Jola Ilemori, a Bachelor of Business Administration Entrepreneurship student and self-taught comic book artist, is in the process of creating something no one at NAIT (or maybe even in Canada) has seen before. This creation, named Project Delta, is a comic book series that tells stories of superheroes battling supervillains, but with one crucial detail: the superheroes are all neurodivergent people.
To be clear, there are mainstream comic book superheroes who are portrayed as having a disability of some kind — for example, Daredevil is blind, and Professor X is a paraplegic. But these are physical disabilities. In addition, the disabilities are not the source of their powers, but something that needs to be overcome.
For Ilemori’s neurodivergent characters, their disabilities are their superpowers.
“Initially, I wanted to create clothes that make ADHD, autism, bipolar, all those mental disabilities, feel like superpowers,” says Ilemori on the evolution of Project Delta. “But then I just thought to myself that there has to be a better way to motivate neurodivergent people besides just clothes.”
“Embrace who you are. Having a different mind from everybody else is not a defect. It’s a gift. You just have to know how to use it.”
Ilemori took inspiration from his late friend, Jeremy Julien Rondeau, whom he believes had bipolar I disorder and Tourette’s syndrome.
“I lost him to suicide in 2021. He was only 17 when he ended his life.”
Ilemori recalls how his friend was picked on in elementary school because of his condition. He wanted to do a tribute to him, so he made him a superhero in Project Delta.
“But then I remembered there are other neurodivergent people I’ve met who fought different battles. I should honour them too. And I’m even going to use the challenges they fought, the battles they’ve had to motivate other neurodivergent people who are like them,” he adds.
Ilemori is diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia and Asperger’s syndrome — now generally recognized as level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
“So growing up, school academics was just terribly difficult,” Ilemori says. He explains interacting with neurotypical people was also challenging since they do not always understand.
“It’s easy to sit outside the edge and judge someone for not performing half as much as you are when you’re not the one living their life, fighting their battles, carrying the weight of being neurodivergent.”
But there are neurotypical characters in his comics, too. “Even neurotypicals sometimes face challenges in this system,” he explains. Despite Project Delta’s potential to foster empathy between neurotypicals and the neurodivergent community, Ilemori says his primary audience is still the latter.
“My main focus is mental health, motivating neurodivergent people and making them not feel ashamed to express themselves anymore,” he says.
“Embrace who you are. Having a different mind from everybody else is not a defect. It’s a gift. You just have to know how to use it.”
This view of neurodivergence not being a defect but a different way of functioning is supported by some modern scientific theories. Annie Swanepoel, a child and adolescent psychiatrist from the UK, published a study in 2024 that argues ADHD and ASD are “natural variations in neurodevelopment” and traits associated with these conditions served an evolutionary purpose in humanity’s distant past.
Looking to the future, Ilemori intends to develop Project Delta into something more than a passionate hobby. Currently, the comic book is being created as a completely online series. But the entrepreneurship student hopes to eventually publish it in print and make it profitable if there is enough demand.
For updates on Project Delta, follow its Instagram page.
Feature graphic by Alleah Boisvert
