Pan Afrikan Series Comix 2085 is one of the most innovative art projects that is breaking the odds of illiteracy amongst our youth through comic books. This project encourages literacy by imparting historical knowledge in a series of comic books making reading fun.

Last year (2022), the Pan Afrikan Series Comix 2085 was successfully funded by National Arts Council (NAC) for their project of producing two series of comic books namely the Heritage and Football series. The heritages series was aimed at commemorating the Day of Reconciliation and the Football series was aimed at encouraging Africanism, unity, and patriotism.

Thanks to the NAC funding, the Pan Afrikan Series Comix 2085 has managed to deliver the two series of comic books successfully. The books were well received and captured the attention of youth whilst encouraging purposeful dialogues about African history. The books’ success was attributed to several marketing initiatives, including composing a song that reflected the topics in the books, delivering two lectures at the Ncome Museum and the Verulum Old Age Home, and participating in radio interviews.

This project has not only improved young people’s literacy levels but also gave them employment opportunities and positively impacted the lives of many young people. Over 80 people attended the lectures which were intended to spread knowledge of African history as covered in the book, and 15 people were employed because of this endeavour. In addition to all these achievements training was also offered to the illustrators and voice-over artists who were employed in the project to sharpen their skills to deliver exceptional work that meets the standard of Pan Afrikan Series comix 2085.

The above project activities were in line with the NAC focus areas such as capacity building through the training sessions and lectures provided, new works and digital arts through the electronic comic books with voice over narration, supporting the vulnerable groups through providing employment opportunities to the youth and social cohesion and nation building by commemorating the Day of Reconciliation.

During the interview with the founder and the director of the project Mr Victor Zikalala and his team we asked them about the future plans of their project and they  said ‘’We plan to continue our quest to empower our youth to be literate and to teach them African knowledge to instil black consciousness. From now on the sky is the limit as far as reaching our objectives’’ OUR MISSION is to: Design, Develop and Craft Marketing Communications Campaigns with graphic novels that “Travel Well” across different cultures as they encourage our children to Learn with Reading Then Debating.”

In his closing remarks, Mr Victor Zikalala expressed his gratitude for the funding support he received from the National Arts Council. He further thanked the crew that was behind the remarkable work they have produced and lastly the consumers of our project for their valuable feedback and support on his project work.

The Pan Afrikan Comix 2085 series are available to followers who register and subscribe to Pan Afrikan Comix 2085 website. Followers are encouraged to engage with our educational content to earn Mpondo points which accumulate into prizes and vouchers.

For further information, visitors can register at https://www.pac2085.com/ or email hello@pac2085.com