Planet DIVOC-91

Planet DIVOC-91 is an online comic series empowering young adults to make sense of the challenges from the pandemic.

The series is co-created by international graphic artists, young people and top experts from a wide range of disciplines. It follows two earthlings - Sanda Oung, a 23 year old girl from the UK, and Champo, Sanda’s younger sibling - who are transported from a disaster-stricken Earth to safety on a planet called DIVOC-91, and must navigate the new normal of life far from home.

Hood, Alma and Noah, who are young adults from the DIVOC-91 creative team, spoke at Independent SAGE (15 January 2021) about the project and their pandemic struggles:

DIVOC-91 is led by Dr Bella Starling, Director of Vocal at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Sara Kenney, Creative Director at Wowbagger Productions, in association with the Academy of Medical Sciences. The project was launched with the support of Sir Patrick Vallance FMedSci, who was interviewed for the debut chapter.

Throughout the project, the Academy has connected young adults working on the comic directly with our Fellows and grant awardees, including Sir Patrick Vallance FMedSci, Professor Ian Goodyer FMedSci, Dr Zania Stamataki and more. For more information, see their interviews on Webtoon. 

The story has been designed by leading comic creators including Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard, the UK Comics Laureate Hannah Berry and Scotland Yardie writer Bobby Joseph. There will be nine issues of the comic, each developed by a different creative team, and released on the platform Webtoon. Each episode is accompanied by short articles, video links and COVID-19 art created by an editorial team of 16-24 year olds from UK, India and South Africa. They also contain exclusive music mixes from DJs and producers to bring the work to life.

Explore the full Planet DIVOC-91 comic on the dedicated website.

Follow Planet DIVOC-91 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for updates and new issues, and find out more about Academy public engagement on our dedicated web page.