How Roye Okupe became Nigeria's next big star on Hollywood's animation scene

Okupe has been attracted to comics for a very long time, since watching superhero cartoons on TV. But it was Nigerian stories he wanted to tell.

For those not paying attention, it might look like Roye Okupe, the Nigerian creator behind the 2020 graphic novel Iyanu: Child of Wonder, which Cartoon Network and Max commissioned a series based on in 2022, has come out of nowhere.

But Okupe is anything but an overnight success. He arrived in the United States when he was 16 to study Computer Science at George Washington University while also studying animation at the Art Institute of Washington.

In 2008, with the advice and blessings of his father, he quit his nine-to-five and started self-publishing his comics. He took a part-time job, and then a full-time job. At some point, he held multiple jobs to push his work forward.

Everything he made from book sales went back into salaries and payments for animators and other creatives who worked on his comics. He made comics, he made graphic novels, and he made animated films.

He made Iyanu from the $36,000 he was able to raise from Kickstarter, his biggest crowdfunding yet.

In 2021, Dark Horse Comics, the publishers of Hellboy and The Umbrella Academy acquired the rights to republish his works. That was the first time he got a paycheck from his career in the animation space, after more than a decade of work. He made the animated film, Malika - Warrior Queen which now has more than 800k views on YouTube.

“It's been a long experience but a very rewarding one. I think everything that happened along the way has prepared me for the role that I'm in now,” he told Pulse Nigeria in an interview.

Okupe has been attracted to comics for a very long time, since watching superhero cartoons on TV. But it was Nigerian stories he wanted to tell.

“I always felt the urge to do what I'm doing now, which is create my own characters inspired by Nigerian culture for a global audience,” he said.

But there were consequences for snubbing what had for a century dominated mainstream Western comic and animation spaces for stories from Nigeria. What would his career have looked like if he had made another superhero based on Greek mythology or from a destroyed planet?

“It would have been much easier. But what's the point of doing that?” he said. “At least from my own perspective, there's already enough of that. To me, I felt like I’d be doing myself a disservice if I didn't try to do what as a child, I wanted to see somebody else do,” he said.

For him, the wait was worth it. But over the years he has been able to reflect and reassess how his rise to the top might have been different.

“I've made a lot of not-too-smart decisions. That's my good way of saying I was very stupid in some of the decisions I made earlier on. But you learn from your mistakes. If I had a chance to do it again, there are some things I would try to do differently. There's been moments where people that I've trusted have taken advantage of me. There have been moments where I could have been more patient and not signed certain deals that set me back. But ultimately, everything that has happened has brought me to the point that I am right now,” he said.

It was the producer, Erica Motley, who is now an executive producer on the Iyanu series, who first told him to consider making the book into a show.