Ife J. Ibitayo
With an idea marinating in my head and hope germinating in my heart, I flew out to Los Angeles. And my first order of business was finding some people in animation to talk to. Well, besides moving into my new apartment, getting situated to a new city, and renewing my mindset as a student. But less than 80 days later, I was sitting across from a man I’ll call Tobi. He was a foul-mouthed, clean-shaven, middle-aged Nigerian who’d successfully launched his own animation studio. Feeling like I’d just hit the interviewee jackpot, I excitedly explained to him my vision of telling “meaning-filled stories”.
Coming Down to Earth
But he rubbed the back of his neck and said, “You know how expensive animation is? I’ve been in the business a long time, and even twelve minutes of quality video is going to run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. You’re going to have to find someone to pay you to do it.”
He scrolled through the work he’d completed for some of the biggest entertainment companies in the business until he finally arrived at an original project. It was a paranormal romance he’d crowdfunded as a comic book, even though he ran an animation company. He explained, “Original work is tough to get out there, even for someone like me. But you may just be able to get your project off the ground if you start with a comic.”
Source: Amazon; Credit: Image Comics
Preparing for Liftoff
I didn’t grow up reading comics. My older brother ate up comic books while I kept my head buried in prose fiction. It wasn’t until adulthood that I rediscovered comic books anew. In late 2020, I purchased a comic book bundle off the internet that included the science fiction graphic novel, Skyward: My Low G Life, about a teenager growing up on an earth with a fraction of the gravity that our planet currently has.
Up until that day, I had never appreciated comic books as a serious medium for storytelling. I was familiar with superhero tales and other well-known IP like Star Trek and G.I. Joe, but I’d never read an original story that so gracefully leveraged the power of comic books as a means of visual storytelling. And that was when my eyes were opened to the great potential of that medium.
Reaching for the Sky (Again)
Initially, I was hesitant. I’d hoped to transition from the literary world into TV & Films, not cross back into it. But I realized that as a science fiction writer myself, a comic book might be the perfect medium to explore the intersection of writing and visual art.
As Tobi finished showing me his own graphic novel, he said, “It wasn’t hard. All I had to do was find a ghostwriter and an illustrator. I hit them up on social media, and a few months later, I had my comic book.”
And with that encouragement, I embarked on what was supposed to be one of the “easiest” creative projects of my life.