Black comic book company makes money moves
in the Midwest, part two
“Part one” of my profile of Sensi’il Studios founder Basi Affia is an article in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
This is more from the interview I did with Affia that I had to leave out of that article due to space limits.
More about the name of Affia’s company:
…This was a proposition given by an Ethiopian comic creator that I had seen on Twitter and Instagram… He had proposed, “Hey, why don’t Black people have our own…the African Diaspora should have something like this of our own? That way, we’re not mimicking other cultures’ things. We can have our own things.” Which I loved, and since it was an open invitation, cool! Sensi’il Studios, I’m naming it after that as a homage to the motherland. It also was really nice too because — I’m not obsessed with Ethiopia, but I do have special place for it in my heart because there is a lot of not only history in general but [also] biblical history…so from a faith standpoint I have ties to that as well.
Are you talking in terms of Ethiopian indigenous Christianity?
Yes… don’t call it the “white man’s religion.” It literally takes place in Africa. All these characters are Black, except the Romans. There are specifically mentioned Ethiopian people in the Bible. Queen of Sheba, that’s an Ethiopian queen. Aside from that, there’s a lot of Hebrews that were in Ethiopia and still are. So there’s a lot of… That kind of ties into the base that I have against the lie that Christianity is a white man’s religion.
So that really connects with you in terms of affirming the African root of your Christian faith.
Yes.
I know you’re in the National Guard. What other employment do you have besides that and your comic studio?
Right now, I work at FedEx as a courier. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be there just because with another kid on the way, I need more money. [Laughs.] …it’s a good place to work; I like it; it’s cool.
I asked you that because a lot of us creatives are not making enough money from our vocation to support our families, so I like to show what we do in the meanwhile until we hit the big time.
That’s a lot of the conversation I have… God provides; wherever I’m at, however I’m doing it, things get taken care of. Bills get paid, and I’m still able to run my company, spend time with my family. I don’t know how, but yeah.
Your journey to this point: Vocationally, are you an artist, visual artist, writer, or both?
I’m an author, a writer. I can’t say that I’m trying to learn how to draw; I have a book I bought and I was reading it for a little bit, I practiced for a little bit, but I learned how to just stay in my lane and how to respect the craft from a distance. I don’t always have to partake. Also, it’s really been a blessing to work with artists, with somebody else who can bring their vision into it as well. So I contract out the artwork to people from various places.
I have a friend in Washington, DC, a Black female artist. I have a team in India that I was working with for a while; they did phenomenal work. But I think I’m most closely working with an artist in the Philippines. Just being able to employ people from various cultures and backgrounds, I like it. It plays towards the de-Europeanization, if that’s a word, of the industry. And really getting different perspectives and interpretations of my writing, I can describe a scene and one person will draw it this way, a different person will draw it that way…so it’s really nice to have different types of art styles and really be economically stimulating to different minority groups.
I assume you’ve been writing stories since like single-digit aged?
Yeah, first grade.
I noticed you have a merchandise section on your website. How important is “merch” on the business end?
I don’t rely on it too heavily. That, again, is kind of for the people who want it. It’s…I’ve bought stuff for myself because I think it looks cool! I’ve sold a good amount of merchandise. Just like with anything else, there’s different levels of support, so there’s like core supporters who are like, “Bro, I’m wearing this!” And as far as what I get from it, it’s not even a monetary gain; it’s branding and recognition. It’s a form of advertising, which goes a long way.
Matter of fact, there’s at the Drake Relays [track and field event held in Des Moines, Iowa, in Drake Stadium on the campus of Drake University] here, coming up this summer, there’s an artist [rapper] by the name of Dave East; he’s pretty big, and he’s going to be here. I’m talking with some people who are in contact with him. I made a t-shirt for him with his name on it, like a nice little graphic and stuff, and it has Sensi’il Studios on there as well. People are going to see the shirt and maybe a couple of people them are going to [ask], “What’s Sensi’il Studios?” Dave East likes to promote small businesses.
So the merchandise really is a very inexpensive way to support [my business]. You get a $25 t-shirt and you’re just advertising my company everywhere. So that is the biggest asset from the merchandise. A lot of people think that it’s the money that I make from it, but it’s not. It’s just that advertisement and show of support, which is why I tell people who order it, “when you get it, make a video. Post it; put it on [your social media].”
In your dream future, are there any plans for a brick-and-mortar retail, or maybe leaning into the studio aspects of your business: making the motion comics, monetizing those. What are your future plans?
Yes to all of it. I was very prophetically naming the company, and I put “Studios” as plural because there’s going to be an audio division. There’s going to a video division. There’s’ going to be the comic store, the storefront. There’s going to be animations and all kinds of stuff that will be happening. So I think the next…probably the first steps would be kind of an all-purpose location [where] you stop in and there’s merchandise on racks, there’s comic books, and then in the back office is where I edit together videos and stuff. And then once I’m the top dog in the industry there will be movie studios…
There’s a lot of actors and stuff that are starting their own movie studios, and I would love to partner with them and create, because, again, it’s a collective. So really collaborating with other creatives and visionaries and however having a physical location can play into that, I’m definitely going to do it.
[One upcoming collaborative project is] I have a partnership with a professional racer, Colin Garrett… we're releasing a title [Regicide: Havoc] in collaboration with his 11/11 Veteran Project.
More about the company philosophy and “building community”:
…Me and my dad, my family in general, we have this book we’ve all read a few times called The War of Art [by Steven Pressfield, author of The Legend of Bagger Vance]. It talks about professionalizing and being a professional, and what the difference is between being a professional and [being] an amateur. And have this God-given gift that I don’t think it would be good stewardship of this gift to not professionalize it.
…To really go from somebody who, “Yeah, I write stories and it’s fun, it’s a hobby” and it makes a difference in that capacity, but really sitting down and having this statement of “I was first Black comic company” …That’s going outside my comfort zone and learning things, being challenged, getting into the arena, in general, of saying, “Hey, I’m a company! I’m not just an author who sits down and writes,” which is still fine, but for me I wanted to take another step in something that for me is out of my field of expertise so that I can overcome the challenge.
…And it goes deeper than just the writing. There’s a personal development aspect to it that is very integral to a lot of aspects to it, from the founding of it, from saying , “Hey, I’m going to actually make this a company and it’s going to consistently put out stories, and it’s going to be of a certain quality.”
That’s another part; it’s going to be quality things because a lot of times, in my experience whenever there’s a Black creative or something that’s Black-owned either there’s something about the quality that doesn’t really match up — “Dang, well I want to support it, but it's halfway done!” — or it could be well done but it’s ridiculously expensive. I’m just looking at it from the perspective of how can I be different, and that’s by having quality stuff at a reasonable price, just like there is for everything else. And so that is one of the personal development things of just saying, “I’m going to be what somebody expects,” and exceeding that also by having free things. I have free webtoons, a motion comic, stuff like that.
…One of my best friends [is a European American] who has an audio recording studio; [we] worked together a lot. He did the audio work for my motion comic. So I think that that dynamic ended up bridging the gap as well between minorities and the majority in showing that while this is a space for Black voices and minority cultures to be celebrated, it doesn’t mean we have to build the space on our own. We don’t have to — we can, but there’s allies who want to help and be a part of the solution. I don’t think it would be prudent to deny that all the time.
…The foundations of [Sensi’il Studios ] is the seven pillars of Kwanzaa. One of [the pillars] is collective work and economics, the operative word being collective. So people are consuming some of the content, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, I’ve read some of their stuff. I’ve seen some of their stuff. I’m going to buy this next [book]. I’m going to come see them at ComicCon.”
…There’s some phenomenal [Black-owned comic] companies that are out there, like Black Sands Entertainment. They’re over on the East Coast. They’re really good. And then there’s Etan Comics, which is the Ethiopian creator I was talking about; he’s down in Texas, so he’s kind of in the South. There’s one who’s over on the West Coast, so they’re all over but the Midwest is kind of, as always, left out of stuff. So I was just noticing how there was a need, and [that] I can supply that demand. So that became the mission.
I saw that you got interviewed by Black Enterprise; after that, why choose to be interviewed by me?
Honestly, it’s kind of funny. I don’t even be realizing how big of a deal stuff actually is. Black Enterprise, they didn’t interview me directly; they picked up the story from the Des Moines Register. But they did a story, and I didn’t even know they did a story for probably like three weeks [after it was published]. Because it’s not like they send you an email [saying], “Hey, we did a story about you.” So I didn’t even know. They did one; Afro Tech did one…
…I don’t have this sense of like, “Oh, well, they’re not the New York Times.” So if you want to write a story about what I’m doing, cool. That’s dope. Absolutely I’ll sit down [and] we can talk for two hours if you want. I don’t care. I like talking about what I’m doing, I like being asked questions. It’s just different from talking about it with my wife, versus somebody who’s like, “I don’t know anything about what you do. Tell me about it.” This is what I’m doing, and I’m excited about it. I don’t care if they have five monthly readers or five thousand. I don’t even look into that stuff. [I say to myself,] “This is a person who does what I do in terms of cultivating things for the community.”
It’s a level of support. It’s building a network. It’s all this stuff, and whatever’s meant to happen, it’ll happen. God will bless it, and it will be fruitful. Many times in scripture, he takes the smallest things and makes them into something that nobody ever would have thought [could happen]. I’m not necessarily worried about what things appear to be or…
[You ask,] “Why me?” Because you’re about it, and that kind of comes from that book War of Art as well. You’re about it; you’re about the work. I saw you do the piece on the ComicCon, and I know, “Well, she does this. This is the type of stuff she writes about. These are the type of people I want to be around.” Period. I don’t care about a whole lot other than mission-oriented stuff, so if anybody’s down with the mission — and that ties to the allies and stuff too — if we’re all conducive to the mission, cool.