Burnt Toast and the rest of the Doodles team have announced their upcoming acquisition of Golden Wolf, an animation studio with offices in New York City and London. While details are sparse and the team has only stated that they will buy the studio, the move is generating a lot of interest in the NFT community because of the studio’s success with Rick and Morty and other Emmy-nominated works.  

The acquisition

The Doodles team claims that the acquisition of Golden Wolf will help grow the Doodles brand with innovative storytelling. As one of the original collections from the 2021 bull run, Doodles runs entirely off of its brand and artwork unlike NFTs from early 2022 that were built on the concept of utility. 

By leveraging the experience at Golden Wolf, Doodles plans to build out more character development to expand a lore and a universe capable of matching the high bar set by their colorful artwork which stands out as some of the best in NFTs and web3.

Doodles will also use Golden Wolf’s network to launch additional projects. Psyop, a creative studio, will be collaborating with Golden Wolf under Doodles’ leadership to create Active Ingredient as a way to develop new forms of storytelling through the use of blockchains and AI technology.

Doodles in 2022-2023

Despite the excitement caused by Doodles’ new animation studio, there are still concerns surrounding the collection and how it can grow from here. 2022 was largely a bad year for NFTs, and Doodles barely survived with its community intact. 

As stated before, the Doodles collection first gained recognition based on its artwork alone before utilities were considered a necessary component for NFT projects. This in turn created a project that struggled to maintain hype and relevance in a growing environment of degen activity that dominated the summer of 2022. 

Moreover, the team behind Doodles has been intensely testing the patience of their community. Dooplicator and Doodles 2 have been seemingly “coming soon” for months now. Hopefully, with Golden Wolf’s addition to the team, the wait won’t be much longer. 

Art Gobblers and Justin Roiland

It is interesting though that Doodles targeted an animation studio that has worked with Rick and Morty in the past because we’ve seen a number of collections inspired by the hit television show, as well as Art Gobblers which was run by Justin Roiland himself. 

Art Gobblers at its peak had a strong influence over the NFT market in Q4 of 2022 with a floor price that rivaled Doodles. However, the collection has since dropped in value to about 1.5 Ether and is no longer a major collection.

Further, Roiland has found himself in some serious legal troubles after being charged with felony domestic battery and false imprisonment this month. Obviously, this is going to have a major impact on the production of Rick and Morty (which was already slow), freeing up time for Golden Wolf to focus on their new work with Doodles.