Welcome back to the blog lecture hall! Today, we are stepping into the deep, highly creative world of African speculative fiction and comic book publishing.
Diaspora creative Ekene, the founder of London-based Studio Eshi, has teamed up with a Nigerian illustration studio to launch the first chapter of a highly anticipated, deeply researched Igbo-centered Afrofuturist comic: Drummers of the Dead.
After over a year of rigorous development, this stunning project merges deep-rooted Igbo cosmology with hard science fiction. Let’s head to the streets of a futuristic Igboland and break down what makes this comic a total game-changer in our interactive Q&A.
Q1: What is the setting and core premise of Drummers of the Dead?
A: The story transports us over a century into the future, setting its roots in Onitsha in the year 2187.
In this brilliantly imagined future, memory isn’t stored digitally on silicon chips or cloud servers. Instead, memory is entirely acoustic. Human experiences, family lineages, and historical records are preserved as resonance and fragments of consciousness encoded into sacred tonal drum rhythms.
The society operates on a full-blown "memory economy," where surveillance is completely sound-based and cybernetic, fiber-optic locs are used to transmit data and neural consciousness.
Q2: Who is the main character, and what is the central conflict?
A: We follow a specialized investigator named Ada Okoro, who works as a professional "Memory Reader". Because she can neurologically interpret the complex tonal sequences of the memory drums, she holds incredible sway in a city built entirely on noise.
The plot kicks off when Ada is called in to solve a heavy crime: a woman stands accused of murdering her own sister. The gripping twist? The acoustic memory-drums, the local technological authorities, and the accused woman's own chi (spiritual double/destiny) completely contradict each other on what actually happened on the night of the crime. It’s a high-tech psychological whodunit wrapped tightly in ancient spiritual philosophy.
Q3: What makes this project so important for the Igbo creative space?
A: As an Igbo man living in the diaspora, the creator, Ekene, designed this project to unlock the massive, untapped potential of native myths and philosophy.
Historically, mainstream science fiction has ignored African systems, or treated them as backward. Drummers of the Dead flips that completely on its head by showing that traditional concepts—like the talking drum (Ọjị) functioning as a long-distance encoder of language and announcements—can be projected forward into brilliant, high-tech futures.
The comic is built on intentional, researched details—from the geometry of Ada’s facial structure to symbolic yellow ọjị capes and ritual chalk (nzụ) on characters' hands. By creating alternative projections of what our society could have been, it gives us an imaginative roadmap to what we can build today.
Q4: Where and when can we read it?
A: The official first chapter drops digitally on May 31, 2026.
It will be widely available across multiple global platforms:
Amazon Kindle & Paperback: For those who want it on their devices or crave a physical copy for their shelves.
Google Books: For easy mobile reading.
GlobalComix: Where you can actually read the first 10 pages completely for free to get a taste of the art style and lore before buying.
The Final Takeaway
The Lesson: Culture is not a museum piece to be kept static; it is software that should be updated, remixed, and blasted into the future. Studio Eshi’s comic shows that when we use our own traditions, cosmic systems, and aesthetics to build sci-fi worlds, we create stories that are uniquely powerful, deeply authentic, and globally competitive.
Sponsored
Build & promote your brand
Reach millions of Igbo music lovers with spotlight placements.
Advertise with us
Written by
Igbo Music