From Creative Passion To Global Brand: How Kode Abdo Built BossLogic Into A Hollywood Favorite And Is Now Eyeing The UAE

I couldn’t pinpoint the exact art piece that made me start following digital artist BossLogic on X (still ‘Twitter’ at the time), but by late 2011 to mid-2012 I’d already become an ardent fan. So in 2018, when Kode Abdo first decided to reveal himself to the world as the artist behind BossLogic, I was one among the thousands who watched the moment unfold online. In the nearly 15 years that I’ve followed his work, I have witnessed not just the astronomical growth of his brand [his Instagram page currently sits at close to 2 million followers, and he has a little over half a million followers on X], but also monumental opportunities like working with entertainment industry giants Marvel, Disney, Warner Bros., and Sony Pictures  come his way. But despite the extensive amount of professional work he’s done over the years, Abdo says showing his face to the world has been the most challenging decision of his career. 

“If you’ve been following me since the 2010s, you know I’ve been a ghost. I didn’t show my face, so putting a face to the work and holding that face to the work, while being me and trying to stay true to myself, has been a big challenge,” Abdo tells me. “For a whole lifetime, my artwork was out there, but if it was during the AI days, people would say I was AI—I had no face. That’s what it brought to the table. It made me real. It made me connect with people, and they connected with me on a more personal level instead of just through the artwork. There are health journeys, ups and downs, nights of no sleep, the whole creative process that I share… but now they have a face to it.”

“I’ll be honest with you: the day I posted my face and did my reveal, it took 12 hours,” he adds. “I wouldn’t press the button because I was too hesitant. I feared the world. But it was probably the greatest thing I did at that point in time.”

Indeed, Abdo’s Internet face reveal coincided with a career shift that catapulted the Melbourne-based Syrian-Australian artist’s career into the big leagues. For starters, in 2019, an unofficial Avengers artwork by Abdo caught the attention of directors Joe and Anthony Russo, more popularly known as the ‘Russo Brothers’, and best known for directing Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). The Russos not only commissioned him for their social media, but Joe later also connected Abdo with the creative team at Disney – a move that led to Abdo creating official artwork for Avengers: Endgame in 2019. 

Beyond Marvel, Abdo’s fan art caught the attention of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who commissioned him for a project that later led to a collaboration with comic-book artist Jim Lee, while Ryan Reynolds commissioned him for work including official artwork for his movie, 6 Underground. His work has also been acknowledged by renowned Hollywood figures including 
Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal, while his career has expanded to commissions for Disney, Warner Bros., Netflix, Paramount, and Sony, as well as comic-book credits across Marvel, DC, BOOM! Studios, IDW Publishing, and others.

As such, this is perhaps the right spot to mention the advice Abdo has for up and coming creative entrepreneurs seeking to convert their passion into business. “I keep telling artists, even young ones, just keep putting your work out there and building your portfolio,” he says. “Right now, the social media sphere is huge. You put your work out there, people love it, people follow you, and companies will come. You’re going to get at least one eye seeing your work, and that one eye will lead to others. If you sell yourself short to any publisher just because you think you’re not going to get anywhere, you’re literally putting a lock on yourself. So keep producing, keep working. Yes, [seek to] do some work with Marvel and DC, but don’t lock yourself down. Do work for everyone, especially for yourself. And if monetization is your only motivation, it’s never going to work out.”

Aspiring and budding artists would certainly find it helpful to heed Abdo’s words. Having fallen in love with drawing at the age of six, he successfully transitioned his talent into digital art and has created a recognizable global brand. Along the way, apart from the aforementioned career milestones, he has also rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. (“Yeah, I’ve met Simu [Liu],” he casually tells me when I meet him at this year’s Middle East Film and Comic Con (MEFCC) in Abu Dhabi, where Liu, the Shang-Chi and Avengers: Doomsday star, is a guest.) But as is apparent to most who follow Abdo, the Hollywood glitz and international acclaim haven’t affected his creative process or his humility (the latter evident to my team and me in the way he graciously turned up for this interview in the middle of the stuffy and bustling MEFCC main hall).

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“Look, for me, social media just blew up what I’ve been doing my whole life,” he says. “I always used to draw. I always used to put stuff in front of my family, in front of my friends. They loved it. But social media gave my artwork new eyes. And it was a long time before the right people started seeing my work. But that was never the objective. It was never my goal for companies to see my work. I just kept outdoing myself and kept getting better at what I do. Those companies started reaching out, wanting to do some work with me and all that sort of stuff. But the thing is, it turned into a career by itself, which is rare these days. My work, and what people liked about it, became my lifestyle and eventually something I could monetize. But I never let that take me away from why I started this in the first place.”

That passion to keep creating, instead of relegating to contentment, is most evident when Abdo reveals that he has plans to bring his studio to the Middle East, and the UAE in particular. “Taking it all from Australia to the Middle East, I thought it was going to be easy because I’m from here. But it’s been a hard transition. This is my ambition. This is what I want to do. It’s a tough challenge, but I want to make it work.”

And Abdo already has an idea of what he wants that next chapter to look like. At its center is ‘Frequency’, his own intellectual property (IP) set in a dystopian future in 2175 where law, order and chaos are “a mirrored image only justified by perspective,” and humanity is divided by sound, with different genres providing havens for the factions that remain among the neon ruins. It is a project he now hopes to bring to the Middle East—and his ambitions for the region extend beyond his own creation.

“Comic books are strong, but comic book movies, comic book media—that sort of thing—is what’s growing exponentially,” Abdo says. “I’m literally here. I came here a couple of months ago so I can build my studio and brand and bring an IP here. I have my own IP that I want to release in the Middle East to compete with Marvel, the Avengers and all that sort of stuff. I want to do that. I don’t know how to push it across the line here yet because I know the UAE, and especially Dubai, wants to build that sort of thing. I think it’s about having something clear on the table that we can do. I would love to be part of it on the foundation floor, and I’d love to help build it. So if they want to, I’m like, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Abdo’s plans align neatly with a post he put out in February this year where he shared an announcement that his “first chapter was about being part of worlds others created. Now it’s about building one of my own.” Accompanied by a short video detailing his whirlwind journey so far, Abdo noted that his sights are set on building a legacy much bigger than him and his art. “It’s not about just making visuals anymore,” he added in the caption. “It’s about building spaces. Creating platforms. Opening doors. Something bigger than me. I’m growing into the next purpose of my life and career.”

This new chapter, of course, comes at a time when Generative AI has trickled into creative industries. When asked about how he sees the effects of this advanced technology unfolding in the comics and illustrations space, Abdo offers advice befitting someone who has tasted the sweetness of the creative process all his life. “I don’t know how the world will be in five or ten years, but right now, there’s already this phrase: ‘made by humans for humans.’ If you’re passionate about it, you know what the right thing is to do. Generative AI is the line that we draw. When you look at an AI-generated image and you know it’s an AI-generated image, it has no feeling. Even if it’s trying to portray a feeling, it doesn’t have it.” 

“One day, we’ll have robots creating their own artwork. Let them have that. As humans, we’ve got to create with our hearts and our minds.”

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