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Geeks Care: How You Can Help Reading With Pictures and the UN’s Comics Uniting Nations Project

When Fanboy Comics is not providing you with the latest in geek news and entertainment, the FBC staff hopes to offer our readers a myriad of opportunities to give back to the community. We love reading comics, watching movies, and playing video games, but we are never happier than when we are able to help others in need. With Geeks Care: How You Can Help, FBC will provide you a variety of causes that would greatly appreciate your time.

In this week’s edition of Geek’s Care: How You Can Help, we want to shine a spotlight on the incredible effort being made by comic book creators worldwide to spread international awareness of the United Nations’ upcoming Global Goals for Sustainable Development. These goals will be set by world leaders in September 2015, acting as a “to-do list” for the planet and addressing our most pressing planetary issues, including extreme poverty, hunger, health, education, sustainable energy, inequality, the environment, and more.  Through the Comics Uniting Nations project, educational comics will be distributed worldwide, free of charge, under a Creative Commons license to empower people everywhere to become heroes for change in their own communities!  Led by Reading With Pictures, PCI Media ImpactPVBLIC Foundation, and Project Everyone (all non-profit organizations based in the US or the UK), in conjunction with the United Nations Post-2015 Development Planning Team, creative, academic, publishing, and technology partners from around the globe will be producing a series of informational comics tied to each of the seventeen Global Goals and then translated into eleven different languages by Translation by Design.  Given that this project is not being directly funded by the UN, all of these amazing organizations need your help to make this incredible venture a reality!

Comics Uniting Nations recently launched a Kickstarter campaign through Reading With Pictures to raise the $60,000 needed to make this tremendous effort a reality.  If successful, the funds raised will be used to retain the crew of seasoned editors, designers, and educational experts to oversee the project and bring it to fruition, pay a fair wage for the creation of at least four Goal-specific comics in eleven different languages, and develop additional single-page comics and posters featuring marquee comic characters by marquee comic talent. These will complement the 4 to 8-page Goal comics and add additional awareness through distribution online and in magazines and newspapers worldwide!

In addition, it should be noted that leaders in the comic book industry have partnered in the Comics Uniting Nations effort by promoting the campaign and generously donating a truly incredible variety of print and digital rewards.  These companies include Dark Horse Comics, Madefire, BOOM! Studios, IDW Publishing, Archie Comics, Dynamite, Oni Press, and more.

Reading With Pictures Founder Josh Elder knew that the Comics Uniting Nations project was a perfect fit for his organization.  “Reading With Pictures was founded on the belief that comics are a kind of universal visual language, one that’s ideal for communicating important concepts to diverse audiences. Concepts don’t get any more important than the Global Goals, and audiences don’t get any more diverse than the entirety of the human race,” said Elder.

If Comics Uniting Nations reaches its Kickstarter goal, the finished comics will be distributed free of charge in print and for digital view and download from mobile platforms (including ComiXology and Humble Bundle) and directly through schools, libraries, and NGOs.  The comics will also be one of the central pieces of learning content distributed via The World’s Largest Lesson, an educational initiative that aims to teach children about the Global Goals through lessons and assemblies delivered in schools around the world.

Everyone here at Fanboy Comics wishes the best of luck to Reading With Pictures and everyone involved in the Comics Uniting Nations campaign and their endeavor to bring greater humanitarian awareness to readers worldwide.

 


If you have a volunteer opportunity or an important cause that could use the assistance of a few geeks, please email the details to barbra (at) fanboycomics.net.

Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief

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