Tweens Discover Superpowers with Interactive Comic Book Adventure, Inspired by the film Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines

(San Francisco, CA) - May 21,2013 — You have the power of the universe at your fingertips — but that doesn’t make high school any easier! Welcome to Wonder City (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/wonder-women/wonder-city.html), the interactive comic book adventure for tweens inspired by the film Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines — where super is a state of mind. Wonder Women! is streaming for free on PBS Video until June 14, 2013. http://video.pbs.org/video/2331042879 

In Wonder City’s Episode I: Origins, you navigate a complex sea of friendships and uncover a nefarious plot to enslave budding superheroes like yourself. From Main Street to the high school science lab, you engage in an epic journey of self-discovery and empowerment. Along the way, you are forced to make difficult personal choices, revealing the big—and small—acts of heroism that define you. 

Each episode of Wonder City will explore critical issues that impact young people’s lives: beauty myths, harassment, bullying, peer influence, and conflict in a larger-than-life context, providing opportunities for each player to experience themselves as powerful actors, capable of righting wrongs and standing up for others. 

Extending the themes of the Independent Lens documentary Wonder Women!, Wonder City undermines stereotypes by immersing players in a world that represents a more realistic diversity in race, gender, and body image. As the film encourages young audiences to explore pop cultural history as a means of thinking critically about how we visualize power and gender, the game provides an interactive component for the same audience to identify their own heroic qualities and make empowered choices while building self-esteem. A free online curriculum guide is available for download so that educators can help young players draw connections between the themes of the film and the game in a classroom setting. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/wonder-women/classroom.html 

Wonder City was produced by Vaquera Productions with funding provided by ITVS and the California Council for the Humanities. Additional support was provided by the Tribeca Film Institute and Games for Change. The interactive comic book adventure game was originally developed at BAVC’s Producers Institute for New Media Technologies. 

About ITVS 
Mandated by Congress in 1988 to bring documentary films featuring underrepresented voices to public broadcasting, Independent Television Service (ITVS) is a global media organization that funds, presents, and promotes award-winning documentaries on public, cable, and foreign television, innovative new media projects on the web and mobile, and the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens.