Q. How did this comic come about? What was the impetus for this effort? A. Making dreams into reality takes a special cause and a special team, not necessarily a lot of resources.

Mustafa Hasnain and Yahya Ehsan, who run the Creative Frontiers multimedia studio, were friends and colleagues with whom I really connected when it came to our passion for Pakistan. The tragedy of December 16 made it imperative to focus all our efforts on mobilising our people on one primary agenda: eradicating violent extremism. The use of storytelling through visual mediums such as animation, comic books or television shows seemed a natural choice, and given Pakistan`s smartphone explosion, we decided to create the Paasban series as a free, digitally-published graphic novel. As word spread about Paasban and people learned about what we were doing, we were lucky to find several talented, passionate and committed people to be part of our team, and the rest of the pieces seemed destined to fall into place.

Q. What is the utility of adapting comic books for educational purposes? A. As humans, our natural way of learning is through stories. We need to create our own narratives to negate the culture of violence, hatred and extremism that is breaking society into a hundred little pieces.

I am fortunate to have the great Amjad Islam Amjad to guide me on how to tell the Paasban story, shades of which will be felt in thousands of households acrossPakistan that have lost loved ones to violent extremism, either as victims or unwitting recruits. When we launch in June, we will be distributing 5,000 copies of all three issues in public schools in Punjab, and the comic will be available for free via the CFx Comics app anywhere in Pakistan. The immersive visual storytelling experience will both entertain and educate readers on the kinds of religious extremist narratives that lead to despair and destruction, and the medium will make it possible to even reach people who can`t read.

For the sake of Pakistan, we believe this story must be told, and we hope it will lead to many more.

Q. What are your plans for the future? A. The Umeed Jawaan campaign is currently supporting the Paasban series for the first several issues, but it will take a prevalence of stories such as these across different media, TV, radio, movies, music, etc.

to really make a mark. As a society, values of tolerance and a rejection of violence is a necessary first step to move past the precipice and start the process of rebuilding our nation. The Paasban series is a start, but from here we will be opening up our CFx Comic app and its unique storytelling platform to artists, animators and illustrators everywhere to use and share their own stories with an established readership. This will make it sustainable to produce freely available content on social issues like the Paasban series, and allow us to continue our struggle to create a strong and peaceful Pakistan.

By Hassan Belal Zaidi