There is a question that is underneath every conversation about African comics: which ones matter? Not to outsiders, not to publishers hunting for the next global trend, but to the people who live and breathe this industry. The writers, the artists, the colourists, the shop owners. The people who know.
Now, for the first time, that question has an answer. And it came from asking them directly.
Comic Book Canon, a data-driven project that aggregates hundreds of “greatest comics” lists from around the world into a single meta-ranking, has published the results of a landmark poll: The Greatest African Comics of All Time, as voted on by 29 African comics creators from eight countries.
The top title? Celestial Eyes by John Uche, Francis Goodluck, Cuisel J. Peach, and Lord Blue, published by The Machine Publishing.
How a Math Teacher Built the Closest Thing Comics Has to a Canon
Comic Book Canon is the work of Mike Mesa, a former mathematics teacher whose method is deceptively simple: collect as many “best of” lists as possible, feed them into a large aggregate, and let the critical consensus emerge. The same logic that puts Citizen Kane atop film rankings, generation after generation. As of now, Mesa has pulled from 889 individual lists to build his master ranking.
The problem he kept running into was geographic. The feedback came in consistently: the list skewed Western. American publishers, Marvel, DC, and Image, dominated the results, not because African or Asian comics aren’t great, but because the lists Mesa could find simply didn’t reflect them. When he went looking specifically for “Greatest African Comics” rankings online, he found almost nothing. So, rather than accept that gap as an answer, he decided to close it himself.
Starting in January this year, Mesa began researching the African comics industry; publishers, writers, artists, studio founders, shop owners. He built a contact list and sent out a survey modelled on the Sight & Sound poll, the film world’s most prestigious critical exercise: Name your ten greatest African comics of all time.
The results arrived in the form of a 25-title ranking that cuts across countries, styles, publishers, and genres, and tells a story not just about individual titles, but about an entire industry’s sense of itself.
The Results: A Scene in Full View
The poll drew 29 participants across Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Kenya, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. They represent every layer of the industry, writers, pencillers, colorists, letterers, poets, publishing company founders, multi-media producers, and comic shop directors. Some voted anonymously. Those who chose to be listed publicly include names that will be immediately familiar to anyone who follows the scene: Murewa Ayodele, writer of Akogun: Brutalizer of Gods and Marvel’s Storm; Bill Masuku, creator of Runeless and Captain South Africa; Dotun Akande, whose art has appeared in Marvel and Oni Press titles; and Scourge Comics, founder and creator of Erinle.
Their collective verdict points strongly toward a handful of publishers as the pillars of the canon. YouNeek Studios placed three titles in the top ten: Malika: Warrior Queen at number two, E.X.O.: The Legend of Wale Williams at five, and Iyanu at seven, a remarkable show of strength for a studio that has spent a decade building a shared Nigerian superhero universe. Comic Republic also placed multiple times across the full top 25.
The full top ten:
- Celestial Eyes — John Uche, Francis Goodluck, Cuisel J. Peach, Lord Blue (The Machine Publishing)
- Malika: Warrior Queen — Roye Okupe, Chima Kalu, Raphael Kazeem, Spoof Animation (YouNeek Studios)
- Supa Strikas — Various (Various)
- The Might of Guardian Prime — Jide Martin, Wale Awelenje (Comic Republic)
- E.X.O.: The Legend of Wale Williams — Roye Okupe, Chima Kalu, Raphael Kazeem, Spoof Animation, Sunkanmi Akinboye (YouNeek Studios)
- Kwezi — Loyiso Mkize, Clyde Beech, Viwe Mfaku (David Philip Publishers)
- Iyanu — Roye Okupe, Godwin Akpan, Chima Kalu (YouNeek Studios)
- Jakuta — Ayegbusi D.D. Tobi, Talib Morayo, and team (Brown Roof Studios)
- My Grandfather Was a God — Murewa Ayodele, Dotun Akande (Collectible Comics)
- Dafe, Friends and All of Mishima — Sean Okwoju, Marinella Mateo, Etu Prince Etu (TAG Comics) (tied)
- Monkey Meat — Juni Ba (Kugali Media) (tied)
The remaining 14 titles in the top 25 stretch the list further into the continent’s creative geography, Kwezi‘s South African superhero mythology, Akokhan‘s East African educational roots, Apple Black‘s Afro-fantasy published via Saturday AM, and several self-published works that signal how much of this industry is being built outside traditional structures.
Why This Matters
A poll of 29 people is not exhaustive, Mesa would be the first to say so, and the project is open about its methodology. But that’s almost beside the point. What this ranking represents is something the African comics industry has not formally had before: a record of its own critical consensus, built by its own practitioners.
Sight & Sound’s famous film poll doesn’t derive its authority from a perfect sample size. It derives it from the seriousness of the people being asked. By that measure, what Mesa has assembled, a cross-continental, cross-discipline group of working creators sitting down to ask themselves what their industry’s greatest achievements are, carries genuine weight.
The titles at the top aren’t there by accident. They represent years of work, often bootstrapped and self-distributed, reaching readers through direct sales, digital platforms, and word of mouth rather than the global distribution networks available to Western publishers. Celestial Eyes sitting at number one, above much more internationally visible titles, is a signal worth paying attention to.
This is the African comics canon, not assigned from outside, but declared from within. It will update, expand, and shift. But it exists now, and it belongs to the people who built it.
The full rankings and project methodology are available at comicbookcanon.com.
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TheACE uses artificial intelligence tools to support research, drafting and analysis across Africa’s creative industries. All content is verified, edited and approved by our human editorial team to ensure accuracy, clarity and responsible storytelling. AI assists our work; it does not replace human judgment.
