Comic illustrates a woman’s correspondence with ABC News about her family’s struggle to endure the war: ‘Our bodies are no longer used to eating’

Besieged for more than a year by the Assad regime and its allies, the Syrian town of Madaya has existed in a virtual vacuum. Journalists have been unable to get in, residents have been unable to get out and only sporadic humanitarian aid has been able to reach the tens of thousands of people estimated to live there.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The cover of Madaya Mom. Illustration: Dalibor Talajić

When their cameras couldn’t enter the town, ABC News “had to get creative” to tell the story of those who live there, producer Rym Momtaz said.. The network used their sources in the country to find a woman in the city to chronicle the harsh conditions in a weeklong series of dispatches. But wanting to add a visual element to her story, they decided to create a comic book.



The result is Madaya Mom, a free digital comic created by ABC News and Marvel Comics (both owned by Disney), which was published on Monday. Illustrated by Dalibor Talajić, the comic tells the true story of the anonymous mother of five through illustrated panels and direct quotations from her as she and her family struggle to survive in the city. Her identity has been kept hidden for the family’s safety. ABC also created a companion classroom discussion guide on the comic and the conflict in Syria.

The city of Madaya has been under siege since July 2015, in conditions described as akin to an “open air prison”. In January, images of emaciated children and starved bodies in the city sparked international outrage. Dozens have starved to death since the siege began.

Last week, aid reached Madaya, but most of the UN’s convoys to other cities were blocked or delayed, denying essential supplies to millions. The aid that reached Madaya in September was the first to reach the city in months, according to the BBC.

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ABC began publishing dispatches from Madaya Mom in January as a way of letting her tell her story directly. Momtaz, a native Arabic speaker, communicated with her via text message and translated the messages between them, she told the Guardian.

Madaya Mom’s first published post described the family’s one meal of rice and bean soup.

“Our bodies are no longer used to eating, my children are hungry but are getting sick, severe stomach pains from the food because their bodies aren’t able to digest and absorb the food because they were hungry for so long,” she wrote. It became the caption on the first page of the comic.

Momtaz said that Dan Silver, executive producer for ABC News, first came up with the idea of using a comic book to tell the mother’s story. Marvel was “immediately sold” on the idea, Momtaz said, and so was Madaya Mom.

Danielsilver11 (@Danielsilver11) MADAYA MOM is one of the most personal and moving projects I've ever worked. Proud day for @ABC and @Marvel. https://t.co/hS1hggTdvM

“It was actually really heartening because she told me that she loved Spider-Man and she knew Marvel,” Momtaz said in an interview on Monday. “She could not believe that the people who were behind Spider-Man had any interest in her life and had heard of her.”

[Madaya Mom] could not believe that the people who were behind Spider-Man had any interest in her life Rym Momtaz

Comic books are often used to tell non-fiction or journalistic stories – something Momtaz said she took inspiration from – though Marvel is best known for its superhero stories.

“The fact of the matter is we’re much more than that,” Marvel’s editor-in-chief, Axel Alonso, who was once a journalist, said in a behind-the-scenes video put out by ABC. “We are not a genre, we are a medium. We are a way of storytelling. Marvel comic books span every genre known to man and why not journalism?”

In the video, Alonso, Momtaz and Talajić made the argument that Madaya Mom isn’t so different from the typical Marvel heroes. “Superheroes are not defined by their powers or their physique. Superhero is in the heart. Madaya Mom fits within this category because she finds strength to be human and unhardened,” Talajić said.

Talajić, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia and lived in the country as it was breaking up, was chosen as the artist because he would “bring a level of authenticity to the page because he is a survivor of war himself”, Alonso said. The artist said because of that connection, he “wouldn’t randomly invent endless explosions and everything but really try to capture the depression of it”.

In his drawings, Talajić said he intentionally tried to keep the perspective distant from the subjects to mirror the distance readers have from the situation in Syria. “I was hoping to help people realize that we really don’t care. This might, maybe, get someone to care,” he said.

Madaya Mom hasn’t yet seen the finished comic, as she’s having trouble with her internet, but Momtaz had shared some panels during the nine months of production. She doesn’t read much English, but Momtaz said there are plans to create a version of the comic in Arabic so that Madaya Mom and other Syrians can have access to it.

Momtaz said she spoke with a relative of Madaya Mom who does not live in the city and was able to read the comic. “Her relative told me that it made him sob. He was very touched by it,” Momtaz said.

“To quote him: I didn’t think that people actually cared.”