Joëlle Epée Mandengue (Elyon’s) was born in 1982 in Cameroon and holds a degree in modern literature and a diploma in graphic arts. She began her professional career as a cultural officer at the French Cultural Centre (now the French Institute), before working as a graphic designer and subsequently as a copywriter in the MW-DDB° group. As the author of La vie d’ Ebène Duta (2014 – ), a stand-up comedian and the creator of the Congo BZV: Bilili comics Festival, she co-curated various comic exhibitions in Africa, with the IF of South Africa and the CIBDI of Angoulême.
Eyram Tawia is the CEO and Co-founder of Leti Arts, formerly Leti Games. His love for comics and computer games helped to spur his interest to learn to program back in junior high school as he wanted to make the comics he drew as a youngster, come to life on the computer screen. He studied at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology in Kumasi, Ghana and at the Meltwater Foundation, where he was a Software Teaching Fellow, inspiring others while also working on his own projects. He is also a recent Mandela Washington Fellow and a member of the Harambe Alliance.
Jide Martin is the CEO of Comic Republic, a Comic Book Start-up based in Nigeria that is shaping the reputation narrative of Africa using quality art and stories in the form of Comic Books. In 2018, he was identified by a United Nations program headquartered in New York that provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in development (UNICEF) as one of Africa’s Change Makers. A self-described ‘geek’, Martin and his team are working to create African superheroes for an African audience.
Moray Rhoda is a Cape Town based designer and illustrator. He has been involved with the local comic scene since 2000, when he founded Igubu Comics Collective. After leaving Igubu he self-published two Clockworx comics and co-organised Comics Brew 2006 with Grant Muller. Moray was the art director at Media 24’s Beat Comics studio, producing the comics Unicity, Mzansi Beats and Kasiwash. When Beat Comics Studio was shut down, Moray and the art team banded together under the name They Did This! Illustration & Design. He is currently based at City Varsity and is a contributor to Sector, a bi-monthly fantasy and sci-fi comic book.
