Todmorden resident moves from printing business to the world of graphic novels as he launches 1984 Kickstarter campaign

Earlier this year Paul Charfe, who has been a long time fan of drawing and graphic novels, walked away from his small clothes printing business to try his hand at illustration.

Not being a natural writer he fell upon the idea of illustrating a classic novel and the first that sprang to mind was George Orwell’s 1984.

In this dystopian novel, Orwell created a terrifying future world where the government has complete control over every aspect of citizens' lives.

“It’s as relevant today as it ever was and hopefully will still resonate with readers around the world, reminding us of the importance of freedom and the dangers of totalitarianism,” said Paul.

“This illustrated graphic novel has the unabridged original text of part one of the novel. My initial idea was to complete the book in one volume, however, I realised that for this to be the case I would have to choose between less art or an abridged version of the text. And I thought who am I to mess around with one of the most celebrated novels ever?”

Since completing the first part of the project, Paul decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign as a way to get his work published and since launching this month he has already secured lots of interest and a good number of backers wanting to support his project.

Mirroring the language used by the characters in Orwell’s novel, the first level is a £5 “Party Member’ pledge which gives people an e-book version of the graphic novel. The highest is the £30 ‘Triple Plus Good’ level which gives backers a limited edition, deluxe, signed hardbody copy with their name in the acknowledgements at the front of both the e-book and hardback version.

Volume One is more than 150 pages long with 86 illustrated pages.

For details on the Kickstarter campaign visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulcharfe