At San Diego Comic-Con this past July, I noticed an indie booth with two covers by one of my favorite artists: Mark Schultz.

(He’s also one of my favorite writers, and I read his Prince Valiant every Sunday, where art is provided by the phenomenal Thomas Yeates.)

I was fascinated and wandered up to this curious booth. And it was there I started to learn about the term Climate Optimism.

Here’s how the booth’s owners described this concept on their site:

What Climate Optimism Actually Means

Climate optimism contradicts both doom-paralysis and naive positivity: it is specifically optimism anchored to known solutions and ongoing action, not a belief that outcomes will simply work out. As Anne Therese Gennari writes: “Climate optimism is not about taking a step back and hoping for the best to happen. It’s about meeting these times with an unwavering curiosity for change and choosing a path of resilience, action, and hope!”

Climate optimism is:

• A belief the outcome is still possible
• Grounded in measurable results
• Paired with Urgency
• A Reason to Act

Climate optimism is NOT:

• A belief that everything turns out fine
• Grounded in mood
• A Reason to Relax
• A Reason to Wait

Still with me? Sounds like a smart approach, doesn’t it?

This booth is run by a group called Earthshot, and their mission is — quite literally — to help save the world. It’s a non-profit that is focused on inspiring people to take an active role in climate change by offering a powerful, positive, clean technology message.

And one of the ways they get the word out is with a comic called Supercharged! It’s a series written by Sally Krueger-Wyman, Claudia O’Brien and Bob Wyman with interior art by Jim and Ruth Keegan. Check out their work here. They are quite phenomenal. And the covers are by favorites like Mark Shultz and William Stout.

Here’s the official description for the comic:

Supercharged! is a murder mystery graphic novel, cross-country adventure, and a romance that takes Boston grad student/inventor, Cara Quintana and Kentucky farmer Jack Wilson from Boston to the LA Auto Show. That’s where Cara’s high-performance, sustainable battery will compete for a $10 billion winner’s prize.

Along the way they must elude unknown enemy pursuers intent on destroying Cara’s battery.

Helped by friends along the way, they drive in Ruby, Jack’s beloved pickup truck. Initially converted to electric drive, through the story Ruby is enhanced with awesome technologies such as dashboard AR and AI and a remote-control drone from the frunk!

Hop on the back as Ruby takes us on an action-packed, high-octane (actually no octanes here) super-tech adventure.

Each chapter features an EV Tech Talk explaining how Ruby’s amazing attributes are anchored in real-world technology

I read issues #1 and #5 and thought they were a lot of fun. It wasn’t overbearing or preachy. And I also enjoyed the back matter quite a bit too. The essays reminded me a bit of the wonderful prose recollections that Mark Evanier used to run in the old Crossfire series.

After the past two weeks with all that gloomy and scary AI news, I found the big ideas and positive tone of this comic to be a welcome antidote. Interested? Give it all look-see over on their site here and the foundation’s landing page here.