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Move Over Superman: Here Comes Mandela, The Comic Strip Hero

from AFP

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's first black president Nelson Mandela is to become a comic strip hero in a new project aimed at encouraging young people to read, his charity foundation said.

"We are harnassing comics to get across the message and the values of Mr. Mandela," John Samuel, chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

One million copies of each of the seven comic strips depicting Mandela's life were distributed in newspapers and schools across South Africa as part of events celebrating the ex-president's 87th birthday July 18.

"Comics are an extremely useful way of bringing young people into reading," said Samuel. "And this is our objective here."

Samuel dismissed a suggestion that the world's most revered statesman should not be reduced to a comic figure.

"It would take a lot more than comics to demean his stature."