Jubah attack cover art
Teambooktu sat down with Ayodele Elegba- CEO of Spoof! Animations and Founder of Lagos Comic Convention, Africa’s longest-running comic con, to discuss his dreams for Spoof and the Nigerian comic/animation space. We also talk about his hot & trending Kickstarter animation project, Blood Wars.
Photo of Ayodele

Teambooktu sat down with Ayodele Elegba– CEO of Spoof! Animations. Currently the President of the Association of Comic Book Makers of Nigeria, he is also the Founder and Convener of Lagos Comic Convention, Africa’s longest-running comic con since 2012. Ayodele makes dreams come true- both his own and those of others. He ventured into comics many years ago, revolutionizing the Nigerian comic space and now has one of Africa’s leading 2D animation studios. With many successful comics and cartoons under his belt, he took his Afrofantasy short animation film- ‘Blood Wars’– to Kickstarter and got more than double his funding goal. The concept, storyline and animation resonated globally. Ayodele is also a movie director and writer. So it was only a matter of time before we met up with this award-winning dream maker to chat about his journey so far and his plans for Spoof!

Hello, Ayo. Welcome to Teambooktu. Spoof Animations has been doing a lot of good stuff. We are quite impressed and encouraged by your growth and success. Could you tell us a bit about Spoof?


Thank you very much. So basically, Spoof started as an idea I had 9 years ago, around September 2015. I just finished Lagos Comic Con that year and you know, I saw the dynamism of what we can do here in Africa. I noticed a lot of people were doing animation, comics, and so on. But I realized that you know, we weren’t really scratching the surface, weren’t scratching it internationally. It was a case of people in their living rooms just doing animation,, praising themselves and giving themselves accolades. I realized that we hadn’t reached our best. For someone who organized Lagos Comic Con, which is a platform to showcase what we were doing here in Nigeria, I felt we could do more.

So I decided to commit myself to it. Animation has always been a first love for me right from when I was younger. I used to draw and watch animation like Voltron, Super Ted – you know, old school animation. I studied animation with books – you know there was no YouTube at that time. So from YabaTech library, I’d get books on animation and read from the ground up. From the basics of frame by frame, which I realized that we did not have here. You know, we are in such a hurry to impress that we do not go through the basics.

So I told myself I needed to create a studio that believes in the basics. One that went back to the old-school Walt Disney type of animation. Because everyone was running away from 2D and doing 3D. To them, 2D was very easy to do. So I realized that we had an inflow of tech people doing animation. People had begun to think that animation is tech but animation is actually art. So I told myself I would set up a studio that would revert to the basics of art. Art is the foundation of animation. Tech is just the tool we use to make the art come alive.

Strike guard #1 cover

In November 2015, unofficially, I got a space and began studio animation. It was only two of us at the start in a small dingy store room I was given by a senior colleague and client who just believed in me: Mr. Ajayi Ojo- I can never forget him. He gave us our first space for free. So instead of paying us in cash, he paid us in kind. A sort of symbiotic relationship and that was how we began. We knew we couldn’t just go straight to animation because the skillset was not there. So the students studying animation with me then joined to co-found the studio. Two of them, Osas and Collins are still with me today. Osas is currently the Creative Director and Collins is the Story Head.

That’s how we began: with illustrations- book illustrations, sketches, and drawings. We did it for a couple of years then decided to do our first animation- a short film called ‘Lost Dreams’. It’s about gender-based violence against kids and was nominated for an AFRIFF (Africa International Film Festival) Award that year. It opened our eyes to the animation process and what we could do with it.

Then we went on to do back-to-back animation. We did Strike Guard which was so popular. We partnered with a studio abroad and it was from glory to glory. So that’s where we are today. We will be 10 years old this year and it’s been quite a journey for us.

Quite enlightening. So which one started first? Spoof comics or Spoof animation? Or did they both start at the same time?

That’s a good question. So earlier on, I set up a studio called Elixir Studios in 2008-2009. That studio published Strike Guard which became one of the top 10 comic characters in the world. It was No. 8 behind Panther and some other Marvel and DC characters. That comic book revolutionized comics in Nigeria. That was the first time a Nigerian comic book was on the global map… on a top 10 list. Because I was launching Lagos Comic Con, I had to slow down on the comic part and pull back on Elixir until 2015 when I started Spoof Animation. By then, I knew Lagos Comic Con was strong and big enough to focus on both at once.

Okay. We had a 3-part commentary on the Evolution of the Ninth Art where we talked about its origin from cartoon strips to comics and its regional developments like European bande dessinee and Asian manga. It ended with a poser for Africa. Do you believe there can be an African comic style or are we too diverse? Can one country’s style represent Africa like Japan spearheaded the Asian revolution?

Dark Edge #4 cover

Africa is a continent, not a country. So it’s very wrong for us to say: Will there be a style from Africa? The Chinese also have their style in Asia. So I think it’s just that we like grouping things. It would be very unfair to try to do the same for Africa. I’ve been to a few African countries and what I’ve realized is that the art styles in those countries are influenced by their colonial masters. Africa, in general, didn’t have that particular drawing style. What we had were mostly sculptures. For example, the Franco-Belgian style largely influenced comics by Francophone countries. Besides their cinematographic style, they are more laid back and deep into story-telling than action. But if you look at Nigeria and maybe Ghana (Anglophone), our styles is different.

You might not agree with this but Nigeria was more or less colonized twice in terms of culture. First, by the British and then by the US. So nowadays more of our culture tends towards America- even Nollywood. Nollywood for example doesn’t have a particular style. Styles mostly come out of necessity so I think we are over-flogging the issue.

The renaissance of the Nigerian comic book we have today started in 1999 with a comic called Dark Edge by IC Studios. Coincidentally, I was one of the comic’s co-creators. At that point when it came out, Nollywood was on the rise and Dark Edge borrowed from it in terms of typical African ‘spoon-fed’ storytelling. Ibrahim Ganiyu founded IC Studios with some other guys and I joined later. Most of their comics pre-1999 were more of Westernized spandex superhero styles.

I was writing for Nollywood at the time and suggested coming up with something more local to redefine the space. So I was encouraged to come up with a concept and that’s how Dark Edge came about. It was a rich African story. Do you remember Guiness’s Michael Power? Yes, he was in the comic too. So that’s the story we thought we could tell. If you ask many comic creators in the country today they would say Dark Edge inspired them to start making comic books.

Coming back to the challenges of 2D animation, there’s something I noticed and it’s not limited to Nigeria- it’s general. Animation doesn’t quite achieve the graphic depth, detailing, shades, and realism one gets in comics. That said, I believe there is a place for 2D- especially for edgier stories- those with a cryptic, ethereal theme. You don’t get the same feel with 3D. What do you think? How do you see the 2D market in the country? Does it still have the client base you expect or is everybody leaning toward 3D?

I understand what you mean. We tried to do what you said regarding more 2D detailing with our recent short clip on Blood Wars with the Yoruba narrator. People went crazy! We have always beaten our own records in Spoof. We believe in continuous improvement. Contrary to the belief, there is still a huge market for 2D animation. Even more than ever because fewer people are doing it, so it’s become a classic- what people want but many can’t give or do. So there’s a huge market and Spoof will continue pushing even though we also have a 3D department. We are becoming a group. Spoof Group will have Spoof Animations, Spoof Comics, and Spoof Films which will be launched very soon (this year) because we intend to adapt some of our comic books into a live-action series for Nollywood.

Hero Corps Animated Short film


That’s very good! Impressive plans.

Thank you. That’s one of the things that set us apart, and as I said, we are a very art-driven company, we are not a tech company. One of the things that we do very well is storytelling. We create characters that you love. We create characters that can become franchises. Take Strike Guard for example. The character has gone from comic books to animation. At one point, we wanted to do a live-action movie of it but didn’t get the funding.

So our characters can evolve. They can go around the gamut of the industry and can go through any genre. So we are storytellers and want to take that storytelling to different platforms. We are taking it bit by bit, starting with illustrations, comics, and now animation… then back to comics with Blood Wars. We want to launch our comics fully by the end of the year and probably have a platform where fans can read them. Set up a team of comic artists that can draw comics as a service and as an IP as well.

Why are 2D animations more expensive than 3D projects? Is it because of the work that goes into frame-by-frame production?

Yes, basically because those who do 2D are a bit like dinosaurs now (laughs). It’s getting rare, these days, to find someone who can do good 2D. Secondly, because, you know, we are old school, we do our animation like Disney, which is frame by frame. That’s 24 drawings for every second you watch on screen. So imagine doing a one-minute animation. Imagine how much it would cost. So when we charge, we charge per frame which makes it very expensive. Not everybody can afford to do that. So we have fewer clients in 2D animation especially in Nigeria where they don’t understand the art form and feel it is less than 3D. I don’t know who gave them that idea!

So most of our clients are international clients who know and understand the esoteric nature of 2D and that it’s endearing and ageless as against 3D. 3D gets dated. For example, if you look at Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 5 the quality is not the same because 3D is constantly evolving in quality. But if you watch Voltron or Naruto of the ’80s again you will still enjoy it. Am I right? Even kids nowadays do because it’s art-driven and story-driven. Art can never go out of style. That’s why people still buy Picasso’s art for millions now. So 2D gives you art. It’s timeless. But 3D is not because more technology is coming out, better rendering styles are coming out. So if your 3D technology is not on point, you would be unable to sell your market in five years because it would be outdated by then. Nobody would want to see it.

Okay, so let’s talk Blood Wars! Interesting concept. Can you tell our readers about the concept behind it and the plot?

So you know every society and culture has a story about how the world was created. Greek, Egyptian, Igbo, Yoruba. Everyone. So I thought, What if I create a fantasy world? I won’t call it Afrofuturism because it’s set in the past. It’s a beginning story. About how the world began but telling it from an African perspective with no known tribes or cultures. A bit like Game of Thrones, you know, which does not use any existing cultures but is derived from the English history of ‘Wars of the Roses’.

  • Blood Wars comic excerpts

So ‘Blood Wars’ is based on a pseudo-Africa where the world started with God creating spirits and humans. By spirits, I mean fairies, bush-babies, and the like in African mythology. I use ‘spirits’ but in the comics they are called ‘ayadas’ and the humans, ‘ayas’. Then there are the half-breeds i.e. half-spirit, half-human called ‘mulanos’. My character in the story is called Jubah. Jubah is a mulano. He is a product of an ‘aya’ king and an ‘ayada’ princess. He is the lead character and we see the world through his eyes. We see the world from the eyes of Africa that we knew back then and how the whites and Arabs seemed to live above.

So he travels the world to gather all their cultures and find his way back to his ancestral home to become King based on a prophecy. His role was to unite all ayas and ayadas under one umbrella so they could co-exist. So that’s the concept in a nutshell. So in that story he encounters different characters and goes to different worlds. It’s a deep, character-based comic book for mature readers. I created a whole universe and I’m currently working on a Blood Wars novel which will be launched at Lagos Comic Con.

Really captivating! How’s your Kickstarter campaign for Blood Wars going?

Great. It’s ending in about 50 hours. The funny thing is our publisher in the US, Wise Acre Comics, said that we have been able to get 103 backers so far (Tmbk2: it ended with 117!) which is a feat for a first-time Kickstarter comic. It’s almost like a miracle. It shows that the material connects a lot with people and shows me that we have something original. That’s why I began to write a book about it because I don’t want the energy to dissipate. I have different stories to tell and Kickstarter was initiated to grow its international appeal. Now I know we have fans all over the world so it’s now up to us to go back and create.

paperback Blood Wars- Kickstarter initiative


Okay, so just to round up in terms of comics. Paperback comics are not as common these days. It’s now more of e-comics. There’s a whole lot of effort and investment put into making comics nowadays so how do comic creators make profit from online comics?

Well, there are two major models: Some do through online ads and marketing that come with their comics. Another standard way is through subscription. A lot of creators still come with hard copies of the comics to Comic Cons though and they sell out. It’s basically to a target market. That’s why I’m encouraged to do more events like Lagos Comic Con. There are not many of such events because investors are nervous. That has been the challenge.

Okay, that’s reassuring to hear. By the way, Ajaka: Lost in Rome was also an interesting story. It won Best 2D Animation in AFRIFF 2023, I believe? About Sango’s brother who was sold into slavery and found himself in Rome’s gladiatorial arena.

Oh, thank you. Ajaka was another great one. Fans wanted us to do more so we’re making a comic adaptation. We will launch it very soon. Stay tuned!

Ajaka: Lost in Rome trailer

Thank you for your time. It’s been a pleasure. Wishing you the very best in your endeavours.

Thank you for supporting us at Spoof! Animations

Photo of Ayodele
Ayodele Elegba

Ayodele Elegba, popularly known as the Dreammaker, is a visionary pioneer in the African creative industry. He currently serves as the President of the Association of Comic Book Makers of Nigeria, where he champions the growth and recognition of Nigerian comics. As the Founder and Convener of Lagos Comic Convention, Africa’s longest-running comic con since 2012, Ayodele has created a vibrant platform for artists, writers, and fans to celebrate their love for comics and animation.

In addition to his influential role in the comic community, Ayodele is the Founder and CEO of SPOOF ANIMATION, a leading animation studio in Africa. His creative genius has birthed numerous titles, including “AJAKA: Lost in Rome,” “BOXSA,” and “HERO CORPS,” among others. A trained writer and movie director, Ayodele continues to inspire and shape the future of storytelling in Africa. His latest project, “BLOOD WARS,” showcases his commitment to collaborating with African creatives on the continent and in the diaspora.

2 thoughts on “SPOOF! AN INTERVIEW WITH A DREAMMAKER

  1. I commend Mr. A. Elegba for pursuing his passion and achieving international recognition for his efforts. The interview addressed many of my questions but left a few areas unexplored:

    Educational Background: What did he study in university? Apart from being the CEO of Spoof, does he have other ventures or businesses that supplement his income? A deeper dive into his background would have been insightful.
    Spoof’s Team: It would have been great to learn more about Spoof’s staff—how many people they employ, the types of professionals on their team, and the expertise they are looking to add.
    Future Plans: What are his short-term and long-term goals? Is he intentionally charting a path for Spoof, or is he riding the wave of comic books and animation to see where it leads?
    I was particularly impressed by the lettering in Blood Wars (the Jubah story). It was rich and poetic—a real standout.

    I encourage Mr. Elegba and his creative team to continue their incredible work. They are definitely on the right track. If I may offer a suggestion, however: consider incorporating more female perspectives into your stories. Stories and characters that resonate with female audiences can be transformative. The right narratives and characters could attract Hollywood’s attention, opening doors to even greater opportunities.

    I’ve noticed a strong focus on “tough guy” characters, which is excellent for the gaming world and male audiences. But men are not the largest demographic of readers, nor are they always the best judges of what connects with broader audiences on a human level. Expanding the range of stories—beyond action/adventure—and creating characters that aren’t all muscled action figures could help reach new audiences and elevate Spoof’s offerings to the next level.

    Of course, this is just my perspective, and I could be wrong. Still, diversifying your stories and themes certainly couldn’t hurt.

  2. Nice interview!!
    “Blood Wars” reminds me of the Robert E. Howard Sword and Sorcery sagas with Kull and Conan.
    I recall that my first dabbling in animation was in the mid 80s in Lagos. I told a few (light) fibs to get the commission and did a major download on the Disney method with books. The head honcho couldn’t understand why I insisted on setting up storyboards before I started using the computer. I definitely understand the impatience referenced in the interview!

    Footnote: The computer program back then was a dinosaur compared to what is used today, but like Mr. Elegba said, animation is art and art is timeless.

Drop a comment here!