In the pages of his comics, Basi Affia’s characters carry out epic missions in different galaxies. They wield high-tech weapons, battle otherworldly creatures and venture deep into space in search of new planets to explore.
Affia’s publishing company, Sensi’il Studios, may be Earth-bound, but it’s done plenty of its own trailblazing. The company is the first Black comic book publisher in Iowa and Nebraska, and its ventures in almost three short years have included convention appearances, music videos and even short films, called motion comics.
Affia's latest motion comic, Gethsemane, premiered at Fleur Cinema & Cafe in Des Moines Nov. 15.
A motion comic combines static images of individual comic book panels with sound effects, music, voice acting and simple animation. Gethsemane is the second movie Affia has pursued; Lost With All Hands, the first work published under his company, has also been released as a motion comic.
“I've been trying to figure out how to do stuff like this for a while, just because I am an actor and a voice actor and a musician and I do all these other things," Affia said ahead of the premiere. “I did [Lost With All Hands] just to kind of test out what my capabilities were and stuff, and that definitely provided a lot of knowledge and experience to be able to execute this current one.”
Gethsemane is set in the same universe as Lost With All Hands. The 16-minute movie follows a team of scouts exploring a new planet, only to become stuck on one of the planet's moons, Gethsemane, instead. From there, they must survive long enough to fix their ship and escape, fighting off the hungry creatures that inhabit the moon.
Affia's love for sci-fi and comic books began early — he started writing in first grade. He established Sensi'il Studios in 2022 with a mission to tell Pan African stories through authentic representation in comics after identifying a gap between the substantial percentage of Black anime fans and how little they were reflected among anime characters.
His genre of choice is science fiction, because of the futuristic stories that can be told with Black leaders at the helm.
“The thing about sci-fi being set in the future is that it can be inspirational and motivational to traditionally underrepresented and underserved communities — to help them see that they do have a future. And not only do they have a future, but it can be a really good future," Affia said. "They can see a galaxy where Black and brown people are not only present, but the majority.”
While his characters explore the distant future, the next few years for Affia include the potential to continue making more motion comics for a series. He plans to put Gethsemane into a comic book that will be included in an anthology of all of his works so far.
“All the projects that I've dropped thus far have laid some groundwork and done some world building, introduced characters that are going to appear in the main series," he said.
In the meantime, you can catch Sensi'il Studios at Comic-Cons and anime conventions across the Midwest all year long.
Gethsemane will be available to watch Nov. 22 on Sensi'il Studios' YouTube channel. Affia promises that his next production, whenever that may be, will "probably be even bigger."
