Behind the Graphic Novel: Nafu Wants Food by Subi Bosa

We sat down with author-illustrator Subi Bosa to discuss the process behind creating his debut graphic novel, Nafu Wants Food. Read on to discover how he went from sketching a scary and adorable monster to writing a rich story about greed and community.

Where did the idea for Nafu Wants Food come from?

Nafu came to me when I was trying to come up with a character that could be a monster that was both terrifying and also adorable. So I played a lot with how I would express their emotions. After lots of sketches I decided to give Nafu a beak that sort of resembles a cat’s mouth, so that in sadness Nafu can appear really cute and cuddly and when at it’s largest, Nafu can appear adequately terrifying.

What inspired the setting and the characters?

I wanted to keep the story in a fictitious African village setting so that the fable of Nafu can present itself like an age old tale. I looked at images of West African and Dogon architecture, some of the ceremonial architecture by Francis Kere also inspired the tone of the built environment of Mongo village. The characters of Mongo Village are all meant to represent a peaceful fun loving caring colourful homogeny of people. I knew the ground would be predominantly brown and tan so with the varying shades of brown skin colour I added bright colourful hair to everyone for contrast. I was inspired to design the villagers like this because I love watching documentaries about cults- There’s a whole thing about cults all wearing the exact same style of clothing while farming and building their community and I enjoyed the look of robes contrasting with bright coloured hair for these characters. Nafu was designed to look very alien to the environment. The yellow and purple are meant to contrast entirely with Mongo village.

What was the most fun or surprising part of the process?

Thanks for this question. I truly was surprised while drawing this story out because first I’d spend many months writing story beats and sketching out a few details along the way. Once I had the go ahead from Lerner to proceed with my beats to the flat-planning process that’s where I was met with interesting surprises. I had started sketching the opening to the story and once I began sketching Doya, I began to understand what writers meant by ‘listening to their character’. Doya ended up guiding me in how to sketch her facial expressions and this got me to understand her actual role in the story. I’d never experienced this before but it was thrilling. So Definitely, sketching out the characters faces and seeing how they emote, it allowed me to understand their journey’s though the story.

Did the story or characters change much from your first draft?

Absolutely! Doya was first meant to be a first act instigator and never return but after sketching her out I realised she was way more important to the book. There’s a character that we meet along the way named ‘Gundi’ (pronounced Goon-Dee which is the Luganda word for ‘thingy-majigi’ OR a word you use when you can’t find the actual word) And Gundi popped up in the sketching process, I’d never written this character at all. So when I arrived at Gundi, I realised that the story needed an action scene to make thematic sense with the stories direction and pacing. I also realised that Nafu needed a funny side character to lead the story for the second act and Gundi allowed me to play around with the tropes of a loveable ‘fool’.

How did it feel writing as well as illustrating? How much did it differ from your usual approach?

It feels very engaging to work on drawing and writing at the same time. I’m used to drawing and having notes on where the story goes but since this is my debut graphic novel I feel really proud to have risen to the challenge of managing writing, editing (thanks Sean from Lerner Publishing) and tweaking illustrations to match the story changes. This was my first so now I have an approach to creating graphic novels.

What themes were important to you while making the book?

It was important to me that Nafu would be interpreted as a monster at first and toward the end, have Nafu transformed in some ways. This story makes me think of all sorts of meanings but I really wanted this book to highlight how we as individuals, societies, communities can have monsters in our lives that we feed- and sometimes we feed them too much. The hook for me in the theme of Nafu Wants Food was to explore the nature of these monsters when we stop feeding them. If the monster stops having access to our nourishment/our kindness, then what happens? Maybe the monsters identity is challenged. Maybe all the things that make it scary start to disappear and then the monster is left vulnerable. I wanted to make Mongo Village a place where the kind societies believe they must keep the monster around, even though they really don’t need to. I wanted to communicate this idea in this story.

What do you hope young readers will take away from it?

This story aims to establish itself as a fable for the ages - forming foundational lessons for young people about greed . I want the young readers to understand the power of sharing. Sharing kindness, nourishment and responsibility among others. Nafu is a silly character and I want the readers to see parts of themselves in Nafu, Chief Mongo and Doya because of their journeys in this story. The supporting characters all play a role in communicating the themes of greed, enabling and ignorance. I also sprinkled a handful of jokes through the book. I hope the jokes landed.

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To work with Subi, get in contact with his agent Georgia Tournay-Godfrey here.