Formation | June 2021 |
---|---|
Type | Charity |
Founder | Paul Goodenough |
Website | rewritingextinction |
Rewriting Extinction is a charity [1] that raises awareness for both the climate and the biodiversity crisis through comics, videos and other media. It originally ran as a 12-month charitable campaign, where the money was donated to seven specific projects that tackled biodiversity issues with the goal of solving them within the twelve months of the campaign. After the success of the campaign, Rewriting Extinction formed a charity that continues to make media focused on climate change and the biodiversity crisis.
Rewriting Extinction was founded by Emmy nominated writer and producer Paul Goodenough in 2019 and the campaign was officially launched in June 2021. It is targeting the wider population with comics, videos and the help of over 300 storytellers and celebrities such as Cara Delevingne, Richard Curtis, Ricky Gervais and Taika Waititi. [2] [3] The campaign is accompanied by the book The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World which was released on October 28, 2021, by DK. It includes 120 stories and comics about the climate and the biodiversity crisis from over 300 contributors including leading environmentalists, artists, authors, actors, filmmakers, musicians, drag performers and more. [4] [3] Although the book is not targeted at children, it was listed amongst the best books of 2021 for children by the Sunday Times. [5]
Some comics from the book are being published on social media on an ongoing basis and translated into multiple languages. [6] [7] Since the release, additional comic strips are being created and released on a regular basis. Authors include The Perry Bible Fellowship, Joel Pett, Drew Sheneman and War and Peas.
A variety of organizations support the campaign's work, including Global Rewilding Alliance, Make My Money Matter, Born Free Foundation and Sea Shepherd.
In addition to social media, the comics are also featured on Webtoon [8] and in a virtual gallery by Google Arts & Culture. [9]
With the money raised, the campaign helped the World Land Trust to purchase the Laguna Grande Reserve in Guatemala. [10]
The stories in the book were created by comic artists in a collaboration with celebrities and environmental activists, including:
Comic Relief is a British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Sir Lenny Henry in response to the 1983-1985 famine in Ethiopia. The concept of Comic Relief was to get British comedians to make the public laugh, while raising money to help people around the world and in the United Kingdom. A new CEO, Samir Patel, was announced in January 2021.
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis is a British screenwriter, producer and director. One of Britain's most successful comedy screenwriters, he is known primarily for romantic comedy films, among them Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Love Actually (2003), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), About Time (2013), and Yesterday (2019). He is also known for the drama War Horse (2011) and for having co-written the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and The Vicar of Dibley. His early career saw him write material for the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News and ITV's Spitting Image.
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Rupert Read is an academic and a Green Party campaigner, a former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, and the current director of the Climate Majority Project. He is the author of several books on Wittgenstein, philosophy, and/or climate change, most recently Why Climate Breakdown Matters, Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos, and Do You Want to Know the Truth? Until 2023, Read was a reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia where he was awarded – as Principal Investigator – Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding for two projects on "natural capital". His other major recent academic focus has been on the precautionary principle, having contributed substantially to work co-authored with Nassim Nicholas Taleb on applying the principle to questions of genetic modification of organisms. In further work, Read has theorised the utility of the precautionary principle in a wide range of areas, including: climate change, the environment, as well as financial and technology sectors.
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Matthew Robinson is an American author, screenwriter, film director, actor, television writer, film producer, and podcaster. He came to prominence by writing and directing the film The Invention of Lying (2009) in collaboration with the English comedian Ricky Gervais.
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The history of webcomics follows the advances of technology, art, and business of comics on the Internet. The first comics were shared through the Internet in the mid-1980s. Some early webcomics were derivatives from print comics, but when the World Wide Web became widely popular in the mid-1990s, more people started creating comics exclusively for this medium. By the year 2000, various webcomic creators were financially successful and webcomics became more artistically recognized.
WEBTOON is an American-South Korean webtoon platform launched in 2004 by Naver Corporation, providing hosting for webtoons and compact digital comics. The platform, controlled by Naver and the Naver-SoftBank Group joint venture LY Corporation through a Delaware-domiciled, Los Angeles, California-headquartered holding company WEBTOON Entertainment Inc., is free and can be found both on the web at Webtoons.com and on mobile devices available for both Android and iOS.
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