Basi Affia’s Sensi’il Studios is Iowa’s first African American comics publisher

Des Moines, Iowa, resident Basi Affia founded Sensi’il Studios in 2022 as a multimedia publisher of comics that center characters of African descent and “Pan-African Storytelling” in science fiction and fantasy, as the corporate’s website calls it. 

Besides print comic books, Sensi’il Studios has a motion comic (a comic book in the shape of a video with limited animation) without cost viewing on its website and YouTube channel.

Affia’s groundbreaking company has been covered in media starting from local Iowa television to the national magazine Black Enterprise, so this reporter sought to have Affia (BA), the daddy of two children, talk on a deeper level about himself, his company, and his vision.

MSR: Beyond the same old and valid answers (we want Black representation, etc.), is there a particular personal reason why you began this company?

BA: Considered one of the private reasons is professionalizing my craft… To go from someone who, “Yeah, I write stories and it’s fun, it’s a hobby” [to] “I used to be the primary Black comic company”— That’s professionalizing…

One other thing is that…the principal character of my principal comic series was named after my daughter… It’s very objective once you say, “Kids read this,” but it surely personalizes this lots when my kids are going to be reading this. 

They’re going to see themselves on this and be represented on this…and to be an example for my kids as well, to say, “Hey, you possibly can do whatever you need to do.”

MSR: As a born-and-raised Des Moines resident, is a few of your motivation wanting to create something very Brown, very Black, in a predominately European American city? 

BA: My audience is Black people, after which a wider goal is just minorities generally, but one thing that I didn’t take into consideration is…there’s quite a lot of allies. There’s quite a lot of European Americans that love [reading work by BIPOC creators]. And they’re going to read it simply because it’s like, “Oh, that is [from] an underrepresented [group]; let me see what that is like. I need to know what they will do.”

It’s interesting to see—because I get reports on who buys stuff and who donates to our Kickstarter—there’s definitely quite a lot of support from the European American populace in the town and the state. 

MSR: Discuss your pen name, Basi Affia.

BA: My legal name is Aniekanabasi. It’s a Nigerian name of the Ibibio language, so “Basi” was derived from that. My last name is White, which mainly translated to the identical language as my first name. and so white in Ibibio is “affia.” So “Basi Affia,” I liked that; it has a pleasant ring to it. So, it was type of a reclamation of my identity. 

MSR: Talk in regards to the name of your organization, Sensi’il Studios. 

BA: “Sensi’il” is an Ethiopian storytelling art… The storyteller would draw pictures on folded pieces of paper, which is essentially the earliest type of a comic book book by our modern understanding. With that, Sensi’il Studios, initially, had a pleasant ring to it, but it surely also feeds into that Africanization of a craft. The Japanese have mangas; in America we’ve comic books.

MSR: Let’s talk in regards to the online comic, “Lost with All Hands.” I read that, and I also saw that the net comic and the motion comic are about providing something for our youth who may not have the cash to purchase some expensive graphic novel.  

BA: The several barriers that the African American community faces already, it doesn’t really jibe with me to have a financial barrier to have the option to devour content that’s edifying. It’s like gatekeeping good things… So, I do make stuff that’s free to enjoy… Also, that gets them invested in the corporate as well…

It really builds that sense of community, which is required especially in Iowa where there’s not as lots of us [African Americans], and customarily within the Midwest… There are different industries that may rally us together… I’m cutting out my slice of the pie within the comic industry to be the Black comic company for the Midwest. 

Basi Affia and Sensi’il Studios can have a booth at Twin Cities Con, to be held Nov. 3-5 on the Minneapolis Convention Center; for more information, go to www.twincitiescon.com.