A prequel to Nollywood: South African photo novels and their pan-African consumption in the late 1960s

This article interrogates the history of the photo novel in Africa with particular reference to African Film, a magazine of almost pan-African circulation, published between 1968 and 1972 in South Africa. Featuring the adventures of Lance Spearman, an African crime fighter, the magazine was read widely across Anglophone Africa, from Nigeria and Ghana to South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. After a brief introduction to the history of the photo novel, the author discusses the production, content, reception, and legacy of the Lance Spearman photo novels. It is argued that Lance Spearman may be understood as a crossover of James Bond and Philip Marlowe, and several influences from contemporary Western popular culture are traced. Contemporary readers cherished the visual modernity of the photo novels and readily identified with their stylish and street-wise main character. It is argued that African Film magazine played an important (today almost forgotten) role within the history of visual media in Africa. It was instrumental in spreading the new format of the photo novel to many Anglophone post-colonies, where it subsequently was 'vernacularized'. Photo novels served as surrogates for films, as a means to tell almost film-like stories, at a time when commercial African cinema was not yet invented. In terms of its commercial orientation, its readiness to borrow from Western popular culture, its transportability, and its almost pan-African circulation, African Film magazine may be called a distant forerunner of the current commercial video film industry of Nigeria.