Hollaback Street Harassment Comic Book

Catcalls, creepy staring, kissing noises, hissing, following… if you haven’t personally experienced it, you’ve probably seen it happening. Ugh.


Meet Red, Yellow, and Blue, the stars of our comic book. Red and Yellow are girls who get harassed and have to figure out how to deal with it. Blue is Red’s boyfriend, and he has seen other dudes harass girls but doesn’t realize the impact, or that he can help, until Red fills him in.


Here's a sneak peak of pages from each section of the book:






















We are excited to be working on this project, which will be used for educational workshops on street harassment against women and LGBT folks and bystander intervention.


The book will be 24 full-color pages, created by artist Erin Filson, with input from HollabackPHILLY activists Rochelle Keyhan and Anna Kegler. We will also be creating an online, interactive comic (choose your own adventure!), and making the comic book available for sale as an e-book.



Who we are


Rochelle and Anna work with HollabackPHILLY, the Philadelphia branch of the global anti-street harassment Hollaback! network to plan events and projects that raise awareness of the problem of street harassment (check out our website to see what we’re up to). Rochelle has been passionate about street harassment issues for a long time, and serves on the Board of Directors for the main Hollaback! organization. Anna loves thinking about creative and effective ways to get the word out, and Erin is a brilliant Philadelphia artist and creator of the Ranger Elf comic. She was recently spotlighted by the ActionStudioWorks blog with a great interview. All three of us love it when smart people kick butt and stand up for each other.


Why support us?


By supporting our effort, you are supporting a global educational effort with a proven track record. Comic books are used by the United Nations and other organizations as best practices for youth education on tough issues. Street harassment is a tricky thing to talk about, and it starts young. Yep. Nobody likes to think about 10-year-old girls being sexually harassed on their way to school, but for a lot of kids, it’s a reality. We want to use this comic book to start the discussion through educational workshops in local schools and communities. Lucky for us, we already have a built-in global Hollaback! network (62 cities and 25 countries) and many, many more allies in other anti-street harassment organizations around the world to help with translation and distribution, so this won't just be a Philadelphia effort. It will be a global effort.


Our goal is to spread the word that street harassment is not okay. It’s not a compliment, and it’s not something to be taken lightly. Street harassment affects women and girls, and can be particularly violent when directed towards members of the LGBT community. Not only can it have serious effects on people’s self-esteem and sense of safety, but it also says something big about who we are as a culture: if we accept street harassment, that means we accept the objectification of women, gender-policing, and gender-based violence. We can do better! The first step is to start talking about it. The comic book, and especially the choose your own adventure computer based version, will help youth think through this difficult issue in an accessible way. Your support will help make that conversation happen.


Women and Comic Books


There’s another big reason you should get behind our project. For many years, the world of comic books and gaming was boys-only, no- girls-allowed. This is changing - slowly - and every effort towards expanding the culture makes a difference. We are part of a growing movement to support talented female comic book artists, strong female comic book characters, and the community of women and girls who love comics.


By donating to our project, you are helping to chip away at sexism in two places - on the streets, and in the world of comics. Throughout our campaign, we will be posting interesting Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest updates on women in the field of comics and gaming, as well as highlighting activists we admire, such as Anita Sarkeesian, media critic and creator of Feminist Frequency. Stay tuned!


Budget


We have had an incredible amount of in-kind support on this comic book, from Erin Filson donating her superior artist skills, to numerous people volunteering their time to translate the final comic book into Spanish, Farsi, German, Romanian, French, Hebrew, Korean and hopefully more as the campaign progresses, to Rochelle and Anna hard at work on publicity, publishing, and fundraising. Now we need your help to bring the comic to life! Our goal is to raise $5,000. In addition to an initial publishing cost of $4,000 (2,000 copies) and setting up a table with merchandise at Philadelphia's Comic Book Convention ($500), we will be using the funds for the following:


Shipping our books to Hollaback! branches in 62 cities and 25 countries around the world, and working with those branches to translate the comic
Funding educational workshops to teach youth about street harassment Developing an online, interactive version of the comic (choose your own adventure style!)
Making copies of the book available at local and online comic book stores as a woman-centered and created book, to provide more options for an inclusive and empowered comic book world

If we raise more than the requested $5,016, we will be able to:
If we get to $6,516 we will take this comic book to Comic Con 2014 in San Diego, and represent women creators of women and LGBT focused comics in a setting where that sort of discussion isn't as common
If we raise $7,500 we will be able to afford developing and providing a platform to share our comic book and the corresponding workshop curriculum with educators outside the Hollaback! network, and expand the reach of this effort
If we raise anything beyond $7,500, we will be able to further promote the comic book and online version at comic book stores and conventions to increase visibility and help break down sexism in the comic book world


Any funds that we receive from selling the comic book in stores and online will go directly towards our mission of creating more educational workshops, and expanding that curriculum beyond just the 2013-2014 school year, as is currently planned and budgeted for.




When will the book be done?


We plan to publish it in Summer 2013. Stay tuned to our Twitter and Facebook pages, and sign up for our mailing list, because we will keep you updated with all of the major milestones along the way.


Reward Levels!


For every donation, beyond the warm and fuzzy feeling you'll get for supporting the global anti-street harassment movement, and a more inclusive gaming and comics community, you'll get swag too! Check out the Rewards Levels buttons below our video on this page for the different swag options!


How you can help


Any amount you can give is sincerely appreciated, since even the smallest amount will help us make this comic book. If you’re strapped for cash, we completely understand and would be very grateful if you could help by doing any of the following:

Personally contact (email, text, call, Facebook message) 2-3 friends who you think might give $5 or more to our project.
Post about our project on your Facebook page.
Follow HollabackPHILLY on Facebook and Twitter for updates and share/retweet.
Sign up for our mailing list for more updates.
If you can refer us to anyone who can help, we’d love all the help we can get!
If you can offer an in-kind service or discount in the form of printing/shipping costs, supplies, translation, web-design, etc. please let us know.
If you could help us get press for our project (newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc.) we would be most grateful!

Thank you so much for your support!



-Rochelle, Anna, & Erin