I worked with over 300 creators & celebs to make a book, and it nearly killed me.

by Paul Goodenough

Look, I know, it’s a big title and a bit clickbait-ey - but sadly it’s entirely true. Between 2020 and 2021 I created a comic book anthology called THE MOST IMPORTANT COMIC BOOK ON EARTH (the joke being that it’s the most important comic book on the subject of Earth) and well… it was both the best and worst thing I’ve ever done in my life… And hopefully by sharing my story, I can either arm you all to do things better, or just caution you never to try it yourselves and save a whole lotta pain. 

Either way, here we go…

The first question I’m always asked is, “How did you get so many celebrities to agree to do this?” - and the answer is simple on the surface, and really f**king hard deeper down. The simple answer is, ‘they wanted to do it and they’re bloody great.’ 

The longer answer is… I sent over 22,000 emails and spent well over 2,000 hours on video calls and I put my entire life on hold. I woke up in the night in sweats, I regularly forgot to eat for 12 hour+ stretches, I lost friendships, I stopped all my hobbies, I lost money (a bloody lot of it) and I basically put everything second to making this book happen. But even given all this, I was lucky. 

I was lucky that some special people unlocked access to other special people. The project wouldn’t have been possible without standing on the shoulders of giants - people who celebs and named talent respected and trusted. Specifically, I’ll forever be in the debt of Dominic Monaghan, Richard Curtis, Jane Goodall, Cara Delevingne, Sir Ian McKellen, the charities we worked with and the incredible Will Dennis and my writing partner, Sarah Florence Lord. And what I did, and have always continued to do, is make sure that everyone in the process enjoys it and isn’t ‘used.’ For example, a lot of charities and people tend to approach creators and celebs and try and convince them to care about their issue, rather than just ask what they care about. If you ever want to do anything similar to what I’ve done, just put yourself in their shoes… Most global figures have stated multiple times the things that sit deeply within their heart - and if you can’t be bothered to research that, or just ask them (and listen when they tell you!) then you don’t deserve to be working with them and you’re not truly after a collaboration - you’re just trying to use them. Shame on you. 

So, I can almost hear you all say, ‘well that’s lovely, but HOW did you do it? You’ve still not answered that yet’ I hear you crow. 

The first thing I did was work with some comic folks I knew and respected, and we made some early comics that exemplified what we wanted to do, and how we wanted to simplify environmental and animal issues into emotionally engaging, quick to read and imaginative stories. Specifically, I used THE TALK from Nicholas Gurewitch/The Perry Bible Fellowship regularly to describe my vision.

This and a few comics by Jenny Jinya were my calling card - “Hey, you wanna make something like this… oh and all the proceeds help save animals from extinction…” was basically what I sent in those 22,000 emails I mentioned earlier. It was short, sharp, concise and clear. And over 300 said yes.

That, of course, was when the problems really began… because each new collaboration brought with it headaches and extra work. Each ‘celeb’ was paired with me and a creative team and an environmental expert - and then we got to work creating comics… over 200 in fact (*shudders*). 

It was glorious. It was terrifying. But mostly… it was HARD. As hard as managing over 300 people and 125 separate collaborations across every timezone on earth during the devastation of Covid and lockdown sounds. 

But as an output, and with incredible thanks to World Land Trust, there’s a (big) corner of the world that’s been purchased from the proceeds, scores of animals that are alive specifically because of the work (625+ species) and we also a Sunday Times Book of the Year and an Amazon bestseller to boot, and the German edition is about to drop… 

But even given all that, I’d never do it again.

Never. 

Probably. 

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Paul Goodenough is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning writer, author, producer, entrepreneur and environmentalist – working across broadcast, comics, digital, games and publishing.

Paul is also the founder of Rewriting Extinction, a global storytelling project uniting 300 activists, celebrities, scientists, comedians and more across the planet to create stories to raise the money and awareness to save multiple species from extinction.

Paul is a notable collaborator, co-writing and producing stories with creators including Taika Waititi, Cara Delevingne, Adam McKay, Idris Elba, Richard Curtis, Ricky Gervais and over 300 more.

He’s also a best-selling author in his own right with credits including the Sunday Times Book of the Year: The Most Important Comic Book On Earth, Sherlock Holmes, 2000ad, Doctor Who, How To Train Your Dragon alongside a host of writing for international comedians.

Paul is also the designer and founding member of BAFTA Albert (calculator and sustainability accreditation used by Netflix, NBC Universal, Warner Bros, BBC, IMG, Sky etc).