EARTH LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL, IN ITS TRADITION OF INNOVATION AND PROGRESSIVENESS, LAUNCHED A NEW AND EXCITING PROJECT – GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS DESIGNED TO SPARK MORE AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE COMPLEX WORLD OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND WILDLIFE CRIME.

In the spirit of the writing of John Le Carre and comic art of Joe Sacco, ELI’s graphic novels and comics will depict the organization’s covert missions, and the actions of ELI’s investigative teams, to expose the underbelly of the world’s wildlife criminal networks in a medium combining crime thrillers and comics journalism through a unique environmental lens.

ELI believes it is important to revise the current, outdated narrative around environmental and wildlife crime, currently focused on poachers and end consumers, with a more modern, fact-based narrative that highlights the most important elements of these crimes – the international traffickers, kingpins, organized crime networks, and corrupt government officials. Given the nature of ELI’s work, which is heavily based on intelligence gathering, investigations and undercover operations, graphic novels and comics will be able to show the public exactly what ELI’s teams are doing, and how, without jeopardizing field operations and the safety of ELI team members.

This project is in collaboration with a talented young artist, a student at Harvard University, Ava Salzman (co-creator and illustrator), with the support of ELI’s director Andrea Crosta (co-creator).

We closed a partnership with the well-known Dutch website ‘Drawing the Times’ dedicated to graphic journalism to be able to show our comics to a wider audience.