Support a Graphic Novel Telling Afro-Colombian Stories

Help Us Finish Les yeux de la terre, a Graphic Novel Honoring Afro-Colombian History

This month, illustrator Sara Scalia and I are launching the second round of fundraising for Les yeux de la terre. This hybrid graphic novel brings to life the powerful story of San Basilio de Palenque, the first free Black town in the Americas.

Mixing Scalia’s illustrations with the archival photographs of Richard Cross, the novel is inspired by a key moment in 1975, when Cross and Colombian anthropologist Nina S. de Friedemann worked together to document this Afro-Colombian community. Founded in the 17th century by rebel leader Benkos Biohó, San Basilio de Palenque remains a living symbol of Black resistance, cultural survival, and community resilience.

Why This Story Matters

Cross and Friedemann didn’t just document the community, they connected with the people. They developed relationships with residents, from boxers to turtle hunters, whose personal stories are interwoven with historical figures and events. The result is a portrait of a Black community that, nearly five hundred years after its founding, continues to rely on its resilience and adaptability to survive. Les yeux de la terre is our way of honoring that story.

What We've Achieved, and What’s Next

Thanks to your generous support during our first fundraiser, we raised $6,500, which allowed us to conduct research to shape the script and visuals and to create the first 25 boards of the graphic novel.

Now, we’re asking for your help again to raise another $6,500 to complete the remaining 39 boards and prepare the project for presentation at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in January 2026, one of Europe’s premier graphic novel events.

Why We're Publishing in French

We’ve chosen the French-language market because it has a long tradition of graphic novels exploring social, cultural, and historical themes, the perfect fit for the story we are telling. It’s also a personal choice: Cross’s mother was French, and having grown up in France, I’m comfortable writing in French.

Join Us

We are excited to take this next step. We are a small but fierce team of two, and we hope you'll join us in our effort to finish Les yeux de la terre.

You can explore Richard Cross’s work, including his photos from San Basilio de Palenque, via the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center collection here.

Thank you for being part of this journey!

With gratitude,

Sara Scalia and Marta Valier

A bit about us.

Sara Scalia, a comic book artist and illustrator based in Palermo, Italy. Her passion for sequential art started when she was a child, reading her father's comics. She decided that she too wanted to become a comic book artist. Sara graduated from the Palermo School of Comics "Scuola del Fumetto di Palermo" and immediately began working in the publishing field. She has worked on several publications such as Dark Horse Comics, Petit à Petit, Z2Comics, Bugs Comics, University of West London, Repubblica, Bluestone Comics, Blood Moon Comics, Dollars & Donuts and more. Sara also works as a freelancer and as a character designer. She currently collaborates with Marta Valier on the realization of "Les Yeux de la terre", a comic that talks about the history of the community of San Basilio de Palenque.

Marta Valier, a journalist and curator, has worked for years at the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center and possesses in-depth knowledge of the Richard Cross photographic collection. She co-curated several photographic exhibitions at the Museum of Social Justice of Los Angeles and in Italy, created participatory cultural projects, and is currently a lecturer in the Department of Journalism at CSUN.