Posted on 02/24/2010 1:53:02 PM PST by neverdem
A comic book featuring the adventures of two fictional European Commission bureaucrats is being sent to homes and schools at a cost of £200,000 to the taxpayer.
They are normally painted as faceless, grey Eurocrats ridiculed for endless deliberations on the bendiness of bananas or the amount of light that bulbs should give off.
But now European Commission officials have had their revenge – by producing a lavish comic book portraying themselves as heroes battling to save the world.
More than 300,000 copies of the glossy hardback – printed in five languages at a cost of £200,000 – are being sent to homes and schools in the UK and across the Continent.
The graphic novel follows the 'adventures' of Zana, Max et al at the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Department – known as ECHO – as they struggle to secure funding for the fictional sate of Borduvia, which has been devastated by an earthquake.
Written by a Belgian graphic novelist Erik Bongers, Hidden Disasters – a cross between Tintin and Thunderbirds: International Rescue – contains such immortal dialogue as: "We must inform the Commissioner! She's briefing the European Parliament on the earthquake tomorrow."
The book's heroine Zana, a feisty, beautiful aid worker whose uniform consists of a safari jacket with the European Union flag emblazoned upon it, is then dispatched to Borduvia by bearded and besuited bureaucrats to sort out the humanitarian crisis.
Exchanges that may go down in literary history also include this one between Zana and Tesjang, a local charity worker.
Tesjang: "So are there many people from the European Commission here?"
Zana: "No the aid is channelled through organisations like UNICEF or Oxfam. When the Commission finances them, they become what we call our 'implementing partners'."
Zana's mission is to write daily reports – known in the...
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
How’s Zana’s left hook against a Taliban warlord?
This duo of heroes knows there will be an earthquake tomorrow? Why not warn the place where it is going to be?
“We may be too late! We’re running our of money, Zana!”
“Quick! To the printing presses! In the meantime, I’ll stall with my UNESCO CHARGE CARD!!!”
I just GOTTA get a copy of THIS!!
You grab the champagne, I’ll fire up the Mercedes.
Not your father’s Tintin...
Get a load of this...
I found it here...
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=145605
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