In late June 2025, TheACE team had a conversation with one of Nigeria’s comic book creators, culture curator, and founder of ICStudios Limited,, Ibrahim Ganiyu, popularly known as SirGai, where he shared his journey from a science student to a self-educated artist and creativity coach, emphasizing the transformative power of creativity in problem-solving.

He discussed his artistic names, origin, and how comic books became a foundational medium for his expression.

 He highlighted the history of Imperial Creations Studios, beginning with the formation of the IBTASHOL group in secondary school, which united aspiring artists through their shared love for comic books.

Ganiyu recounted the challenges they faced, including maintaining high production standards, which delayed their publishing efforts. Their first comic book, "Dark Edge," was published in 1999, marking a significant milestone in their collaborative journey.

He went on to articulate the vital role of comics in Nigeria, emphasizing their potential for education, communication, and cultural preservation. He criticized the external influences shaping narratives about Nigerian culture and underscored the need for authentic local storytelling.

Ganiyu noted the absence of a formal structure in the Nigerian comic industry, which currently operates more as a community without established metrics or regulatory bodies. He argued that the industry must demonstrate its economic viability to gain government support, drawing parallels with successful sectors like Nollywood. The discussion concluded with optimism for future initiatives aimed at quantifying the industry's impact.

From his creative journey to the evolution of Imperial Creations Studio as well as the preservation of culture in creative storytelling, delve into our full conversation with the comic book maestro.

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TheACE: We would like you to run us through who Sir Gai is; what inspired you to journey on this comics path and how it all began.

Ibrahim Ganiyu: I guess I will never get tired of sharing this. My name is Ibrahim Adeola Ganiyu. Back in secondary school, I put my initials together to form the name Gai, G-A-I. I am a creative entrepreneur and creativity coach. I've always believed in the power of creativity as a problem solver. I think one of the challenges that got me into pushing this to a larger level was back in secondary school, when I was young, People used to say things like, artists die poor, artists don't make money, there's really nothing in art, and other things. And it was a bit perplexing for me, because, at the time, I had studied Da Vinci. I'd studied quite a lot of other creative people running businesses in the same field, and these guys are not poor. These guys are making money.

Then, the other thing was to look around and say, when you sit in an environment, as a person, as a human being in this world, is there any way you can look around and find something that an artist or someone in the creative field actually worked on, designed, or made? Sitting in my classroom, I'm looking at the chairs, the desk, the board, the pen, the paper I'm working with, and each one carries the mark of an artist. So, if these are all the ways in which artists are creating to impact the world, how can it be possible for an artist to die poor? And then I realized what the problem was: people are more artistic than creative. When you're a creative person, you adapt to the environment, you adapt from what you are into creating things that will help you get bigger.

And one of the earliest things that influenced my creativity back then was comic books. I mean, everybody was there; the Primary Six, Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, The Transformers—quite a lot of comic books. And one of the things that got me was, comic books are basically communication, right? And it seems like a good foundation to start expressing creativity because it allows you to be just about anything. With comic books, you can be a scientist, you can be an engineer, you can be a doctor, you can be an astrologer, you can be a teacher, you can be a superhero within the comic book space. So, for me, it felt like it was a perfect canvas to start.

So, comic books were the first thing I explored, even though I was a science student in secondary school, right? I was more into creating engineering devices, scientific things. I was following printing, like, you know? So those were the things that got me into comic books, because it felt like this was a place that put all those ideas together, all aspects of my creative energy, into telling stories and putting all the knowledge in it. So, that was how it all started. My first comic book experience was in 1991. I created a few comic books and then started drawing them myself in an exercise book.

And from that point on, the next change was me realizing that I was creating characters that were based on areas or parts of the world that I had zero knowledge about. Meanwhile, African culture, Nigerian culture, and my environment were there. So, back in 1993—1994, actually—I chose to start creating characters and writing stories that were African by nature or contemporary in structure. So, I've been doing that since that time. Right there.

TheACE: Thank you very much. When you said, when someone is creative, he or she will always find a way to adapt to the environment, no matter the situation, I think that's very, very true. So, we would like you to walk us through your evolution from that stage, where you became a self-educated artist, to your earliest works. ICS.

Ibrahim Ganiyu: I'll say everything has been part of each other since that period., back in secondary school, I formed the very first group of creative people that would turn into ICS. It was called the IBTASHOL Group (IB being Ibrahim and the TASHOL being a combination of the names of my two friends- Taiwo and Shola), and we drew comic books together. So, with their permission, anyway, I created a group using their names. And in secondary school, there, we had other guys who had been drawing from their own classes or in their own areas. So, once people started hearing, Oh, there's this group of guys that draw comic books in JSS2, everybody started looking out for us and started joining. So, we came together with a common love for comic books, you know, and drawing.

So, while the rest of the school had this club thing every Wednesday, the Jet Club and all that, we used to sneak off to one empty classroom and we'd just draw and talk about comic books and try to create our own story in those areas. So, the club grew. Back in secondary school, we had about 20 members, and the goal was to put ourselves together and get a comic book published by, I think 1995. By 1994 actually, we nearly got our first comic published. It was called The Justice League of Nigeria, born out of the idea of the Justice League of America.

It was going to be our first comic book. By the time we got funding for it, the costs of production had changed. So ultimately, that was scratched. Looking back now, I thank God that we didn't get to publish that book. Because I think it might have given us negative feedback that might have stopped us from pushing forward with the  whole idea. But then it just all grew.

By the time secondary school ended in 1995 and ’96, a few more people had joined in, new perspectives and ideas were introduced into the group,   we decided that instead of tying it to the names of the people who founded it, we would move to a name that is free and easy to identify with .

So, first we had it turned into the Insight Group, until we saw Insight Communications and said we didn't want that. And then, ultimately, we arrived at Imperial Creations Studios (or Imperial Creations at the time.) So, what we had were IC, and by the time I got to Yaba Tech, my university years, we had tried everything we could to get published. We were getting illustration work, we were doing a lot of things for people, but our characters were not published.

And I got to say this here: one of the things that stopped us from publishing then was the fact that we all wanted our communities to be like Marvel standards. Once we were ready to publish, we were not looking at publishing anything that would not be in color, you know? So, we had these delays in our publishing because we wanted our first book to be in color.

So, in 1997, we had a room full of all these creative guys. We usually met somewhere at Chuka Obi's (presently Director, Creativity and Innovation at Globacom) house at Fola Agoro, Shomolu, Lagos, then sometimes at another friend's place in Shomolu too. That is Maurice Ugwonoh (presently Creative Director at Noah's Ark Communications). So Shomolu was our area back then.

Sometime around 1996, I called the guys up and said, Guys, we have to publish something. No matter what it was, we need to publish something. Whatever the idea is, we just have to do it. Even if it's going to be photocopied, we had to publish.

By this time, I had already started working on storyboards and other things for advertising agencies. I was working on projects with TBWA, LBST, Studio 77, WABP, Insight Communications, etc on projects for MTN, Kia Motors, and Econet Wireless (now Airtel). I knew we had to publish something. And what came out of that declaration was the amazing comic book, Dark Edge.

So, the first sketch was made of a guy with a blank mind who doesn't remember where he is or who he is, but all he has with him is a strange knife that he doesn't know the origin of, and then a little girl is always around. That story was the foundation presented to the group. And then, of course, like we always do, everything we did, everybody chipped in. You know, we had two strong writers then. (Well, I won't count myself as a writer,) But back then, we had guys like Maurice Ugwonoh and Ayodele Elegba (CEO,Spoof Animation Studio) contributing to some of the things we were doing.

Everybody chipped in something: Aliu Aziz, Waliu Edu, Chuka Obi,Whatever the idea, we all achieved it, even though  at every point we always recognized the person that created the original idea. It just always helped to make our concepts better.

So, Dark Age was written, rewritten, adjusted, and pulled together, and became, eventually by 1999, our first officially published comic book at IC Studios.

 It was ready, and we just had to find a way to get the money put together. People wouldn't believe that our first package, with everything, was published for, I think, about 5,000 Naira at that time. And then the cover price was 20 Naira for a copy back in 1999.

In fact, the promotion for it was done at Unilag and Yabatech exclusively, and it was basically hand-drawn posters with some little graphic chipped in from where I was working at the time, even though I was in school we made posters available in hostels and everywhere in school and I think two years later, we republished it again with a colour cover and interior pieces in black and white.

By that time, ICS Studios was already known to some agencies that were giving us illustrations and storyboards to work on. Along with some design and concept projects .

By 2002–2003, we had a clear idea of the ICS universe we were going to build. That was when the company, ICStudios, was, I would say, put together. Because we had it registered as a business venture back then, in 1999

From then on, clients, offices, churches, and some of the people I had worked with became supporters of the business, and quite a lot of people were there to make sure that the company was established, until we finally got to our present place in Omole, Ikeja.

Well, essentially, comic books were our foundational structure. Comic book was what brought us together, was the first thing we thought to do. Like I said earlier, I believe that anything you want to express as a creative person, the comic book is a major channel by which you can put that out. So, even if you cannot create a scientific breakthrough, you can imagine it within the pages of the comic.

Although you can't build a car right now, you can imagine what the car will look like in the future, and tell a story around how it was created.

I think I had a notion then that creative people make the solutions, and then scientists and engineers try to achieve it, all right? So, basically, somebody in the creative mind brings up the idea of a flying car, then for the next 50 years, it's giving scientists headaches, trying to achieve that idea. So, I think creative people as a whole can create the future that everybody else tries to catch up with. Hence, my personal philosophy about life:  We create; the rest of the world catches up. And that is the foundation of ICStudios.

The ACE: This story gave some kind of nostalgia feel to it, because one can actually read it from scribbling on 16-leaf notebooks, to gathering like minds, to finding a name for yourself, to setting a standard for yourself that, OK, these are the ones we meet, and then understanding that sometimes it might just be what makes you procrastinate. Attempts to be perfect, and then to actually doing something, proof of concept that we can actually do this thing, and then from that first step, we're able to take other steps until it became what it became. It's like a perfect story for anyone who wants to begin from somewhere.

Although you had that Marvel standard somewhere at the back of your mind, you could not just do without infusing your local culture into it. So, tell us one or two things about that.

Ibrahim Ganiyu: Yeah, I think growing up as a comic book fan, you know, reading comics all the time, you get to see some things that are done in these comic books that kind of, like, speak in the face of the culture, you know. So, I'm reading a DC project called War of the Gods, where all the gods of the world are involved in certain fights and all of that. And they were doing Shango, Osun, Obatala, and I was just like, seriously, how are these people telling the story that we know as part of ours? And they're not even telling it right. They can't tell it right. They can't know it better than we do.

So, it was one of the things that got me thinking, maybe I am trying to be more Chinese than Chinese or trying to be more American than American.

A couple of creatives are like that too. We all grew up on their content, so everything that we did was often guided by the content we were consuming. So, it was easy to be influenced and go straight. The first idea that comes to your mind when you say Superhero is a cape and spandex, right?

It got me thinking about the fact that comic books are a platform for telling stories and writing about the future. What future are we imagining for where we live? I live in Lagos. I grew up in Ojota, and now I'm a Nigerian. What future are we looking at? What would an actual superhero in Nigeria be and look like or be approached as?

So, for me, it became a no-brainer and almost like, I’ll call it, a campaign of sort, a sort of decision to say, look, this is it from now on. Yes, I'm in the year 2000, yeah, 19-something. This is the modern time. I get it. But our culture is still strong and powerful and supposed to carry on. We don't need to engage in other cultures completely and forget ours.

So, from then, I decided after seeing Matrix,Terminator and  their kinds I decided, that I can actually do a story based in Africa, and of Africans in the future, in superhero mode, without it being all about spandex and some science, right? So, it became a thing for me. And from that point, I've always tried to ensure that I don't lose my Africanness, no matter what happens, no matter what level of creativity I put in, I always wrap it in Africanness.

And a few experiences over the years have just proven to me that, look, if your people forget the culture of their environment, the culture of where they are, they don't just lose the culture, they lose their direction and purpose in life. It's like everything else dies once you don't understand where you are.

So, from meeting people like Prince Demas Nwoko, one of the main architects, masters in the US, what they call a master builder, telling me things about culture and positions in society, how culture is not just about culture, but about how a society functions. And once people begin to neglect the culture, society ceases to function.

And then meeting people like Tunde Kelani, who told me something as simple as, look, don't translate your Yoruba movie. Don't let Yoruba movie people speak English. Get them to read subtitles, like we read subtitles in Chinese movies or Indian movies. Well, I've been watching Indian movies since I was a kid, and I don't speak their language, but I can remember great movies that I watched that were Indian, all from reading subtitles. So, why do we need to do English movies when we can let them watch Yoruba movies in Yoruba, reading subtitles as well?

So, I kind of signed into that and said, look, there's a way to it.  we can tell Shango's story now in the present day. And I think I had movies that were made back then that were really inspiring. There was a book called Ose Shango that was about Shango in modern-day Nigeria at that time. I only saw glimpses of it, but seriously, that movie wowed me, as how you can tell a modern-day story of an ancient African historical fact.

So, for me, culture is significantly and, absolutely important , in my creative expressions. I always make sure it is reflected. And as ICS, we have chosen a path to curate culture in my content. And everything we do will always have that mark of culture in it

Yes, people will say things like, what exactly is African? Then I can tell them bits and bits. There's Yoruba, there's Igbo, there's Hausa, there's Efik, there's Fulani, there's Tiv, there's Ibibio. Whatever it is, it's still African. And we will tell those stories and produce creativity with those things in mind.

I mean, you never see a Japanese story told without the Japanese culture in there. It's almost like, this is it. They would expect you to learn their language, not speak your own at all times. So, it became a thing for me, and I've pushed that as a primary factor all that I do.  Culture and creativity, very important. .

TheACE: It's nice to know how we are trying to retell our stories by ourselves instead of depending on the likes of Black Panther to tell it for us. So, in putting culture in your creativity, we noticed that there is a recurring theme of winged characters. Why is that the case? Why winged characters?

Ibrahim Ganiyu: The story about this is quite fascinating.

So, there were a couple of things I did growing up. And one of it was studying the gender. Let me use that word, trying to study the essence of people and who they are. And you hear a lot of things about, women are this, women are that. And somewhere, I think just after secondary school, I was trying to create a set of representations about women.

I mean, like most artists, we always found drawing women as more relaxing than drawing men. Men are so violent, you know? So, all men were like big brutes, and then drawing women was always soft, smooth, and easy. Okay, but women are not weak all the time. They are an embodiment of love, yeah, but they could also have rage. They could also have be  in battle in a war. So, I wanted to start a series of drawings that depicted women's key concepts: draw one as love, draw one as war, draw one as rage, and all of that.

So, it started very much like that. And the very first one I drew was about war, and she didn't have a wing,  But somewhere along the line, the wings came in.

The next one I drew was about rage, and some girls told me the wing would give a different feel to it, like, can you imagine somebody with wings like an angel, but carrying a very huge sword and looking at you fiercely? Yeah, the angel is there, the soft part and all, but then she's walking around with a really big sword, you know? So, that became a theme moving forward.

And then I chose to just draw women representing concepts and ideas in life and adding wings to them. And the more I got into my faith as a Muslim, right, and then I read up a lot about the Quran about God creating angels in ranks, and then they have two, four, six wings and all of that, hearing things about Malik, the guardian angel of hell, and all of that, so it got me into, okay, okay, there's a lot more that I can actually explore with this. And then I decided from that point on. In fact, I don't think there's any female character I have drawn, other than for comic books, that I have not added wings to And from that point on, wings were just representation, human representation of the divineness of women.

I mean, the more I learned, it was just a case of women having a lot more connection to the divine than men do. So, I've been doing that  for like five years. Before, a couple of my friends, led by one person, Ayodele Arigbabu who kept saying tell the story about these angels now. And then that prompted me to create a different direction with the idea, to draw the winged creatures, but as part of an ecosystem, as part of a particular realm that is in between the realms of angels and man.

And since that time, I've been creating them in terms of culture, Yoruba ones, Benin. Oh my God, I love Benin (Edo) culture.

 The Benin culture is one of the ones I'm fascinated with most in all the cultures in Nigeria. With my Yoruba name, okay, so, I tried to do a lot of that. You will always find beads. From day one, I always added beads to the angels that I draw, African patterns, tattoos, gold-plated stuff, and swords that are reminiscent of warriors in Yoruba and Edo culture and others. So, that has always been one of my key themes

And what I ended up creating was the world called Vallehvinghia , which was me trying to inculcate the use of the Edo language to create all the names of creatures within that realm.

So, the K-H, the K-Vs, the V-H, which are popular in Edo names, kind of features a lot in there. So, all put together in a concept I've been working on for 10 years now called Valley of Wings ( vallehvinghia) and it's a story involving a realm populated purely by winged women creatures, or winged female creatures, who are called female, but they are not considered female in their realm, and a're not considered angels in their realm as well.

So, I've been building the world for the last 10 years. Hopefully, we get to start doing something concrete about it in the next one year. So, that's where the images are coming from right now. The evolution is from representing concepts and ideas related to women, weakness plus strength, coolness or calmness plus energy and power. I tried to reflect those two sides in the drawing, towards now having the world views around them in the works.

I should tell you one thing, though. When I started drawing, because they became one other thing that was very, very important to my growth as a creative person, they became my refuge, in that they were the only thing I was doing that were not under pressure from a client. It became my relaxation. my therapy

I drew them to just relax, let go of negative energy, and focus. So, they became like therapy for me, and they still are, but now they have a different direction.

So, that's the angels of Valleedinia in summary.

The ACE: Oh, that's a nice story. Having to work on something for 10 years and you're patient about it. You have to do it right. Why were they not turned into NFTs when NFT was hot? You already had the world and all of that.

Ibrahim Ganiyu: Exactly. It was, explored. Somebody was working on making that happen. Then, the NFT came crashing. Unfortunately.

TheACE: Let us move it from yourself now to a broader perspective. Everyone has their own perspective when it comes to the role of comics in Nigeria today. We would like to know yours.

Ibrahim Ganiyu: People usually think about comic as an entertainment medium and just a way to push our fantasy. But over the years, that image cleared as I realized exactly what comic books are in Nigeria, or at least can be in Nigeria today. for me, It can't be described in one word. I'll put this in a statement,

‘‘Education,Communication, and Cultural preservation with a layer of entertainment wrapped on top.”

Now, let me explain. I looked at it as a person growing up making  and reading comic books, I learned quite a lot from comic books. Besides the fun, the action, the powers, there were things I learned from writing , creating,and reading them that I wasn't taught in school. You know, things about international law, and everything about science. There are some words that I heard in comic books that I  never  heard in class,

And I will tell you that it was primarily comic books that got me into being a science student, because I wanted to find out how I can actually create plutonium, you know, and all that.  It helps to intensify our curiosity.

If you⁷⁷⁷⁷ look at comic books from decade to decade, you will find that each decade seems to encapsulate what was going on within the period.

As at a time when family became a major thing in America, Superman had Supergirl, Krypto, and Superboy. They created the family of Superman.

As at a time when women empowerment came up and a lot of things were being pushed for women in stronger places, Wonder Woman changed a bit more and all of that. So, each comic book decade actually documented the cultural changes, shifts, cultural norms, patterns, clothing and dressings  around the things that were happening within that environment.

So, you can learn history of the world by just flipping through some comic books for the last 80 years, Or the Western comic books, the cowboy comic books, and oral comics, I think, they'll give you an idea of what each decade was like, what was popular then, what people imagined then. So, you can have the history of the world built from that.

So obviously this was a thing back then. So, it preserved their history, preserved the level of culture. And to the point that it led to the creation of a particular segment of art called pop art. Comic books created that. Like it became something else entirely.

So, for me, for Nigeria, we have a lot of education to do for our people. There's a lot of things people need to know about the country, about the culture, about the environment, about the future for their country and their environment, Because most of the information we get seems to be coming from outside.

One book I read, called The History of Negro Arts, was written by Reverend Samuel Johnson. was practically the first book I was reading about the Yoruba history that was written by somebody who was there, because this book was released in 1932. The guy who wrote it was about, 80 or thereabouts at that time, so he was alive in the 1800s when the Yoruba-Kiriji war was going on, and there was war between Oyo and Ilorin and all that And then, even though the other parts were from previously written by external people, it did give me an insight to the Yoruba culture because he was present at that time. And was giving first-hand information.

Another book I read by Egose Maswen, which was more recent, I think I read it in 2018, or is it 2016, thereabouts and it was titled To Saint Patrick. It was an alternate history of Nigeria that posed the question: what if Murtala Mohammed had survived the assassination attempt?

What kind of Nigeria would we have then?

We had a Nigeria where the majority of people were trying to make Nigerian cars. Over 85% of cars in Nigeria were made in Nigeria.

There were so many different kinds of currency, and houses were guaranteed for people. There were quite a lot of things he flipped around then.

Now, this kind of alternate history as well as actual history, can spawn very interesting comic book ideas that can further educate the people about their past and their potential future.

So, these are the reasons why I believe that a comic book's role in Nigeria is primarily in communication. I don't think we communicate enough, Or perhaps maybe we communicate the wrong things.

Yes Nollywood has done a great job. But I know for a few years that when I was growing up, all you could see about Nollywood was the negativity of the Nigerian environment,but that is changing because now we're beginning to explore things.

Communication and information abound in comic books, telling people information about the environment, their culture,  governments, and about what rights they have. Like June 12 was primarily created as a way to educate and inform people about certain things that we take for normal in our politics and society. You don't just sit back and say, you know what, the police is bad. And so, June 12 asked the question then, in one story, so do you think we should get all the police officers to disrupt, just scrap the police? How many of you will run towards the gunshots, or will you call the police who face and run towards the gunshot? Maybe we don't really appreciate what they do, and that is why we talk the way we talk, you know?

So, it was a way to educate, inform, and communicate with them about the different perspectives possible.

And then cultural preservation.

Oh, I love what's going on in the industry space right now, where we have a lot of culturally based comic books, trying to entrench some of our historical facts, our mythologies, our legends into stories that will stay with us for decades to come. So, it shows that we can preserve the culture.

 We can  actually have a Chumbo-based story,

 we can have a Masquerade-based story, Victor Ward is among and all that. So, we can have Malaika, we can have June 12th, we can have stories that dictate certain things or commit some things to ground right now about our culture that our children and children's children can read many decades from now on.

So, and the other side of that is this: if we see comic books as tools for communication and cultural preservation, the community in Nigeria can actually attract a lot more support from both governments, NGOs, companies alike, and organizations as well. Because now the purpose is not just entertainment. There's a lot more nuance to the future attached to it with that perspective.

So, for me, and I would say, that it is our perspective on communication, education, and culture preservation. I think that is what its role is and should be in the Nigerian environment. That's a lot to unpack.

The ACE: Education, communication and cultural preservation. According to Sir Gai, that is the role of comics in Nigeria today.

So, talking more about Nigeria, there are people who call what we have as an industry. And there are people like us who call it a space. So, in your own perspective, can you quantify the Nigerian comic industry right now?

Ibrahim Ganiyu: OK, this question has come up several times.

The truth is, I don't think anyone in the comic book space in Nigeria can actually define what we have as an industry. An industry requires data and some information to define it as an industry.

How many comic books were published per year in Nigeria?

How many readers and fans can we have?

Is there a body that is focusing on creating comic books and the data surrounding it?

No... You can Google up the value of the Nigerian book industry right now, but there are several bodies that are contributing to that data. But presently, in the comic book space in Nigeria, we don't have any industry standards.

We don't have any industry regulations. We don't have any industry-wide data collection of space. We don't have a united industry front.

So, at the present moment, what we have is more of a comic book community. And those often have shoulder-to-shoulder hookups with animation and video games and other publications. So, the industry itself is not built, all right, and it needs a conscious effort to actually make that happen. And funnily enough, it might not be defined or created by the people in the industry themselves. That is what I think is the major problem. A lot of community artists are just that they're not into the business of things or the fact-finding part of it. So, we have less of us creating a way to measure ourselves and more of us creating the things to measure.

So, it makes it difficult for us to quantify the industry. I can't tell you the value of the industry right now, the comic book industry is worth how many billion naira, and all of that. And one of the ways to even note that is the government is not exactly paying attention to comics as a thing in whatever allocations. Even if you go to government’s plans and initiatives for the creative industry, they just put “the creative industry” generally, but it's mostly movies, fashion, fashion design, textile, you know, things that can stand up and say, oh, that's our chairman, or that's the body that we all listen to, or that's the regulatory authority, or that's the unifying body that defines certain things for us.

All right, so we don't have that. The comic book printers or publishers in America, in the 40s or 50s, I think, came together to create certain guidelines for themselves. The Comics Code Authority was founded, and they had their regular look at each other just to say, okay, are we there? Are we okay? So, they could guide each other in production and output and all of that, and create a kind of standard

How much do you pay an artist?

How much do you pay a colourist?

How much is the standard for a digital painter in Nigeria?

How much is the standard for a penciler, or for a writer?

We don't have such things.

So, at the moment, the industry is yet to be built. The community is large and vibrant.  Yes, it's growing. It's big. But it is not quantifiable, and, as such, it is not an industry.

TheACE: That's a painful thing to hear. That's one of the reasons why we do this. It is to one way to document what's happening in the industry and then try to multiply it.

Ibrahim Ganiyu: Just one thing to note, while I think it's not an industry yet, I know that there is an opportunity. It means something needs to happen in that area. And that means we need creative people, like what TheACE is doing. We need teams like yours; we need projects like yours to actually help with  the quantifying thing I just spoke about  And you are filling that role,  although  baby step but we're ge6 there Thank you .

The ACE: We resonate with you. Recently, we came accross a LinkedIn article where Mavin was a case study. It was not necessarily Don Jazzy (the founder) who took it to that level. It was a different firm entirely that was not even into music. They just came to them and clearly set out a structure.

Although you've mentioned something like that, we'd like to know if you have the belief that the Nigerian government should take comics seriously.

We've also heard of the Ministry of Creativity. What is that about? What are you envisioning for it?

Ibrahim Ganiyu: First one, about the government. Should the government take comic books seriously?

No!  We should show them that we're serious. I always use the analogy of:     you're trying to get a job. You walk into a company with singlet and shorts to submit a CV, and you say they should take you seriously.  They don't have to do anything. You are the one who has to show them that, “Look, I want this job. I want you guys to employ me. I am looking the part, I'm behaving the part, I know the part. So, let's go.”

So, I think that statement is where we, as comic people, get it wrong. Money doesn't flow where emotions are; investment doesn't flow into emotions. Money flows into facts, into figures, right? The government wants to take us seriously, but how?

I know about 10 years ago,  no, maybe a little bit longer there was an initiative to try and create a kind of academy to train people in animation and in graphic design. They wanted to have a team of trainers, and then a group who could say, “We'll train one million engineers in this field in one year.” And the government was going to put money into it. That project crashed because I sat through a meeting with creative people, and I don't think everybody could agree on how the process of the thing should go. Right? It kind of went down. And there will be nothing that the government will put seriousness into if that thing is not already serious.

Let me use the banking industry as an example. You know, a bank would be more likely to lend you money when you don’t need the money. The idea is: if you are rich enough to afford the loan, they are most likely to give you the loan. mm?

Nollywood was not created by the government. Nollywood was created by the producers. And because of the figures and the money it was bringing in, and it had a team: an actor's guild, a director's guild, an editor's guild, and all of that, the government realized,

 “Okay, you guys are getting big and you're also impacting our citizens,

Government support comes in, and regulation follows; it’s automatic. So, as it is, we  have  to create an industry structure that is strong enough to influence in such a big way that the government can  step in

Government won't take us seriously until we're able to speak as a united voice, until we're able to speak with and back up each other.

TheACE and ICS do something, join with Spoof, Spoof joins us, too, we do things together. Once they see that we have camaraderie amongst us, it becomes easier for them to step in and say, “Okay, you guys are getting the direction right, so we'll support you now and regulate.”

Nollywood had actors from Igbo land joining Yoruba people, Yoruba actors appearing in Igbo movies, Igbo actors appearing in Yoruba movies creating things together, doing movies with each other, creating that kind of brotherhood. And so, the government came in. They could even write a letter to the government and say, “Look, we're all here, and we want the government to allocate a couple of billions for us every year to support the industry, or build more cinemas, or sponsor more festivals about movies, or create statewide events where movies are celebrated.” Because movies are telling Nigerian stories and creating Nigerian culture, and then impacting the world.

They can write that letter.

What's the letter we're gonna write to the government now to get them to look at us seriously?

What do we say in the letter? But we have Lagos Comic Con, and we have the Ibadan Comic Con, and we have the Geek Pop-up, and about 5,000–10,000 fans show up at these events. What does that mean to the government? It's nothing. What does it mean?

What means something to them is: of these people that show up, 20% are this, 30% are this. Overall, this Comic Con generates a volume of 100 million, 200 million a year. Overall, comic publishing in Nigeria has reached over 25 million Nigerians. In one year alone, about 25 million Nigerians downloaded and read this. So, we don't have those things to put in a letter to get the government to look at us and say, “Ah, this is it.”.we need to organize and put things in place .and I believe we'll get there.

So, we don't have the right impact. We have this small community that we're impacting, and that's just about it. All right? So, I don't think the government should take us seriously. I think, perhaps, we should take ourselves a bit more seriously.

The ACE: We can feel the passion in you.

This is a very high opening conversation. It took us through the history of where it's coming from, the group of people who, through their passion, tried to build a business out of this and now, having successfully built a business, are trying to build an industry. So, thank you very much.

Ibrahim Ganiyu: All right. Take care. Have a good one. Thank you.