The Papa Mfumu'Eto Comics Project aims to bring together, disclose and disseminate the comic art of Congolese artist Papa Mfumu'eto. Based in Kinshasa, Papa Mfumu'eto produced hundreds of wildly imaginative comics inspired by turbulent daily and political life in Congo, mainly throughout the 1990s. The digital comic collection is hosted by project partner University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries and Ghent University Library (using the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) standards).
In collaboration with the Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities, the Papa Mfumu'Eto project has three main goals:
(1) to enrich the comics with transcriptions, translations and semantic annotations using the Omeka S-based MADOC: IIIF Annotation and Transcription Platform co-developed by GhentCDH and Digirati
(2) to use the enriched comic collection for further humanities research and teaching purposes
(3) to build virtual exhibits and curate physical exhibitions
During the enrichment phase, use is made of collaborative, crowdsourcing and citizen science methods. The MADOC platform allows to engage researchers and students (of f.ex. Lingala) in the US, Belgium and DR Congo, as well as targeting a broad public willing to contribute.
- This short presentation (2021, 8 min) explores the possibilities of Madoc to enrich the comics of Papa Mfumu'eto.
- Explore Papa Mfumu'Eto comic book collection in Madoc.
Involved team members: Davy Verbeke, Lise Foket, and Frederic Lamsens