Comic Creators Alliance 2010!
9th January 2010
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead
Last years charity art auction for The Point Foundation was a resounding success and I’m incredibly glad and honoured to have been asked to participate (even though Fera was still quite young at the time).
As 2010 begins myself and several other webcomic artists, led by Lora Innes, are participating in a project called “The Comic Creator’s Alliance” the plan is to create a wallpaper with images of female characters from a wide variety of webcomics in order to promote “National Human Trafficking Awareness Day” on 11th January. With the combined fans of the comics involved it’s hoped that we’ll be able to raise not only awareness but donations that will go to deserving charities involved in rescuing victims of Human Trafficking and the after care involved in such work.
Fera is in good company as artists such as Lar De Souza, Danielle Corsetto, Alan Evans, Rose Loughran, Peter Vine, Taversia, Jessica Cantlope, Scott Austin, Pam Harrison, Byron Wilkins, Dave Reynolds & David A. Rodriguez, J. Gray & Keith Wood, Barry Link, Emy Bitner… all in all there are currently 84 participants (the original goal was only to have 50).
For more details about the project go to the main website by clicking this link and check out some of the amazing artwork that has been submitted.
Fera is currently participating in a charity event formed by Lora Innes of The Dreamer. The event is called the “Comic Creator’s Alliance” and includes many well known names from the webcomic community. The event is to help raise money and awareness for a very important cause- that of Human Trafficking. There are many people affected by this- more than we’d like to think and as such there are charities that desperately need your help to make a difference to those lives.
On a personal note, I’m both proud and humbled to be able to participate in this event and might I point out that Lora has managed to do a fantastic job of getting an amazing 85 artists involved in this project. Considering her original goal was perhaps to get 50 artists interested, this is a massive achievement (and of course actually getting those artists to produce the artwork is a colossal task in itself).
Now, where was I… oh yes- these artists all provided artwork featuring female characters from their comics (including Fera) which has now been combined into one epic wallpaper with all of your favourite characters. This wallpaper will be released as a thankyou to all of those who donate on the Comic Creator’s Alliance charity donation drive with funds going to two organizations working on rehabilitation of victims and prevention of this terrible crime.
I’d like to finish this blog with a message from Lora herself, describing the project and giving you all links to see it for yourself:
Monday, January 11th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. To participate, we formed the Comic Creator’s Alliance–a group of over eighty comic book creators (both web and print) who volunteered our artistic talents to raise money and awareness for this cause. You may not know it, but there are currently 27 million enslaved people worldwide- more than double the number of enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children every year are sold into slavery, most of it sexual. The US Department of Justice estimates 16,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the United States every year. Unlike slavery in the 19th century, what is happening today is happening in secret. So it won’t end until awareness is raised, and people like you and me take a stand.
So here’s what we did: each creator contributed an original drawing of one of our own female characters, and combined them into a single wallpaper image. The wallpaper features characters from The Phoenix Requiem, Girls with Slingshots, Earthsong, Looking for Group, Shadowgirls, Marsh Rocket, The Uniques and three IDW Publishing titles: Fallen Angel, The Dreamland ChroniclesThe Dreamer, and lots, lots more! Donate today to download this unique, once-in-a-lifetime wallpaper. The Donations Drive will last for two weeks, from January 11th – 24th. All proceeds will be split evenly between Love146 and Gracehaven House– two organizations working on rehabilitation of victims and prevention of this crime. and
To learn more about the Comic Creator’s Alliance visit www.comicalliance.weebly.com. To learn more about the problem, visit http://love146.org/slavery. (Note: contains adult themes and actual accounts of sex slavery.)
<insert pic – cca 2010 banner>
(http://comicalliance.weebly.com/)
UPDATE (17/02/2010): the Comic Creator’s Alliance managed to raise an amazing $10,000 thanks to every ones efforts- an amazing achievement for many reasons. That cash will go towards two very worthwhile organisations to help victims of human trafficking.