This project came about as an experiment of curiosity – typing Indian Ocean folklore, stories and mythology into AI that generates super-hero style comic book imagery. Eventually I would like to create similar images myself or work with an artist to create something closer to what I imagine as a comic, but `I wanted to share these images as starting points. I had the idea after my research was used by Seychellois Creole researcher Dr Penda Choppy in giving context to her 2023 database of Creole folklore which documented oral stories in Seychelles, many for the first time ever, and after a friend who creates graphic art showed me how AI is becoming used in it.

I love the imagery and idea of comic books as a mode of storytelling that speaks to my time and place. The handful of times I’ve seen stories I am interested in being explored in comic book form, I’ve really adored them – like the Drexciya comics by Abdul Qadim Haqq and ‘Rivage de la Colère’ by Caroline Laurent and Rachid N’Haoua about the struggle against Chagossian exile. I’ve always wished more stories I cared about existed in this format… so I’m now creating them myself. As well as stories explored by Penda in the Seychelles database, these images explore folklore and oral histories I’ve studied from across the Creole islands and Madagascar, as well as mythicised historic figures from the western Indian Ocean and scenes from historic novels based on the region’s mythologies.

This is a project in the making and eventually I hope to release a collection of stories told in this form.