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ART + STRATEGY + SCALE = IMPACT
HELVETIKA BOLD
SOCIAL JUSTICE SUPERHERO
We all know a few people who would actually benefit from being slapped in face by Reality, right? Well, here's a superhero just perfect for the job!
Imagine her as the love child of Angela Davis and Superman, or of Noam Chomsky and Wonderwoman, and you get the picture. She's ready to stand up for racial justice, and kick ass for the working class.
Helvetika Bold tells the story of a mild-mannered non-profit professional named Ariel Black, who deeply questions whether her work in the non-profit industry has any impact in the world, particularly when peope's minds seem locked into a way that keeps even facts and figures from penetrating. As it turns out there is in fact an actual supervillain named The Mindset who is doing just that – locking up people's minds with fear and paranoia – that makes conventional reasoning with them impossible. However, after a freak accident in which she becomes posessed by the spirits of an old underground printing press, Ariel becomes Helvetika and realizes she has newfound powers to challenge the dominant narrative, and set people's minds free.
I created the project with collaborator and friend Betsy Richards originally as part of a campaign to amplify the work of The Opportunity Agenda, which offers powerful messaging tools for shifting culture by speaking to our commonly held, underlying values. However, Helvetika as a character, brought to life through a comic book, animations and a series of short videos that have gone viral, has since taken on a life of her own. Embodied in the real world by the performer Robynne Laverne Wilson, aka Dragonfly, Helvetika Bold has become a kind of social justice mini-celebrity, making live appearances at numerous Comic Cons, political conferences across the US, and during street protests. She has even faced off against the Mindset in Times Square.
Check out her mini-comic below.