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Addressing bullying through a comic book

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Abigail Sager, 18, of Waynesburg, who founded the nonprofit Diverse Gaming Coalition, is working to create a comic book that will address bullying in the video-gaming community.

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Jack Smith, a 21-year-old senior at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Ga., works on drawings for an anti-bullying comic book created by a Waynesburg woman.

WAYNESBURG – A Waynesburg woman, who was bullied in high school and in online gaming groups, is working to create a more effective and trendy way to end bullying: a comic book.

Abigail Sager, 18, grew up in New Jersey, where she attended high school up until her junior year. In January 2016, she dropped out and earned a General Education Diploma instead because she was being bullied for years.

“It was distressing, and I didn’t have a lot of friends to go to and talk about it,” Sager said. “It was just emotionally draining.”

She said that she would turn to video games to “escape” from the bullying problems at school, but “there’s the same, if not more, bullying online.”

“There is name-calling and very toxic comments for no reason at all,” Sager said.

In April 2016, she moved to Waynesburg, and by November, started her own nonprofit, Diverse Gaming Coalition. The organization has a small group of members that works to spread awareness and bullying prevention methods to the gaming community, both in online platforms and stores like Four Horsemen Comics and Gaming in Morgantown, W.Va.

“We want to talk about this,” Sager said. “We want to end bullying, help victims and maybe even the bullies themselves.”

Sager and her husband, Austin Sager, now run the coalition, and are working on their first major project – a comic book about bullying. Their coalition received $2,000 in grant money from the Allstate Foundation Good Starts Young Rally in Chicago to create the comic book.

As part of the grant requirements, Sager organized a meeting with community members in May to help create the comic book’s plot. After hearing one of the attendees at the meeting say he was bullied for being nonbinary, a gender identity that is not exclusively masculine or feminine, Sager decided to make the main character of the book a nonbinary high school student.

The comic book is 16 pages and is expected to be completed by December, Sager said. It’s been written and illustrated, but they are still looking for sponsors to print it, Sager said.

Jack Smith, 21, is the illustrator, who is studying at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Ga.

“I’m very excited to be working with (Sager), and as someone who knows a lot of people who have gone through bullying, I could not be happier with the cause,” Smith said in a news release. “I hope the message of the comic book will spread and do its part to make some change.”

Sager debuted the first sketches of the comic book at Flame Con, the self-proclaimed “world’s largest queer comic convention” Aug. 19 in Brooklyn. Once the book is printed, she hopes the coalition will be able to donate copies to schools and also sell them online, at games stores and at gaming conventions.

“Being bullied is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone in any form,” Sager said. “It made me give up video games, friendships and so much more. But it’s not to say that you have to give up and give in. Once you realize that you’re more than enough, you can power through a lot.”

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