Madaya Mom is a new digital comic being released today by
ABC News and
Marvel Comics. The comic will be free to download and will give readers insight into the life of a mother living in Madaya, Syria, under the harsh conditions brought about by cruel conflicts in the region.
The comic will be influenced by “
Syria Starving: A Family’s Fight for Survival,” a series of blog posts started in January 2016 by ABC News regarding an unnamed woman, whose identity has been shrouded in secret at her own request. Dan Silver (who is the executive producer of ABC News Digital) said he wondered how the story could be told visually, and that’s where Marvel had been strategically brought in.
“There was something hyper-specific and very emotional about this,” said Silver.
“(The Mother) agreed to speak with ABC because she wanted her story – and the story of her neighbors -- to be known; however, with no visuals coming out of Madaya, our team spent a considerable amount of time imagining the ways we could illustrate her powerful journey,”
Marvel had Xana O’Neill, the managing editor of ABC News Digital, and producer Rym Momtaz pair up with the artist Dalibor Talajic to construct and develop the story. The hopeful end product would be a comic book that is like a series of graphic and honest snapshots from the besieged region, with the horrifying images of a daily life filled with strife and suffering, only for the odd moment of distraction that the Madaya Mom and her kids live for.
"I hoped the comic format would help the story reach an audience that’s not necessarily following news of the conflict, which is in its fifth year," Momtaz said.
Additional materials for the comic stream include:
a discussion guide for teachers, two short documentaries about how the project came about and a profile on Mr. Talajic, the Croatian artist who drew the comic and who lived through the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991.
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