'Eto work was recently exhibited in Europe and the US, following the international success of popular painters such as Cheri Samba and the growing interest in African comics.

This article uses text from [http://www.chimurengalibrary.co.za/periodicals.php?id=13 Chumrenga Library under the GFDL