Comic Creators Alliance is Live!

“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

I’m really proud to kick of the Comic Creators Alliance again today, raising money & awareness for National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. The Comic Creators Alliance is a group of over 100 comic book creators (both web and print!) who all contributed art that was assembled into a single image to raise money and awareness for this cause.

I got the idea for the CCA last year when I was at a seminar on Human Trafficking in Ohio.  For a few months I didn’t do anything with the idea until a young girl I was mentoring at a public school just a few miles from my house was nearly abducted for this very reason. (You can read the full story here.) The idea to do something came back to me, but I realized that if I could enlist a few of my fellow comic-creator friends, we could raise more money together.  I sent an email to 8 friends and received a unanimous ‘yes!’ from all of them. They asked their friends. And we all blogged about it. It grew from there. 87 creators enlisted, and together we raised $10,000.

And then people started asking me if we’d do it again. So here we are. 111 creators signed up this year. I think the true beauty of CCA is that everyone can participate–from the  young artist just starting out with their first webcomic to the seasoned Harvey Award winning creator! There are guys on this year’s list who have been making comics professionally longer than some of the other participants have been alive.  But we all have influence, great or small.  And I’m grateful for these folks realizing that, and choosing to use it for this worthy 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. Unlike slavery in the 19th century, what is happening today is happening in secret. It won’t end until awareness is raised, and people like you and me take a stand.

I think that we history buffs should all be activists. As historians, we look back on the past and judge it–but one day someone else will be doing that to us. So who will we be in their estimation? The complacent masses that let slavery go on right under our noses or will we be the William Wilberforces of our day? I vote for the latter, and I hope you join me!

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 image. This year’s theme was “The Brady Bunch.” Some of the fan favorite creators are: Scott Sava (The Dreamland Chronicles), Adam Hughes (Star Wars, Wonder Woman), Sarah Ellerton (Inverloch), Bryan Glass & Victor Santos (Mice Templar), Beau Smith (Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars), Billy Tucci (Shi), Mookie (Dominic Deegan), Crystal Yates (Earthsong), Thom Zahler (Love and Capes), and Alison Action (Bear Nuts). View the full listing of contributors here.

Donate today to download this unique, once-in-a-lifetime wallpaper. Or, this year you can also buy a print! The Donations Drive will last for two weeks, from January 11th – 24th. All proceeds will be split evenly between Love 146 and Gracehaven House- two organizations working on rehabilitation of victims and prevention of this crime.

To donate 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.)

I did two squares this year–one for The Dreamer, and one for Beau Smith’s Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars!

C’mon, let’s do it again this year!