The best comics of 2021

Djeliya (TKO)Juni Ba’s Djeliya is a graphic novel retelling, recontextualization, and remix of the West African Sundiata epic of Mandé origin. Awa is the jeli, known in Western languages as griot, of Mansour, the scion of a once great kingdom. After the apparent near-total destruction of the world by an all-powerful wizard, Souamoro, Awa guides Mansour on a journey to Souamoro’s tower.The book stands out in Western publishing for its subject matter, but its lasting appeal is in its craft. Ba not only hits, and subverts, major thematic aspects of the Sundiata epic, but essentially adapts the jeli craft to the sequential page. The three narrative modes that jeli move through in their performances, accompanied with kora playing, are praise-singing, genealogy, and oral history. Djeliya re-creates these modes through layers of inset narration, having Awa speak in one mode and then switch to the other, with accompanying artistic changes. The musicality of the jeli is also included within the book, with multiple pages featuring songs, music being played, and musical notation.Additionally, the book serves as a mesmerizing look into how a creator’s influences shape their work. There are some sections of the book that are narratively and aesthetically different from the general jeli influence, drawing from Nollywood, for example. As the book is meant for all ages, there is a helpful, heaping amount of back matter, in addition to footnotes, that the reader can use to re-examine the book. [M.L. Kejera]