IF you’re going to call a book, ‘The Most Important Comic Book on Earth’ then you have a lot to live up to.
But Westbury writer, Paul Goodenough, has delivered in style with his book which has become an Amazon best seller and helped raise over £1.5million for environmental charities.
“The book is a collection of stories from celebrities, comedians, actors, politicians and musicians all about saving the world,” said Paul. “The stories have been turned into amazing comics and cartoons by some of the world’s leading illustrators.”
Contributors include Sir Lenny Henry, Ricky Gervais, Cara Delevingne, Dame Judi Dench, Peter Gabriel, Chris Packham, Judge Rob Rinder and many more.
“The idea was to tell stories about saving the world in a simple way using comics,” he said. “It’s such a powerful way to engage with people.”
The book is part of charity campaign called Rewriting Extinction, founded by Paul, which has reached over 150million people worldwide via social media.
“Online, we’ve introduced environment issues to millions of people who have never engaged before,” said Paul. “Through these stories, we aim to raise money and awareness and help save as many species from extinction as humanly possible.”
Working with charities including Greenpeace, Born Free, World Land Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, Reserva YLT, Rewilding Europe and Re:wild, the project has already seen some notable successes, helping to repair ecosystems across the planet, and in doing so, help stop hundreds of species from going extinct.
Paul is a multi-award-winning, double Emmy-nominated writer and producer who lives in Heywood. He is donating all his author royalties to Rewriting Extinction, with each charity receiving a donation to help their work.
“The book was listed as one of the books of the year by the Sunday Times and telling so many incredible stories about how to save the world makes it entirely unique,” added Paul.
“Social media is where we’ve had the biggest impact; we’ve had people from all over the world saying it’s helped them understand some of the big issues and persuaded them to get involved.
“We ran a petition for Greenpeace about bycatch – the incidental capture of a staggering amount of marine life like dolphins, turtles and seabirds in the world’s oceans – and it crashed their website, it had such a big reaction.
Paul founded the Aerian Studios in Box over 20 years ago which created digital campaigns and websites for blue-chip clients worldwide, including the BBC, CNN and Warner Brothers. He went on to write for TV and films – receiving two Emmy nominations – before combining this with his love of comics and concern over the environment, to set up Rewriting Extinction.
“At Rewriting Extinction, we tell people what they can do to help restore the planet,” he added. “It’s astounding the number of people who message us to say they’ve been moved into planting wildflowers, picking litter, changing eating habits and so much more – all from reading our comics, either in the book or online.
“Through comics – and with the help of over 300 leading celebrities, environmentalists and artists, we reach the audiences traditional environmentalism cannot.”
For more details or to buy a copy of the The Most Important Comic Book on Earth, visit https://rewritingextinction.com
