Henry Bonsu On Transforming His Online Comics Into Adult Swim’s Newest Series ‘Lazor Wulf’

Adult Swim’s newest animated series, Lazor Wulf, is an acid vision of friendship and modern life from an African-American perspective. Created by Heny Bonsu, 34, and produced by Bento Box’s studios in Los Angeles (pre-production) and Atlanta (animation), the show revels in its peculiar randomness.

Chatting with Cartoon Brew over the phone while riding his motorcycle, Bonsu explained the show has been six years in the making since its earliest iteration as a comic strip he would publish on his personal Tumblr. Three years ago the pilot was created, and earlier this month the first episode finally debuted.

Lazor Wulf, the title character, first emerged as a joke between Bonsu and a couple of his friends based on the satirical Amazon reviews and memes around the Three Wolf Moon t-shirt that made waves online a few years ago. Bonsu began drawing stories focused on a wolf with a laser on his back and whose best friend was a piece of ham, with the unique feature being that each strip would present a different take on the design of the characters.

“I would always change the design of the character every strip mostly because I’d get bored, but also in my mind I felt that when you are making a new thing that no one knows about, it feels like you are making fan art just for yourself, fan art of something that is still not mainstream,” Bonsu told Cartoon Brew. Once Adult Swim picked up Lazor Wulf, he tried to carry a lot of that energy for reinvention into the cartoon.

According to Bonsu, one of the random elements that makes the world of Lazor Wulf unique is its supporting cast. There’s Stupid Horse, who exists because the protagonist Lazor Wulf is only familiar with unicorns and can’t understand the concept of horses. Then there’s the giant floating head as God, who is constantly screaming “Goddamnit.” As bizarre as that might sound, it’s logical within this realm.

“The inhabitants of the town aren’t necessarily shocked that God might float down to interact, but at the same time there is a wolf family, a Yeti, and a talking horse. All these elements aren’t strange to them. Nothing is really strange to them and that’s what makes that world funny,” explained Bonsu.

Uniquely, Lazor Wulf features a predominantly black voice cast, which is still a rarity in animation. The voice cast is led by rapper Vince Staples, who is also an executive producer alongside Bonsu, Daniel Weidenfeld (China, IL), and Carl Jones (The Boondocks), and also features DRAM, Ettore Ewen (aka Big E), Quinta Brunson, Judnick Mayard, Andre Pascoe, Reginald VelJohnson, and J.D. Witherspoon. “For me, I come in with a black perspective,” Bonsu said. “So getting to work with a lot of talented black folk was honestly amazing. It makes the show different.”

Lazor Wulf premiered on Adult Swim on April 7, 2019 and new episodes air Sunday evenings on Adult Swim.