Ryan Lessard, writer and creator of the “Sentinel” comic book series, at the 2023 Granite State Comic Con in Manchester. (Courtesy photo)
Communications professional Ryan Lessard, of Manchester, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a sci-fi adventure comic series with themes that touch on immigration/citizenship, democracy and the need for a free press to combat misinformation.
Lessard began writing the series in 2012 when he noticed the political discourse rocking the U.S.
“When I worked as a journalist for 10 years, I saw it as my civic duty to combat lies with facts, to report the truth with fairness, and to disinfect our toxic politics with indiscriminating sunlight,” he told NH Business Review in an email. “Telling the story of Saras Vedi, an alien journalist working for a futuristic news agency, I wanted to … present a morality play of our modern anxieties with metaphor, while also giving a positive representation to a journalist and a refugee trying to earn her citizenship.”
With Lessard at the helm of the series with a writing credit, he also collaborated with international and domestic artists — including Javi Laparra, a colorist from Guatemala; Luiz Zavala, a colorist from Mexico; and Adam Wollet, a letterer from Florida — to bring the story of “Sentinel” to life.
“Too often, journalists are represented in various media as unscrupulous vultures, and that stereotype has seriously hurt the public trust in the free press,” Lessard wrote. “I also wanted to show what it is like for some refugees and immigrants who are seeking asylum or citizenship in a land that is foreign to them because they’re escaping dire and dangerous circumstances — a fact often lost in the public discourse around immigration in the U.S.”
Lessard’s Kickstarter campaign is running through October 17 with a goal of $5,000 to help fund issues one through four of the series, which includes printing fees and artist payments.
With the advice and assistance of other New Hampshire natives — including comic book artist Ben Bishop, Grind Rail Trail café owner Melanie Davis, and Keating Tufts of Manchester’s Boards and Brews — Lessard was able to learn from their various business ventures to start one of his own, albeit on a more fictional level.
“A story needs to not only entertain and delight, but it must say something instructive about how we as humans can create a more just world,” Lessard said. “I also think the process of creating art need not always be for an audience … It should serve the artist as a means of self-actualization and a way to derive joy from existence. To illustrate this philosophy, I offer a quote by my favorite author Kurt Vonnegut: ‘Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.’”
Learn more or contribute to Lessard’s work by visiting kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlessard/sentinel-1-4.
