Can comic books save the world? The Global Kid certainly thinks so. NYU professor and author Dr Maha Hosain Aziz drew the five-time award-winning political comic book The Global Kid in 2016 to teach tweens and teens about our global challenges. Five years later, and in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, she has formed a partnership with award-winning, London-based VR edtech startup Musemio and Rome-based contributor AR Market to create the world’s first VR/AR political comic book. The Global Kid (2021) teaches tween readers about the major geopolitical, political, economic and social challenges we face today and encourages them to consider their role in shaping our post-pandemic world. This submission offers a few sample pages from both the new version and the 2016 comic book. It highlights a key political challenge we will continue to face in the 2020s – a global crisis of political legitimacy, as more frustrated citizens protest against their governments. Could we be headed for a global spring – or is it finally time to create a new social contract for the 21st century?

Websites: www.theglobalkid.org, www.futureworldorder.org, https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmahahosainaziz/

Submitted by Dr Maha Hosain Aziz (maha.aziz@nyu.edu), author of FUTURE WORLD ORDER (2020), its sequel A GLOBAL SPRING: Navigating a Post-Pandemic World (2021) and THE GLOBAL KID (2016 & 2021) political comic books