black titanic 97but cut up into short episodes, each filling a page of Maisha, the weekly
paper whose editor-in-chief he had meanwhile become.^4
Mtani’s graphic novel shares a number of features with the Nigerian
video adaptation. Like Ashu-Brown, Mtani puts the love story center
stage, Africanizes the characters, and inserts himself into the action. Cam-
eron’s Jack characterized as a talented but poor young artist must have
f u nc t ioned as a persona l lead-i n for Mta n i, a n a r t ist w it h meager ea r n i ngs
who identified with the fictional character. Hence, his Jack ’s physical fea-
tures closely resemble Mtani’s own. Like the Nigerian director, Mtani is
interested both in Cameron’s film as such and in associating himself and
his product with it. His interest in the real historical tragedy, however,
seems to be far more pronounced than that of his Nigerian counterpart.
Thus, his Titanic does not change course like the Nigerian steamer does,
his main characters are dressed in historical clothes, and he takes great
pains to give correct dates and place names and to explain certain details
he assumes his readers are unfamiliar with. According to Mtani, his in-
tention was to educate Tanzanians about the real historical event.^5 While
“teaching through art” is a well-established trope in Tanzania—a trope
that likens artists to teachers and draws its power from the model of Tan-
zania’s most prominent “teacher,” former president Julius Nyerere, revered
today as mwalimu (teacher)—it certainly reflects Mtani’s own interest in
t he h istor ica l event. I n i nter v iew s w it h Jiga l Beez a nd C laud ia Böh me, t he
comic artist recalls his captivation with Cameron’s movie when he first
saw it at a friend’s house in 1998. Taking it to be purely fictitious initially,
he became even more excited when he learned that it was based on a true
story. His interest sparked, he began searching for background informa-
tion on the internet that he would later share with his readers. In the first
volume of his Mkasa wa mapenzi, he provides a written account of Robert
Ballard’s deep-sea exploration of the Titanic w reck , a nd on t he fi rst page of
volume 2, he announces: “This pictorial story is drawn from the film that
starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Jack and Rose. Never-
theless, in this book Amandus Mtani gives you the actual details of the
accident with the help of the internet.” Sometimes his mediating voice can
be heard in the middle of a sequence and he explains, both in pictures and
writing, something he assumes his readers may otherwise find difficult
to understand. An image of two sailors in the lookout, for example, is