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A Ukrainian team has published an eco-comic about the effects of war on nature. The authors unofficially call it a controversial artwork. The comic has fifteen pages and is published in three languages. Its su– The story is taken from life and caused cognitive dissonance among the very first readers.
The eco-comic consists of six stories. All of them are about events that took place in Ukraine after 24 February 2022. The heroes of the cartoon are 15-year-old Yurko from Kyiv and his sister Myroslava, 7. The scripts for the comic were developed by the project's founder Natalia Yaroshenko and her partner Iryna Romanukha. The girls admit that they have long wanted to create a graphic story about the environment. That's why they chose a format that would make it easier to perceive a serious topic - a cartoon.
In the story, children flee from the war and try to find a safe place in the villages of the Kyiv region. During their journey, they find heartbreaking evidence of animal abuse by Russians in eco-parks and protected areas in Kharkiv, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
„The comic was a long time in the making. First, we chose the main themes, then we thought about the characters, i.e. some iconic ones for Ukraine.The children's resentment. Then, based on the analysis of the consequences of the hostilities, we chose the places that will be used to highlight each of the topics and imagined why and how the children ended up there, - says IraRomanukha, the comic's co-author. The most difficult thing for me personally was to squeeze into two pages of the comic all the damage that the war causes in a particular area, because the topics are very capacious, I want to show everything, and I also need to link it together, give the characters lines. That is, you don't just have to throw out facts.and make a coherent story out of it.”.
The comic was illustrated by Yaryna Katoroz. She spent six months creating it by hand, drawing with watercolours and liners. The illustrator says: „I didn't invent this style for the comic, I've been working in it for a long time. I like to combine the tenderness of watercolour with clear line graphics. I mostly illustrate books in this way, and create postcards and paintings in the same style. I wanted the comic to look nice, harmonious and attract attention. It was not always easy to focus on creating beauty because of the news. I drew some of the illustrations while sitting in the bathroom during air raids.“.
The authors hope that students studying in Ukraine who are interested in investigating ecocides will be interested in the comic. The project manager herself, NataFor more than a year, Yaroshenko has been conducting his researchThe research on population ecology in the city of Kassel (Germany)). The country is a leader in the number of implemented environmental projects, so, according to Natalia, we have a lot to learn.
„Germans love something new, and something new is a comic book. If we look purely at the painting, its graphic representationIt is attractive and attractive. It is bright, tactile andcapacious, positive, until you start to read into the essence. This is what causes cognitive dissonance and helps people think in a completely different way. And everything that makes people think is good for Ukraine.“, - Natalia says.
The author of the comic, Iryna Romanukha, emphasises that the comic is also an educational product. „Perhaps those who are not overit is interesting to hear about the pain and damage caused in the newswhether the Russian invaders will harm Ukrainians and Ukrainian nature, or whether those who are not interested in politics at all will pay attention to two children in the midst of the apocalypse of war“.
Daryna Lynnyk also talks about comics in the virtual space: „It's not difficult to find an audience. For all of us, the first priority is to fight Russia on all fronts, including, of course, the information front, so people and the media are happy to support us.“.
Reflecting on whether environmental protection is now important when people in Ukraine are defenceless, the authors of the eco-comic say: “Survival is a task for today, for the here and now, and caring for the environment is a look into the future, because this is what we pass on to the next generations. And what we pass on to them will determine whether humanity as a species will survive and what the quality of life of our descendants will be like.”.
The Malapropos is published in Ukrainian, English and German. It can be viewed atyou via the link in the profile header on the page @enwar_mental.
The comic book is part of the enWAR_mental project, which tells about the impact of wars in the 21st century, the experience of post-war recovery, and informs about Russian ecocides in Ukraine. You can join the project in theThe company's social media platform, Instagram.
The enWAR_mental project is supported byof the European Union within the framework of the EU Fellowship Programme for Civil Society LeadersThe Eastern Partnership countries.
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