Jonte, the new graphic novel with a super anti-hero

“Jonte [otherwise known as Mike] is also a super-hero of a sort,” says the Jonte saga creator Kiboi Kuria. “Only that his super-power is of a different kind. His heroism relates to what he does for his community.”

Jonte is an evolving character and the first of five episodes is available both at Village Market bookshop and online through the app ‘Yetu.digital. The second and third are both complete, according to Kuria, and are likely to be available on the app by the time this review comes out.

That was a relief to hear, since I read episode one, Brush with Death and found myself ‘cliff-hanging’ at the end of an action-packed story that I discovered was ‘to be continued’ in the next four parts.

Jonte has no correlation with fantasy, magic, or comic relief. Instead, it starts as a tragedy that reflects issues that some Kenyans will identify with. It’s a coming-of-age story about young Michael whose dad is a drunkard who dies having imbibed poisoned alcohol. But not before he has abused his wife and left her an impoverished single mother of two.

Becoming his family’s provider before reaching puberty, Mike resorts to petty crime in order to feed his mom and baby brother. Assisted by Dero and Tiwi, the girl narrator of the story, their little gang keeps his mother alive for a time. But he can’t prevent his brother’s blindness or the family’s eviction and homelessness.

Jonte, chapter one, is an action-adventure that Kiboi has written as an epic. “It was actually meant to be a film,” he says. “We had even gone so far as to get a director and producer from South Africa, but then the pandemic quashed the plan.”

Kiboi had been writing screen plays for television and film since 2008 after completing a degree in Mathematics from Jomo Kenyatta University of Technology.

“I never trained in filmmaking, but I love storytelling,” says the writer who scripted Jane and Abel for all 120 episodes as well as the same number of 24-minute episodes for Block D. Both were screened on Maisha Magic, both produced by Spielworks Media Ltd.

Now with Propel Visions Ltd. who published Jonte 1 on thick glossy paper in full colour, the story is presented with clear and colourful graphics drawn and colored by Eliud Okwomi, assisted by Maurice Odede and Salim Busuru.

What makes the story something of a hybrid is the periodic inclusion of text (in addition to the bubble conversations in almost every frame) which are the musings of the narrator who, at least in this first chapter, is Tiwi, Michael’s partner in crime and friend.

Whether Tiwi is a ‘devoted’ friend will be revealed in future chapters I am told. In chapter one, they are like family up until the time that she is diagnosed with kidney failure and her loyalty suddenly shifts to Dero who, unlike Jonte, has become a full-fledged criminal with the means to help her pay her costly hospital bills.

Tiwi’s motive for moving out of Mike’s sphere of influence is not transparent, especially as he is the one who helped her go to college for a journalism degree.

Jonte/Mike doesn’t take her departure well, and he physically fights with his one-time-friend Dero who clearly has been so successful at extorting poor people that he’s been to the gym and developed the muscle-power to easily clobber Mike.

Jonte chapter one is entitled Brush with Death because our ‘hero’ has more than one near-death experience. One doesn’t quite see him becoming a ‘super-hero’ in Kiboi’s first book. But the author has created a cast of characters with whom you definitely want to know more about.

Will Tiwi end up with Devo? Will Devo manage to extort funds from Jonte who has become a successful mitumba seller? And what will become of Jonte’s blind brother who is even more hot-tempered than Mike? I was given a clue from Kiboi that the cartel extortionists will play a role in the next episodes. For now, I want to find out what kind of moral compass Jonte will use to navigate his urban wasteland.