Conceived of in conjunction with the exhibition (2019-2022) of the same name at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, curator Kevin D. Dumouchelle's handsome book Heroes: Principles of African Greatness, is a significant stand-alone contribution to the popular study of African art (see Bourland 2021). This dynamic large-format volume reads diverse objects in NMAfA's collection through the concept of the heroic, sensitive to the tragic and contradictory dimensions of the concept of the Hero in African and global cultural repertoires. Although especially geared towards engaging teens and young people in African social and art history, the book is illuminating and thought-provoking for specialists and nonspecialists of all ages.
In many respects, the volume is an homage to the grand tradition of comics and graphic storytelling in twentieth century Africa, which creatively reworked the visual vocabularies of Anglo-American superhero comics, French graphic novels such as Tintin, and...