“In Pakistan, you can’t just do entertainment for entertainment’s sake. There’s got to be a message,” says Aaron Haroon Rashid, the creator of Pakistan’s first animated superhero series, Burka Avenger.
On Thursday, Haroon and the team from Unicorn Black – the production house behind the internationally acclaimed cartoon series – unveiled a special episode released to coincide with World Polio Day. The show has already received a number of awards – including a Peabody Award and an International Emmy nomination – and has also garnered a great deal of international attention.
Haroon said the idea of doing a polio special came to him when he recently had to get inoculated before a trip abroad. Scriptwriter Arsalan Naseer developed the idea a couple of months ago.
The team is currently working on the second season of Burka Avenger, which is slated for release sometime in December.
The action sequences in hte new season are reminiscent of comic book superheroes such as Batman and Catwoman.
