New stories to tell for Microwave Boy

In the early days of SA’s migration into the YouTube space Microwave Boys became a leader of the pack. While those in front of the camera earned their own notoriety, the true star of the show was behind the scenes for most of the channel’s content, one Menzi Mzimela.

The Johannesburg native grew up a quiet child, who always found solace in creative expression. Following his successes of his YouTube channel, Anarchadium, Mzimela is venturing into new territory with a digital graphic novel titled Mount Olympus.

The story will follow the dark world of a fictional city rampant with crime. The series is meant to parallel the socio-political issues that befall South Africans. Originally meant to be a live-action series, Mzimela shifted his concept and turned it into a graphic novel after seeing the creative treatment of what he created.

A graphic novel is certainly not new ground for South African audiences with the success of Kwezi and Supa Strikas at the foot of Mount Olympus. Supa Strikas was a football-based comic book that ran well over 10 years before spawning a seven-season long cartoon series well after the print’s prime.

Head illustrator from the comic series, Loyiso Mkize, also worked on Kwezi, which is an afrofuturistic comic book that is also targeted at children, a sweet spot for its publishers following the big comic book boom in the 2010s.

While local graphic novels have not reported the same success, Mzimela shares that he has been cognisant of the risk that he has taken writing for a demographic between 18 and 35.

“A lot of what I create is not geared towards children, but it’s something I’m keeping in mind as I create more,” says Mzimela. “I only realised later on that it might be trickier because the adult crowd is a little trickier but that has always been my creative approach.”

In a genre that has often forgotten women and queer characters additionally neglecting their audiences, graphic novels and comic books in SA have often lacked a diversity of stories. While Mzimela had initially meant to tackle this issue, he also became reserved in terms of being the writer behind it all.

“I didn’t want to be the one to control those characters because I do not understand them as well as someone who is a woman or someone who is queer. There were so many issues I wanted to touch on, but because of that lack of understanding I didn’t go into them in depth,” says Mzimela, who hopes to hire queer writers and women who can create honest narratives for the characters that already exist.

“If you look at the history of male writers creating gay or female characters, you can see a history of them getting it wrong more than them getting it right. All of the diverse shows that we have come to enjoy were created by people who know what they are talking about,” he says, crediting Pose and Insecure as examples, “so no matter how smart you are as a writer if you don’t understand your characters you can’t create without collaborating with people from that world.”

Looking to ensure all of the creatives involved in his venture are paid fairly, Mzimela has looked to Jumpstarter to raise R250,000. Still aiming to hit his goal, the graphic novel is set for release in December. ​