I had the pleasure of chatting with the artist, cartoonist, and creator of the Manga release “Siri Watu”, a comic book South African creation from Awali Comics.
Get your copy at https://www.awalicomics.com/siri-watu/
Here’s the synopsis of the story.
Long ago, men were born who could do the impossible. Some were made weapons, some were feared, all were scorned and made desperate. Wars were fought, monsters were birthed and demons reigned down on the earth. But eventually, after centuries of abuse, those seen as monsters and demons escaped the poisonous shackles of their former clans and kingdoms, creating their own people, The Siri Watu.
For a moment, they lived like their ancestors never could: outside of the will of evil men. But man is a fickle beast, for the gifts that made the Siri Watu their monsters were the same gifts the old world feared and the new world despised. And so, when a man sent fury and army, the Siri Watu chose to vanish in exile and disappear into chasms of secrecy, becoming myths of history.
Some were found, bloodlines were ended, but the diaspora had hope, for there were whispers amongst the few that remained that their very own descendants would unite them in rebirth again.
We enter the world of the Siri Watu through Dialo, Ayanda, Senzo, and Zita, four young Siri Watu unaware of their heritage. Called by the worlds beyond to inherit a legacy, they must learn who they are by a destructively-quirky old man bent on turning them into the descendants he believes them to be. They are those who are whispered about, the Yaa Akan, and they are those whose bloodline the Iraksa hunger to end.
Siri Watu is inspired by the real-life myth and folklore of the Lost City of the Kalahari and Great Zimbabwe, of African people that even history books have lost knowledge of through the ages.
