I wasn't born a hero. I had to become one."The year is 2025, the prosperous Lagoon City has been overrun by alarming skeletal drones and corrupt politicians. It bares little resemblance to the hometown Wale Williams left five years before. But the young Nigerian has bigger problems -- his estranged but brilliant inventor father has disappeared. His pursuit of a parent will lead him to a nanosuit his father built, which provides him with superhuman abilities and a destiny to protect the city he loves."E.X.O: The Legend of Wale Williams"is the fast-paced, afro-futuristic graphic novel from Roye Okupe. A software and web developer by day and graphic designerby night, the passionate Nigerian has spent the last several years trying to bring his dream of a homegrown hero to life.Okupe was born and raised inNigeria but relocated to Washington D.C. at age 17 to study computer science at George Washington College. It was in the United States -- the home of Marvel and DC Comics -- that the young creative's passion for cartoons and animations really developed."I grew up on the popular (comics) back home, like Superman, Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, and I just fell in love with the concept of a superhero," Okupe tells CNN. "I've always been drawn to them and I think the main reason is that there is so much negativity in our world."A homegrown hero is bornWhen Okupe finished college, he decided it was time to insert more diversity into the superhero world. By 2012 he founded Youneek Studios and Wale Williams and his alter-ego "E.X.O." were born.Okupe says: "I wanted peoplefrom around the world to relate to Wale just the same way that I grew up relating to Peter Parker and Spiderman -- because he had issues in high school, and he had issues getting girls while trying to balance superhero powers."The reason we are drawn to superheroes isn't necessary because of the color of their skin or where they arefrom but because of their backgrounds, their motivations and what they fight for. Creating a superhero from Nigeria, it was very important for me that I didn't just make it where I would alienate anybody who wasn't from thecountry."The original concept was foran animated cartoon, so he developed a seven-minute trailer to showcase his work. But after a year of shopping it to distributors and producers, Okupe was out of luck."A lot of people were afraidabout taking a risk with a character that was from Africa because there was no fanbase to prove that this is going to work. I had people tell me, 'you have a nice product. You might wanna change some of the characters around...'"I would say 'I respect your opinion but the reason why Ido this is I grew up in Nigeria and I want to give the country a superhero. I don't want to have to compromise what the vision was to make a quick buck."

Source CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/23/africa/nigeria-superhero/index.html

cc: lalasticala
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