This week regular contributor and Nigerian writer Ayo Oyeku talks to the Clarke brothers, Daniel and James, the creators of Kariba, a new graphic novel from Catalyst Press out in August.

Kariba is an exceptional graphic novel driven by a powerful river of colours, history and identity. I wrote a review for the book which you can catch up with here if you missed it. To find out more about this outpouring of knowledge and talent, I talked to two of its creators – Daniel and James Clarke – about creativity, crowdfunding, the clash between civilization and African traditions, and how Kariba snowballed from an idea into a story that cannot be ignored.

Ayo Oyeku (AO): How did you conceive Kariba?

Daniel Clarke (DC): Frustrated with the animation industry I had been working in for the last few years, I went for a walk up Table Mountain, armed with a notebook and pencil and hoping that the movement of my body and the nature surrounding me would be conducive to inspiration. I didn’t have to wait long, after only a few minutes of lying down on a big boulder the idea of a story centring on Nyami Nyami and his human daughter came to me.

AO: What were your first thoughts about Kariba, when Daniel shared the idea with you?

James Clarke (JC): We had heard stories about Kariba and about the construction of the dam from our grandfather, so it made me glad to learn that Daniel wanted to work on something quite personal – personal in the sense that the story was something we shared from childhood. Up until that point, he had worked in the commercial animation industry and had not, at least to my knowledge, worked on his own stories.

AO: What does the Zambezi river mean to you?

DC: That’s a difficult question to answer. The river started out as an idea, a distant thing that I had only heard about in stories. After traveling up to Zimbabwe on my first research trip it became much more; a real thing, whose ancient banks were and are home for thousands of people and animals, around each bend a new story or myth. Like any grand and timeless feature of nature, it has a humbling effect, and I’m grateful to have contributed in some small way to its legacy or stories.

AO: In what ways did your degree in History and Literature influence the plot and settings of this graphic novel?

JC: If my degree had any influence, it was to frustrate every attempt to write a simple adventure tale. You study Historiography, from von Ranke to Foucault, and you become all too aware of the difficulties. To counter the academic questions a degree in history leaves one pondering, there is the fact of childhood experience. Why did I like this story and not that one? And ultimately, for all the riddles, critical readings and uncertainty which theory introduces, that very simple question is the one that is one’s compass when writing—perhaps especially when writing a children’s story.

AO: Can you tell us about the crowdfunding process.

DC: Daniel Snaddon and I had been discussing ways to develop a story independently, and crowd funding seemed like an interesting option. Getting people to back a script didn’t seem like it would work, so Snaddon suggested I make a graphic novel. Having never made a comic before I was at first hesitant, but the more I thought about it the more the idea appealed to me. Along with some friends, I had already made a short teaser trailer for Kariba, which had gained some traction online so that, along with the skills of Sarah Scrimgeour and the tenacity and network of Daniel Snaddon, we managed to raise double our funding target on Kick-starter.

AO: Can you both tell us about the development process.

DC: It took about two years to complete the book. Initially the plan was for a roughly 90-page book, but it ended up being 220 pages. The first year was mostly spent writing and developing the story, which entailed many days of conversation, note taking, research and staring out of windows. The second year was finishing up the story while simultaneously drawing and painting the pages. I worked at the pace of about one page a day, start to finish. By the end of it all I was exhausted and burnt out but satisfied that we had done our best and made something worthwhile.

JC: Each day I would go to Daniel’s apartment and for four or five hours we would sit and talk about the story. I would occasionally take notes on my laptop. Much of the time was spent staring at the wall, much was spent debating the merits of or problems with a new idea. When possible, I’d then go home and write up a scene from these ideas. Sometimes, in trying to write the scene, I’d discover an issue – or what I thought was an issue – with the idea. I wrote the book in screenwriting software called Celtx. This isn’t the normal way to do it, but I’d written scripts for film before and preferred that way of working as it was familiar. I also preferred it because the normal method for writing for graphic novels involves a lot of direction for an illustrator, and this was needless in our case. Daniel knew exactly how to make something work without any special directions from me.

AO: What sparks your creative process?

DC: I wish I knew! So far all I’ve managed to figure out is that I must be ready and waiting for inspiration to find me, and when it does, make good use of it. Creativity can be a very difficult thing, because often when we most desire it it’s absent, appearing rather when it’s not at all convenient, like when you’re already working full-time on something else. But as long as you keep moving forward and stay open, something will probably begin to happen.

AO: With your wealth of experience in the creative industry, how important is identity and inclusion in the creative world?

DC: Everybody, to one degree or another, moulds their sense of self on narrative and story. Every culture and group has a network of stories that help them understand themselves and serve as guides on how to act and be in the world. These stories change form, moving between places and peoples, becoming stronger and ‘truer’ as they are shaped by and in turn shape the world. And so, artificially excluding certain voices or stories does no one any good in the long run, as it will eventually weaken a culture, separating it from the world and preventing it from growing naturally.

JC: Yesterday, my partner, a schoolteacher, told me a story about donating some of her old children’s books to a homeless shelter in Cape Town. She was showing the books to a class, mostly children’s books in English, when she said, ‘Here’s one in isiXhosa.’ Suddenly a boy at the front excitedly blurted out ‘There are books in Xhosa?’  Perhaps the best way I can attempt to give a (partial) answer your question would be to say that I think we should be working very hard to make that sort of surprise a thing of the past, and at the same time to meet that enthusiasm with the rich creative work it deserves.

AO: Being siblings must have influenced your artistic excellence. Can you shed more light into this?

DC: As I mentioned before, I was frustrated with the world of animation, and the fact that James was completely separate from that world, along with the fact that I trust and respect him more than perhaps anyone else, was a huge reason for wanting to work with him on Kariba. We of course had difficulties and disagreements, but our trust in each other was more than enough to overcome them.

JC: I have in Daniel a brother and a close friend. I would not have written this book had it not been him asking me to do it. Sometimes we have the same view on something and it is very easy to arrive at an answer and move on. Sometimes we have diverging views but respect each other too much not to argue vehemently about them. It is in this furnace that Kariba was made.

AO: Kariba beams light on the clash between African traditions and western civilization. In what ways do you think both can be managed, or do you feel civilization should replace traditions?

JC: We are all afraid of losing what makes us who we are. Tradition when it is healthy can serve to remind us of things that modernity would like us to forget. But when tradition ossifies, it stunts our growth and makes us blind to what is new and possibly valuable for our growth. Much is done in the name of progress that is simply change, often for the worse. Similarly, much is preserved in the name of tradition that is empty ritual, or worse. Knowing and understanding our past is perhaps the only way to live in balance between these opposing forces. The intention of the historical note included at the back of the original Kickstarter edition was to warn readers against reductive interpretation. It would have been all too easy to write a book about the evils of industrialization or to romanticize pre-colonial life. Our view was and is that while humans long for simple answers to complex problems, stories are felt to be most meaningful when they preserve complexity. Whether we have succeeded is for readers to decide.

DC: As I mentioned before, I was frustrated with the world of animation, and the fact that I agree with James’s answer and don’t think I can say it much better than he did. I think these things are often talked about in black and white terms, which in my mind isn’t helpful or realistic. Change is inevitable, cultures and traditions are born, grow old and die, either disappearing or being swallowed up by something new. But to discard them completely, believing that the ‘new’ is superior, be it technologically or morally, is a mistake. The old ways are old for a reason, it means that they have stood the test of time, and the lessons they teach us are sometimes not obvious or easily understood, and so we abandon them at our peril. This is not to say we should resist all change, or cling to the past, just that we should remain humble, and realise that our ancestors have seen and been through things that we have not and that tradition, art, culture and the past is a treasure trove that could in fact aid in our ability to deal with the future.

AO: Siku is a powerful child that arranges the whole of her being into the open arms of the river. Should we expect her to teleport from the coloured pages of a graphic novel into the big screen?

DC: The world of film is a capricious one. After many years of trying to get Kariba made as a film I have come to the conclusion that unless all the ingredients and people involved are exactly right, forcing it to happen would be a disservice to the book and Siku herself.

AO: In an alternate reality, what kinds of conflict will Siku confront?

JC: I will leave this for the reader’s imagination. What I can say is that I cannot imagine an easy future for Siku.

AO: If the sky was to be repainted, which colour would you choose?

DC: I couldn’t possibly imagine the sky to be any other colour than blue. I can’t think of any greater joy than running bare foot over green grass with a bright blue sky above, so blue you feel you could almost fall into it like an ocean. I have actually given this quite a lot of thought as I always hate when films change the colour of the sky; it inevitably seems to alienate me.

AO: If the world originated from a place, where would you imagine the origin to be?

JC: Admittedly the events in Kariba take place in a world that resembles 1950s Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). But the real origin of Kariba is the land of the Imagination.

AO: What can you say about the third member of the Kariba team, Daniel Snaddon?

DC: Daniel Snaddon is a force of goodwill and encouragement, he’s always believed in me and I certainly wouldn’t have committed to such an ambitious project with out that belief and him at my side.

JC: Daniel Snaddon had faith in the book even when I thought it was going nowhere. He is a rare example of a creative person who is also a brilliant organizer and leader. Without him, the book would not be what it is.

AO: Kariba is an unparalleled graphic novel born out of creativity, history and research. What next should your readers expect from you?

DC: Recently I was lucky enough to direct a short film for Lucasfilm in the Star Wars universe, “Aau’s Song”. Surprisingly, we were given a lot of creative freedom on the project and I hope to be able to do something similar in the future. Stories are always percolating somewhere in my mind so it’s just a matter of time before the next one reveals itself.

JC: I am working on a few things, but I am not sure which will be first to be published. With any luck they will be finished faster than Kariba was.

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Ayo Oyeku is a Fellow of Ebedi International Writers Residency. He has authored eight children’s books, and some of his books have won notable awards, including the Association of Nigerian Authors Prize for Children’s Literature. He loves reading books to children, meeting writers, and speaking at literary panels. He is the Founder of Eleventh House Publishing.