Growing up in Benin, West Africa, Andy Akangah’s first exposure to comic books came from Belgian strips he read as a child. Inspired by the art style, he taught himself techniques to recreate it.
Years later, the 27-year-old artist creates art under the name Andy, The Specialist and has been building his Ottawa-based portfolio since graduating from the University of Ottawa with a marketing degree in 2018.
In September, Akangah began collaborating with the Urban Art Collective, a gallery that supports local artists through exhibits and workshops.
His solo exhibit Hip Hop Fusion brings comics off the page with 3D models of off-the-wall art, motion prints, interactive vinyl art and projection mapping of past and present hip-hop icons.
The gallery walls are painted black with prints of hip-hop artists as comic book covers on each wall, allowing for the art to stand out to viewers. The exhibit is running at the gallery until Dec. 14.
Artists Michaela van Beinum and Florencia Alba helped create the exhibition, and Akangah said he was inspired by their use of projections and paper as mediums.
Lindsay Machinski, co-founder of the Urban Art Collective, said “Andy’s always been on [the collective’s] radar.” When he came to the art collective with his idea for the immersive comic book exhibit, Machinski said she was eager to help him put it together.
“Working with Andy was super fun,” she said. “Andy’s one of the only ones in the city really doing this.”
With manga and comic books gaining popularity in recent years, Akangah said the “retro” comic book art styles are more popular than before.
“It’s limitless in many ways. There’s no rules,” Akangah said.
Akangah’s ongoing Instagram series involves reimagining of rappers and their album covers as comic book covers.
“That’s honestly what I do the most,” Akangah said. “Match the ambiance and the style of the album to a specific comic era.”
Emily Griffin, a retail assistant at the Comic Book Shoppe, an Ottawa-based comic book store, said DC and Marvel comics Elseworlds and the What-If series are currently popular.
Griffin said big comic book companies like Marvel and DC hire fan artists to do shorter series and cover art to “keep it fresh” and bring new perspectives to the comic book community.
“People are still heavily inspired by classics as well as modern styles,” she said.
Akangah also noted how comic art styles have changed and developed throughout his lifetime. He said now comics are more “dumbed-down” for younger audiences, whereas comics from the 90s were “grittier.”
He said comic book art styles leave a lot of room for interpretation for the artist because comics can be wordless, drawn on paper, or created digitally, but are still “all about telling a story.”
“I’m fascinated by the ways that people think and what feels natural to them about telling a story,” Akangah said. “I think that’s what’s very different about comics.”
Featured image by Sarah Yule/ The Charlatan.
