The African cartoonists drawing themselves into the story

Joëlle Épée Mandengue was raised on a steady diet of Disney princesses. As a child in Cameroon, whenever she got angry or overwhelmed, her parents knew the quickest way to calm her was to pop in a video and press play on the story of Snow White, Cinderella, or Beauty and the Beast.

And there was one princess who Ms. Épée Mandengue grew to admire above all others. Ariel, the Little Mermaid, struck her as a different kind of heroine – one “fighting to meet the expectations she had for