Tim Fielder’s new graphic novel Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale is ambitious in the extreme. It is an epic adventure and a meta-fictional tale of survival that celebrates the presence of the Black man and Black woman in genre storytelling from the beginning of time until the end of the universe. It’s the story of Aja Oba, an ancient African warlord, who is cursed with immortality after he betrays a vengeful lover who is also a powerful witch. Oba comes to realize he has been transformed into an undying Black storytelling presence and as the millennia accumulate he inserts himself into every great historical narrative from the ancient barbarian wars to the slave trade and Civil Rights Movement to new technological advances, space travel, and the colonization of planets far from earth. In this five-page excerpt, the reader is introduced to Aja Oba and to the beginning of his endless journey through time and storytelling. Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale by Tim Fielder will be published by Amistad this month.
