'Picha' is the Swahili word for 'drawing' and also the title of the comics exhibition presenting a colourful image of the richly chequered continent of Africa. The African comic is doing well. African comic artists are active throughout the continent, comic festivals are being organized and many comic magazines published.

African comics offer us an original and creative view of Africa's eventful reality. From 9 November to 20 December 2008 this reality can be discovered in Lagos at the 'Picha' exhibition, showing the work of 19 comic artists from all over Africa. The exhibition will then travel to Sao Paolo and Spain.

A database has been set up especially for the Picha exhibition. It took many months to contact well over 140 comic artists and cartoonists from all over the continent and to collect information and visual material. The database, like the exhibition, is unique: African comics culture has never been systematically mapped like this before!

Have you always wanted to know what the difference is between Western and African comics? Do you want to know if African comics humour is anything like ours? Which themes do African comics discuss? Are there any popular African comics characters? Don't stop reading!