I remember the first time I saw RoboCop. It was the year after it premiered and I was eight-years-old, way too young to be watching Alex Murphy’s repurposed body blow away criminals. What instantly hooked me about the film and what kept me coming back is the over-the-top bombast of the movie. The 80s and 90s were all about BIG: big action, big ideas, big everything. This aesthetic was reflected in video games like Street Fighter and comics like Spawn and WildCATS.
If you lived in that time or you just love that type of bombast in storytelling, then Dark Horse Comics’ RoboWolf is the comic that’s right up your alley. From the creative mind of writer and artist Jake Smith, RoboWolf follows a cyborg wolf bank robber who is attempting to rescue his cute wolf daughter from a kidnapping. With a caper sprawling across a city straight out of a video game, RoboWolf hits the ground running and refuses to stop.
I spoke with Jake Smith recently about the idea behind RoboWolf, the origin of the character and his world, the stylistic choices he made bring the right feel to the book, and the media of the 1980s and 1990s that influenced this comic.
I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s and RoboWolf felt like a love letter to the era of pop culture in the best way possible. Too often, current fictional media set in those decades feel like hackneyed or missing the mark. As I said in the interview, RoboWolf has the vibe of something found in a time capsule that is also wholly its own. Jake Smith knew the assignment and nailed it.
RoboWolf #1 cover
FreakSugar: This first issue is my brand of crazy and I’m here for it. What was the genesis of RoboWolf?
Jake Smith: Thanks so much! Well, the idea started out as a fictional video game within the world of my last book, Blood Force Trauma. In that book the main character, Zap Daniels, is a huge video game nerd and so I thought it would fun to make fake game boxes to go in the back of each issue with a little description of the game underneath. I’ve always been a huge fan of retro beat-em-up arcade games like Streets of Rage and Final Fight so I concocted my own fictional video game in homage to that genre called RoboWolf. Then, like with any drawing I do, I created a story for it in my head and that story became so exciting to me that I started writing the script, and then I was on my way to making it a full-fledged comic book.
FS: For folks considering picking up the series, what is the idea behind RoboWolf?
JS: RoboWolf is about a cyborg wolf bank robber whose adorable wolf daughter is kidnapped. To pay her ransom he has to get his rag tag crew together and rob a bank. Now, they’ve got to get this van full of cash across a wild, 80s video game style city full of killer super gangs who want their loot so they can pay his daughter’s kidnapper!
FS: Every character we meet is fully formed and meticulously drawn out—both figuratively and literally. What can you tell us about the cast? What was the process like in crafting each character’s look?
FS: I grew up in the 80s and 90s and this book felt like a time capsule that’s been turned into something wholly new and engaging on its own terms. Did you have any kind of mission statement when crafting the conceit?
JS: That’s awesome! Exactly what I’m going for! I just want the book to feel fun at all times. I want the drama to be silly, but engaging, the violence to make you laugh, the car chases to excite you. I was the audience to read the book and desperately need a video game adaptation. I want you to feel your popping in another quarter into the machine every time you turn the page.
FS: Even the colors feel very popping and very 90s. It keeps the eyes locked on the pages. What kind of color palette did you use in creating the series?
JS: I wanted it to be very 80s, so that’s good you say that! Though it’s a certain kind of 80s aesthetic, I feel like. There are many 80’s color palettes, from that heavy shadow rim lighting you see in movies like Blade Runner and Terminator, to the kind of blown out beach vibe in Predator 2 and Top Gun. I wanted to evoke the brighter colors of movies like that and 90s image comics, like Youngblood and Supreme.
FS: I assume you grew up in the 80s and 90s. How would you describe entertainment of that time? Why is that aesthetic and storytelling still so appealing to folks in 2025?
JS: So, I was born in 1995, so I definitely grew up on more early 2000s era content, but my parents were always blasting Smash Mouth, Sugar Ray, Everclear, stuff like that. Music from the 90s into 2000s and then it wasn’t until I was older and discovered Street Fighter and the arcade classics like that, that I became obsessed with pixel art and the overall vibe of the 80s. Movies like Terminator, Predator, and Alien really got me into that headspace.
RoboWolf #2 cover
FS: Following up on that, if you had to pick a favorite 80s action film and a favorite 90s comic, what would you choose? Why do those picks have a soft spot for you?
JS: Favorite 80s movie is definitely RoboCop. It’s a perfect movie in my opinion. The perfect blend of tongue in cheek comedy, poignant storytelling, and face punching action. It might be the best action movie I’ll ever see. Favorite 90s comic changes all the time, but I think I always come back to Spawn because it is the purest showcasing of what made the 90s awesome. Every panel from Spawn eviscerating a group of thugs to Sam and Twitch eating donuts is drawn with explosive detail. Capullo, in particular, might be my favorite 90s artist.
FS: What are you reading right now?
JS: Right now I’m reading The Moon is Following Us by Riley Rossmo and Daniel Warren Johnson. Amazing book. Everything those guys do is incredible.
FS: If you had one final pitch for RoboWolf, what would it be?
JS: RoboWolf is pure comic book fun.
RoboWolf #1 is already on sale now from Dark Horse Comics. Issue #2 goes on sale Wednesday, October 29, 2025.
From the official description of issue #1:
Robo Wolf and his crew of bank robbing criminals are in a race against time to get a fat stack of stolen money to the villainous Colonel Massacre, who has kidnapped RoboWolf’s daughter for ransom! The Colonel’s not the only one with an eye on the money, however, and our heroes will have to use their combined skills to tear through an onslaught of bloodthirsty cannibals, ninjas, robots, and more!
• An over-the-top ode to classic retro beat ’em up video games, 90s comic books, and 80s action films.
And from the official description of issue #2:
RoboWolf and his crew have come face to face with a double chainsaw wielding foe from their past! If they have any hope of making it to General Masakov in time to pay the ransom for RoboWolf’s daughter, they’ll have to combine their radical skills and defeat this bloodthirsty monstrosity! Bullets will be fired, roundhouse kicks will be delivered, and a father’s love will be tested! To its limits!