Smelly Rob — The Making of an Independent Graphic Novel About Rats, Surf, and modern society

Finally after one year I can talk about this project: Smelly Rob is an independent graphic novel divided into three volumes. It tells the story of a colony of rats living free on a beach — until humans arrive.

When humans take over their land, the rats are forced underground, into the sewers, where they begin to imitate human society.The first volume focuses on this turning point — the expulsion from nature and the beginning of a new life below the surface. Through their eyes, we see the distorted reflection of our own world.

Working on the first Smelly Rob storyboard

I started working on Smelly Rob last year.The first storyboard was written and sketched while spending the summer cruising around in my van. I had just finished camper-converting a Fiat Doblò, built the furniture myself, and hit the road to surf, draw, and clear my head.I spent lots of time parked near the sea, listening to the waves and sketching under a dim light. That’s where Rob was born — from salt, noise, and too much coffee.

Later, I redrew the pages, inked and colored everything, spent countless hours on fixing the texts. Oh man it was a nightmare!

Final comic vs storyboard

Behind the humor and chaos, Smelly Rob is a critique of how we treat nature and how capitalism shapes our way of living. When the rats try to rebuild a society in the sewers, they reproduce the same selfish, exploitative systems that once destroyed their home above. Pretty fucking twisted, if you ask me.

Smelly Rob Volume 1: The Escape

It’s not just a story about rats. It’s about losing balance, about greed, and about finding something pure again. And on top of that, Rob, the main character is a surfer. Talking, drawing about surfing has been really really fun, since the whole comic talks about my personal idea of surfing, which is way far from the ultra-competitive way of living it-way too common these days, where we can watch tons of videos of people doing big aerials and violently attacking those poor waves.

It’s about being in the water with your friends, watching the sunset, yelling and shouting for a good wave. The purest way of living it in my opinion.

Fist pages of Smelly Rob: The Escape

So to make a recap, it’s not exactly the usual polished, mainstream comic.

It’s raw, weird, and full of life — just like the world that inspired it. It’s a story for people who love underground art, punk culture, surfing.

If you’ve ever felt like a misfit, you’ll probably like Rob.

As you can imagine, this comic is 100% independent. I wrote the story and did all the drawings. Luckily, I got some strong help for the text edits and development of the story.

If you want to support it, you can:

💥 Buy your copy on Amazon → Smelly Rob on Amazon

💬 Leave a review and help more people discover it

🎁 Gift a copy to a friend who loves underground art

Every small gesture helps this project reach more readers. Thanks for reading, cheers!