Artistic duo taps into unexplored comic art
Koketso Kgoboge | Friday July 7, 2017 15:13
Clement Molepo, 22, of Borolong and Michael Monang, 21, of Mahalapye met in 2015 in Aerodrome, where they both presently reside.
The two football fanatics did not know of each other’s talents until they found themselves watching the El-Classico encounter between Real Madrid and Barcelona. The two were rival supporters, Molepo a Barcelona fanatic and Monang a Madrid supporter.
A Lionel Messi action poster that was discussed by the football pundits during the half-time break analysis sparked the drawing desire in Molepo, who told his friend he could illustrate in drawing the football prodigy.
After a brief debate, and the game, Molepo took a pencil and paper, to prove his talent to his friend. Monang tried his luck in drawing the football star as well, but his friend outclassed him.
“My secret was I had been drawing action football players for a while and the poster was almost similar to my previous drawings and my friend didn’t know,” Molepo said.
Molapo said: “After that single picture Mike (Monang) came up with the idea of a football comic book. The next day, we collected a few issues of Supa Strikas for inspiration and we also did extensive research on comic art and as they say, the rest is history”.
With his shortfalls in drawing, Monang chose to create a storyline to complement his friend’s drawing talent as his input in the comic book.
“I wrote a story, he read it and he followed superbly with his fine drawings,” Monang said. “I didn’t need to guide him. He knows exactly what picture is needed and where.”
The book is set around a player who had hardships in developing as a player and struggled to achieve his goals due to unruly behaviour.
His club, Ocean Pirates that had enough of him loaned him out to Chicago Bulls and where his new coach, who was to later become his father-in-law, moulded the star and he resurrected his career.
He became instrumental in his club’s clinching of the championship and later signed permanently and winning many accolades with his new side.
The football friends share a common story of an infield football glitch. Monang said it was unfortunate that his skills fell far short of his understanding of the game.
Molepo said at a tender age, he used to play the sport he loves the most, but failed to penetrate to competition levels.
However, their shortfalls did not distress their love for the game, but rather propelled them to source other avenues of feeding their desire.
“Football was all my dream’s desire. Unfortunately, I lacked in the field of play and ended nowhere with it.
“I have been drawing football comics to satisfy my hunger for the game and then God sent me a friend with a mutual passion and misfortune and we clicked.“
Molepo studied art at his last school, Mater Spei Senior. Monang’s studies ended at Madiba Senior School in Mahalapye and he had never done art.
Monang said they have printed the first edition of three and each edition has 24 chapters. He said they received sponsorship from the Ministry Of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture to cover the printing costs of the first chapter.
“We have printed 500 copies that cost us P14,000 thanks to MYSC and at the moment we are hands-on trying to distribute the copies. It’s a good read and we hope every footballer will love it,” he said.
Monang said their vision, however, is beyond the book. He said in the long-term they have set eyes on digital cartoons.
“At the moment, we only do the pre-production. That is, drawing and writing, but we are in the process of learning some few computer skills and software so that we can produce and print our book, which we find is too expensive. We also aspire to, in future, turn Alinho into a television cartoon series to draw more attention.”
The duo said their comic book will be hitting the shelves soon and also added that they are engaged in talks to have it in schools and libraries across the country.