“Heroic team of rebels” take on all-powerful PhoneCorp
CHATHAM, Ont. — Independent ISP TekSavvy today launched its first-ever comic book, The Intrepid Savvies, featuring “a heroic team of rebels living in a dark future ruled by one all-powerful company: PhoneCorp,” says a blog post by Peter Nowak, TekSavvy’s vice-president of insight and engagement.
“In this dystopia, PhoneCorp runs the government and has the population living in fear of crippling overage charges. The Savvies learn the secret of how this came to be and enact a plan to set things right,” Nowak writes.
The comic book features artwork from Toronto’s RAID Studio, and characters including Derby Grrrl, Jim Bro, Sue Permom, Gene Yus and Curm Udgeon battling PhoneCorp and the evil Lord Vlad.
Acknowledging the comic book’s scenario is “an exaggeration”, Nowak says “the story reflects a real and significant shift over the past few years in Canada’s telecommunications industry toward fewer companies consolidating their market power and influence over decision-making processes.”
Calling the story “a cautionary tale”, Nowak says the dangers of the shift he describes include “less choice for consumers, higher prices, more control and even potential surveillance by service providers.”
He adds: “Competition is nearly dead because elected officials and regulators don’t appear to be listening to smaller providers or consumers when we try to get our message to them via traditional means. That’s why we’re trying something different.”
TekSavvy has mailed a copy of The Intrepid Savvies to every Member of Parliament, as well as to regulators and key members of the bureaucracy in Ottawa, Nowak says.
“We hope that, in the truest spirit of visual storytelling, our fictional comic makes them aware of the very real crisis unfolding in front of them,” he writes.
A digital copy of The Intrepid Savvies is free to download here.
To read Nowak’s blog post, please click here.
Image borrowed from TekSavvy’s website.
