The dictionary defines a "comic strip" as a "usually humorous narrative series of cartoon panels." But there's nothing humorous about some comics. There are good examples of that on display right now in New York -- at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It's an exhibit called Africa Comics that reflects some of the continent's more serious realities. The World's Marco Werman takes us there.

Monster in Khaki (pdf, 7mb, mature content)

But there are plenty of Africans who have things on their minds that they want to talk about.

Muniania: “It's challenging because they want to say something. At the same time you want to say it in a way that it does not put you in trouble.”

That's Lubangi Muniania.

He's an arts educator and critic from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I asked him to come with me to the show Africa Comics at the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York. The exhibit features 32 artists from 20 African countries.

Comics are not a new thing in Africa. Lubangi Muniania grew up in the Congolese capital Kinshasa in the seventies, and comics were already part of local culture.

Muniania: “We read a lot of what we used to call BD. Bandes dessinees.”
MW: “Literally drawn strips.”
LM: Yes. “There you go. Tintin. But sometimes it was so removed from our own reality that we wanted to make it our own. So we started drawing. There were some very famous comic books around in Kinshasa. You know anyone who grew up back in the 70s will tell you about this. And their subjects were about us. You know, Kinshasa, by night, Kinshasa the music scene, politics, police. So it was really about that. And you know children who grew up reading this started drawing left and right.”

Those children were the first generation of Africans to grow up in urban areas after independence in the early 60s. They expected a lot from their African leaders. And often they didn't get it.

Some of that first generation of young, smart and often critical African comic book artists are featured in this show in New York. Their pens are trained on subjects like colonialism, foreign aid, corruption, elitism, and female genital mutilation.

They use comics as a way of talking about issues that they believe are being ignored. Muniania led me over to several panels that impressed him by an artist named Didier Mada BD.

LM: This is from Madagascar
MW: It's called Street Child, enfant de rue.
LM: Yes. and street child is becoming one of the biggest problems in Africa. and the politicians aren't doing anything about this.

“The point you make is interesting because it would seem to me that a lot of...
...let's look at this one over here.“

MW: “Lubangi Muniania guided me to two pages of black and white comics on another wall...believe me you'll be arrested.”

It's not easy to convey on radio the combined force of the images and writing in the Africa Comics show.

But the images of Le Flic de Gnasville are accompanied by the narration of the fictional cop in the story's title.

In this excerpt, the cop describes the tiny jail cells where inmates are detained.

“Each is supposed to house eight clients. But thanks to our sense of economy, we are able to book fifty people in these threadbare rooms. The stubborn ones have neither food nor water. When a subversive journalist or intellectual is brought in, all the colleagues are happy to take it out on him. Some don't hold out much and die when we dip them in leech infested water. If among them there are girls, we serve ourselves generously! It's a line of work that has its advantages and its downsides. They say all this represents violations of human rights. But I would like to know: who has taken an interest in the rights of torturers?”

The author of those lines, Eyoum Ngangue, writes from experience.

He emigrated to France after spending a year in prison in his home of Cameroon. The charge was "political defamation." In other words, he wrote something that the Cameroonian government didn't like.

Still, some of the artists show that it's not just them, but a lot of people who want to defeat the corrupt officials who constantly derail their lives. There's one strip by a Nigerian author named Kola Fayemi.

It's called "Monster in Khaki."

In it, a woman goes to a police chief to plead for the release of her brother who, she explains, is an invalid and has done nothing wrong. Here's the dialogue between the woman, named Chiamaka and the police chief.

“Sincerely, your sick brother and others are innocent of the charge against them.”

“But I need money badly! “

“That's why I ordered my men to arrest anyone in the streets and at homes, and charge them for robbery!”

“The ten wrongly accused persons would fetch me 350,000 naira.”

“Ha ha!”

“I'd release your brother if you'd sleep with me!“

“No! Take your hand off my blouse.“

“Chiamaka's anger knew no bounds.”

She slapped the randy officer's hand.

“Take your filthy hand off me! “

“Ah! My hand! Are you crazy?”

“For your boorish behavior I'm going to execute your brother with the real armed bandits in our custody today! “

“You can't do it! “

“You'd have a bone to pick with the press if you hurt my brother.”

“I can see that you have no respect for your brother's life! Going to the press won't help you, bitch! I'll kill your brother and go scot free under official cover!

Chiamaka then enlists the support of the area police commandant. He has the abusive police chief arrested, and Chiamaka's brother is rescued in time. The not-so coded message Lubangi Muniania told me is that this is not just one bad-apple police chief.

“This is a plea to me, you know Africans saying 'let us really elect the rightful people to run those countries,' because if the head of the country is corrupt, of course it's going to trickle down, down to the head of the police department like you see here. That's the plea. We want to change things.”

Advocating for that change -- even in comic book form -- is a dangerous thing to do in many parts of Africa. So, comics like these are not getting wide audiences there. They get circulated locally among friends. But Lubangi Muniania says these comics offer readers something that the mainstream media in Africa just doesn't.

“It's the ability to see themselves... understand themselves better. It's like wow, I didn't know.”

That means these comics serve as a wakeup call, not just for Africans. But also for Americans and the whole world. The Africa Comics show is at the Studio Museum in Harlem until mid-March.

For The World, I'm Marco Werman, New York.

Thanks to Michael Kaloki, Tope Agboola and Titi Adegbite from the BBC Africa Service.