Their work is intense the way urban Africa is intense: intensely zany, intensely warm, intensely harsh, intensely political. True, you could say the same of New York or New Delhi, or any major cosmopolis being shaped by globalism these days. Yet every place has very specific intensities. Africa does, and they are distilled in the art here.

Some wonderful imagery in the NYTimes article on this show at the Studio Museum in Harlem. There’s an array of styles, most of them in the European vein, to my eye. A lot of soft, naturalistic lines, as opposed to the active, often harsh linework of American superhero comics (Kirby et al.), or the neurotic (Crumb) to antiseptic (Clowes) styles of the American underground. However, I’ve never found museum exhibitions of comics to be very fulfilling. As far as user experience goes, comics are far more like books than paintings, and standing in front of a wall at a distance isn’t my favorite way to read.