LANCE SPEARMAN is a nattily dressed detective who sports a straw hat, bowtie and goatee. He likes Scotch on the rocks, buxom women, El Greco cheroots, and fast cars. He uses reverse karate kicks, his fists, and a hand gun to bring down such enemies as Zollo, the Mermolls, and Countess Scarlett. He is the black James Bond and the most popular fictional character in Africa today.

In almost every English-speaking town of Africa, young men, most with no more than five years of schooling, sit on the sidewalks and read the weekly picture magazines that chronicle the adventures of Lance Spearman and other heroes like Fearless Fang, who is the black facsimile of Tarzan, or the Stranger, who is the black Lone Ranger. In Kenya, for example, the adventures of Lance Spearman have a greater circulation than any of the daily newspapers. This phenomenon of popular culture suggests a good deal about the tastes of ordinary semi-educated young men in the African towns — their yearning, their uncertain identification with the fringes of Western culture, their need for fancy in a harsh urban world.

The magazines are known in the publishing trade as "look-reads." In effect they are photographed comics that resemble comic books, except that the action is photographed instead of drawn. Little balloons of dialogue appear over the heads of the characters.

Look-reads, which have been popular in Italy and other parts of Europe for some time, were introduced four years ago in South Africa, where they caught on quickly. At first almost all of them were about white heroes like Captain Devil of the South African Secret Police. Then Drum Publications of South Africa, which has long published a magazine for African readers, decided to get in on the publishing boom and produce look-reads for Africans. Drum's editors began photographing black men in adventures designed to appeal to black readers.

Drum also decided to extend the sale of look-reads throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Drum buys the stories, edits them in Johannesburg, and sends the scripts to Swaziland, where a photographer takes pictures of a team of black actors. From there, Drum rushes the photographed strips to London, where the look-reads are printed. They are then distributed in West Africa, East Africa, and South Africa.

To avoid political embarrassment, the white publishers in Johannesburg make separate editions for white-ruled South Africa and for the independent black countries. The copies sold in black Africa have no reference to the South African owners. Instead, these editions say they are published either by Drum Publications of Nigeria or Drum Publications of East Africa. In addition, the editors in Johannesburg eliminate all hints of South Africa from the photographs. Although the adventures are actually photographed in nearby Swaziland, an independent black country, there is much advertising of South African products on the walls of Swazi towns. The editors erase these to avoid having their magazines appear in black Africa with advertisements for South African beer and other boycotted products.

The magazine with the adventures of Lance Spearman — known as Spear magazine in South Africa, and African Film magazine in black Africa — is the most popular of the group. Malcolm Dunkeld, the editor of Drum's look-reads in Johannesburg, estimates the circulation at 20,000 in South Africa, 45,000 in East Africa, and 100,000 in West Africa. These are enormous figures in a continent where English literacy is sometimes as low as 10 percent. Dunkeld says the circulation is greater in black Africa than in South Africa because "the African market is more sophisticated in South Africa. Besides, they prefer stories about white men to black men." In South Africa, an African can satisfy his thirst for fast-moving adventure with a white look-read like Captain Devil, who doesn't appear on newsstands elsewhere in Africa.

About 25 writers turn out scripts for the black look-reads at $65 each. Most of the writers are African, some being students at the University of Lesotho. Dunkeld looks for four qualities in their stories, the first being simplicity of plot ('"We can't use Sherlock Holmes stuff"). Second, there have to be plenty of fist fights. Next, "The bad men must always get it in the teeth at the end." Finally, says Dunkeld, the story must be completely non-racial and non-political. The latter injunction reflects Drum's efforts to sell the magazines throughout Africa —from white-ruled South Africa to independent black countries ranging from the one-party democracy of Tanzania to West African states under military rule.

The characters vary in popularity. "The more Westernized the character and the more often he orders Scotch on the rocks," Dunkeld says, "the more popular he is." Fearless Fang and the Stranger have not done as well as Lance Spearman. Fang, in fact, has been dropped, and the Stranger will probably be eliminated soon. Their places will be taken by Tom Cannonball, the black soccer player.

THE POPULARITY of Lance Spearman— or, as he is often called, the Spear — can best be understood by visualizing the life of his average reader. No one, including Drum magazine, has done a market analysis, but anyone familiar with Africa can quickly deduce who the readers are.

They are young men who have left the rural areas after a few years of schooling and come to the towns. Education, with its visions and promise of a comfortable white-collar career, has made them feel unfit for the farm. They have left their rural life behind and are searching for the rich, sophisticated world they vaguely believe awaits them in the towns. But most African cities have too few jobs for the thousands of young men streaming in from rural schools, partially educated and possessing too few skills to find a place in the modern white-collar world. They wander the streets, idle and unemployed; or if they are lucky enough to get an offer, they accept menial work far below their expectations.

Spear is their fancy come to life. He is the black man — smart, witty, tough — who rules the urban world they want to enter. Fittingly, Joe Mkwanazi, the African who portrays Spear in the photographed strip, would probably fulfill the dreams of his readers in real life. He was a houseboy, scrubbing floors in an apartment in Durban for $35 a month and playing the piano in a night club for $1.50 a night, when a white photographer, Stanley N. Bunn, discovered him and decided he had the tough, sophisticated face needed for the role of Spear. Mkwanazi now earns $215 a month portraying the smooth black crime-fighter of Africa.

When the Spear falters in his pursuit of criminals and spies, he falters with sophistication — and his setbacks usually stem from a weakness for pretty girls. In an adventure called "Murder in the Bag," the Spear invites a girl named Sadi to his apartment. (As the strip tells us, "All the girls in town want to visit the Spear's apartment.") Once they are alone, Spear discovers that Sadi is the girlfriend of a crooked boxer named Killer, who wants to recover some photographs Spear made of a crooked fight. But this discovery doesn't discourage Spear from having a romantic interlude.

The Spear pours Sadi a Scotch on the rocks. Having taken the drink, "Suddenly she grabs the Spear and kisses him passionately." As they embrace, Sadi thinks "Killer and the boys should be here any moment now." According to the bubble over Spear's head, he thinks "The door is locked so Killer won't be able to take me by surprise." But Killer unlocks the door with a duplicate key and unleashes his gang on the Spear. For a time Spear holds out, but Sadi bashes his head with a blackjack and the Spear is captured. After one torture sequence, one fist fight, and a murder, Spear gains the upper hand. As Killer is led off to jail, the Spear "tickles the treacherous Sadi under her chin."

"Your days of having fun are over, Sadi," he says. "Perhaps now you'll believe that crime doesn't pay."

Women are always at Spear's side, as Girl Friday or femme fatale. In "The Spear versus Countess Scarlett and the Flying Jet-Car," Spear entices his enemy, Countess Scarlett, into falling in love with him. Blinded by love, she is convinced that Spear has joined her as a partner in crime. But as they are flying above a highway in her bomb-laden jet Volkswagen, she discovers that Spear intends to crash her secret weapon. "You double-crossing slob!" she screams. "You'll kill us all." Spear dives out the window and escapes as the flying Volkswagen crashes to the ground, blowing Countess Scarlett to pieces.

FEARLESS FANG, the black Tarzan, and Stranger, the black Lone Ranger, have been far less popular than Spear. Fang is too close to the rural background of his readers, and the Stranger too far away.

Fang is a powerfully built African who wears leopardskin shorts and a lion's tooth hanging from his neck. He rides through the forest on an elephant named Oppo and booms out his battlecry, "Waahuuwa." He carries a bow and arrow and a knife, and though a great friend of animals, he sometimes kills a leopard for food. His enemies include the half-human "Kongrilla" and a trio of ugly spirits called  “the weirdies.” When an enemy is swallowed by a giant man-eating plant, Fang says, "It is good that he should die this way. Jungle justice has been done."

Lest readers fail to grasp the parallel, a black movie star named Nadia, searching for her lost scientist father in the jungle, says after meeting Fang, "This jungleman is truly great. I must tell the film producers in Hollywood about him." Her friend Jack replies, "They'd never believe there was a real life Tarzan."

While the adventures of Fang are straight out of Edgar Rice Burroughs (who never saw Africa), the locale, with its dense bush and mud-walled huts, is straight out of the rural life that most of Fang's readers have left behind. When urban Africans do appear in these stories, they tend to be enemies of Fang who mock rural life. ("Hey look, a village with jungle people," says a visitor from a town. "Well, I'll be blowed," says his companion.) Most readers probably want to identify more with Fang's enemies from the town than with the black king of the jungle — and that is why the magazine had to be discontinued a few months ago.

Recently the editors have tried their hand at the Stranger, using Alfred Holmes, the mulatto actor who played Fang, in the title role. But the Stranger also has failed to catch on.

The Stranger is a black cowboy who rides a white horse called Devil-Wind. He visits towns named Dodge City and "a notorious cowboy town called Vultures Roost." He fights black gunslingers named Jake, Ringo, Scarface, Trigger-Fingers, and the two Dragon brothers, and buys his drinks at a bar manned by an African bartender named Shorty. Sometimes sporting a US marshal's badge, the Stranger works hard to maintain order in the bygone American West. The dialogue is derived from old films and pulp magazines: "Wonder who is this hombre?" "Get behind me girlie, 'cause lead's gonna start flying." "Got to work fast against these coyotes." "Well, I'll be a mule's uncle."

In creating the Stranger, the editors of Drum have made no attempt to relate the adventures either to the traditional background of their readers or to the urban life that excites their imagination. The failure of the series is further evidence that the young African consumers of look-reads are seeking more than an exciting adventure story. They also want fiction that will serve as a wish-fulfillment, however briefly.

LOOK-READS have been criticized in various parts of Africa because of their heavy load of violence. They are sometimes described as a factor contributing to an increase of crime in the towns. John Elgon of the East African Standard (Nairobi) attacked the violence and gangster dialogue of the Spear in one of his columns last year. "Africans who desire a secret agent hero of their own, apparently considerable in number, deserve something better," Elgon wrote.

This of course recalls the long-standing American controversy over crime and violence in television programs. In fact, for thousands of Africans who live in countries without television or who cannot afford to own a set, look-reads could be said to take the place of television. But in Africa, as in the United States, it is difficult to know the real relationship between crime and fictional violence on film.

Against this possible drawback, look-reads may offer one or two benefits. The first is their ability to take young Africans away for a few moments from the harsh realities of urban life. The stories provide a measure of fun, excitement, and wish-fulfillment that is available from few other sources.

Then, too, the look-reads may become a significant factor in maintaining a degree of literacy in the English language. Most of the readers know only a little English carried over from their few years of school. Newspapers are too difficult for them to read, and so are the British and American magazines that reach the newsstands of Africa. Newspaper publishers say they lose a great many readers in Africa because young men forget their English in the few years between school and the time they become interested in daily newspapers. Look-reads could serve as a bridge during this period.

The publishers in Johannesburg are now deliberating whether to expand their circulation to the West Indies and to American cities with large black populations. The covers of the magazines already list prices for the United States (20 cents) and the West Indies (25 cents) — but it is unlikely that any have actually been sold there. Nor are the prospects bright for developing a market for black look-reads in the West. Given the different tastes of readers and competition from the omnipresent TV tube, even Lance Spearman would find the going rough.

AFRICAN FILM, edited by J. Singh (Nairobi: Drum Publications, 1969), 1 / - .
BOOM, edited by Dapo Daramola (Lagos: Drum Publications, 1968), 1 / - .
THE STRANGER (Johannesburg: J.R.A. Bailey, 1968) 10¢.