Nigeria's Comic Book Explosion: Why Lagos Is The New Gotham

Roye Okupe was recently named as one of the 100 most influential Africans by NewAfrican magazine for his comics work Images provided by Okupe

Move over New York, Gotham and Metropolis… Lagos is the new place to find superheroes. David Barnett finds out about the rise of the Nigerian comic book industry.

Growing up in the capital city of Nigeria, Roye Okupe didn’t have many super-powered role models. Comic books were few and far between in Lagos, and those that he did see – imports from the US – didn’t have many black main characters.

He loved animation, and from being a small boy had an ambition to work on his own cartoons. “I always thought it would be cool to do a superhero story based on a Nigerian character,” says Okupe.

In 2002, Okupe moved to the United States to study computer science at the George Washington University, and after graduating with both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree, he started work as a web developer. But the dream of creating his own superheroes never left him.

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