# Manx Primary Source Archive — Transcription

**Source image:** `20260219_120231.jpg`  
**Transcribed:** 2026-02-25 19:26  
**Method:** Automated (Claude Batch API — claude-opus-4-6)

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"sation for the Sacrifices made by the
Duke of Atholls ancestors for the publick
good. Gov^t surely never could mean to
take an estate from The Duke of Athole
for a certain sum stipulated by them"
"selves, & for which they were to receive
an immediate interest of ten percent
for their money. That the revenues of the
Isle of man at this very moment, merely
arising from the consumption of the Inhabitants
(for they have no other trade) will yield
an annual Sum of £7000 is a fact that
will appear upon a proper enquiry
being made into its present State, & into
the means that have hitherto been adopted
for preventing the inhabitants from exten"
"ing their trade & manufactures either
in one Shape or other, as also into that of
the encouragement that [above line: is] ~~was~~ given by
the present acts of Parl^t /altho unintent"
"ionally/ for smuggling upon the coasts
of the Isle of man, by prohibiting the imp"
"ortation of Brandy & Gin, tea & other
absolutely necessary for the inhabitants
of the Country, & without which they cannot
exist. They therefore encourage the This week has been a tricky one for writing, because I was fighting a cold I brought home from Thought Bubble and because the days are getting shorter and I have a full to-do list. But even so, more stuff is going down on a daily basis than I could possibly report.

So, what's worth focusing on? Let's start with a small but important note on the project: the name.

Every Hero Has a Story is a Summer Reading Challenge theme for US libraries in 2015 and it would be a disservice to both programs to mix them up. So, I'm changing the name of my project to Every Story Needs a Hero. I'll correct the previous posts for the sake of web searches, but my concept remains the same: a collaborative library project for National Storytelling Week 2015 that uses comics, sequential art, and illustrated narratives to engage children and young adults in the fundamentals of storytelling. 

Carrying on, here's a little update on the events I've been researching. I have a working list 26 ideas so far, many of which I've been developing this week. They span all the basic elements of creating comics: writing, drawing, lettering, editing, printing, and presenting, with a focus on storytelling throughout.

Last time I suggested the idea of two tracks for different ages. Looking at what I've got so far, I have a natural split between activities for groups of 15-30, and activities for groups of 5-8, and activities for individuals. I'm working on structuring these so that they can be 'programmed' by the librarian to fill a week or more of sessions and activities. My hope is that many of them can scale to the resources (space, staff, materials, time, participants) and ambitions of the individual library.

I've been in touch with four more librarians who serve children and young adults in UK public libraries. I've heard back from one of them and we'll be talking next week. I attended the monthly Brum YA Book Group meeting in Birmingham, where librarian Jo Cocker introduced me to a few of her colleagues who are interested in the project. I also reached out to a children's librarian and a comics creator, both of whom I met at Thought Bubble, so hopefully they'll be in touch soon. (Hi both!)

One of my biggest priorities right now is to get in front of more librarians, particularly ones in 'library deserts', and to take every advantage I can from the experience I'm gathering to make this project useful and effective. If any librarians who serve young people in the UK are reading this, please get in touch. You can email me (jennie at bycomicscreate dot com) or find me on Twitter.

(What's a 'library desert'? I just made it up. It's like a food desert but for libraries and the cultural resources they offer. I'll be writing more about this soon.)

Meanwhile, here's what I've been reading: 
I had the great good fortune of sitting down in a warm, well-lit library recently and reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud cover to cover. It's a masterful work: rich, complex, and utterly readable. It gave me a great deal of satisfaction because McCloud's vision of how comics work, and how they interact with their reader, really resonated with how I see comics. But it also showed me new perspectives on everything from representation to reader participation to the relationship between words and pictures. I know I'll be returning to this book (and its sequels) time and time again as this project develops. 

(Looking over my notes, the chapters on time and on the relationship between words and pictures were the most immediately useful for project development.)

I'm about 70% through How To Make Awesome Comics by Neill Cameron. It's brilliant! I'd say its age range is 6-11 (maybe slightly higher - I'm a biased adult) and the activities are drawn from a deep understanding of comics AND of how children think. It's already feeding directly into several of my event/activity ideas. Also, the comics are very funny.

More books and comics are piling up at home, thanks to the very generous publishers and creators at Thought Bubble. I'll talk more about these in subsequent weeks.

The project website, which I've been slowly building all week, is bycomicscreate.com. It's not ready for unveiling yet, because I want to launch it with something exciting in the next few weeks.

Okay, that's a lot of words and there's much more to come in subsequent posts. I haven't even BEGUN to talk about what I learned at Thought Bubble. But that can wait, because right now I need to go and develop some more events! 

Also, here is a comic I did about my cold. I'm fine now. Bye! 🙂 I do a lot of data analysis, so I'm quite interested in what makes data trustworthy. This is why I occasionally check data on my local weather station. I noticed a few things this week.

First of all, here are the minimum (blue) and maximum (red) temperatures as reported by my station: 
(click to enlarge)

Something happened to this station's minimum temperature readings around July 22. As you can see from the maximum readings, this is an inland location with continental tendencies, where heat peaks in July and August. Even as the max readings stay up, the min readings show no sub-14°C values after July 22.

This is suspicious. The data is being updated normally. Let me take a closer look.

Here's a close-up of the data from July 18 to August 3. The graph on the left shows the min/max range by day, while the right shows the individual temperature readings over the same period (I logged into the database and plotted the hourly values).

As you can see, the individual readings (right side) continue to dip into the low teens. But the minimum temperature algorithm (left side) doesn't show any of these low values. After July 22, its output remains above 14°C.

My guess is that a bug crept in around July 22 that affects the algorithm that determines minimum daily temperatures. The raw data is still capturing the full range. This kind of thing is relatively common in weather stations, and it makes data quality difficult to verify unless you're looking closely.

Anyone who relies on aggregated data (like min/max) should be aware that errors like this can creep in from the algorithm layer. Looking at the raw data is a good habit. And this is one reason why we should care about metadata and documentation: if the station operator isn't aware of this, they can't fix it.

Next time: Something completely different. Stay tuned. Today I want to write about the part of my Thought Bubble experience that's most relevant to the project. Specifically, I want to talk about a panel on Libraries and Comics that I attended at Thought Bubble on Saturday November 15.

Now, I should say upfront: what I'm writing here is my personal experience and recollections. It's filtered through my project priorities, not meant to be a thorough summary.

The panel was moderated by Zainab Akhtar, creator of the Comics & Cola blog. Zainab's perspective was thoughtful and well-informed. She was also warm and encouraging, which helped me introduce myself to several people after the panel.

On the panel were:

I'll share the two most important things I heard. I think they were important because, though I'd been thinking about both before the panel, the panel helped them crystallise in my mind.

First, Jessica and Faye both spoke about issues of access, cultural engagement, and social deprivation. The way I'd sum up what I took away from their comments is this: the library users who would benefit most from comics-based projects are often the ones that traditional library services are already struggling to reach. Comics are a great equaliser; they engage reluctant readers, they work across languages, they demand less of adult literacy than prose.

This is why I think 'library deserts' are so important. (As I said last post, I'm going to explain my thinking about this in more detail soon.)

The second thing was what I think of as the 'ecosystem question': how do we create and sustain a wider ecosystem of activity, not just around comics reading but around comics creation? Dan and several other panellists had thoughts on this. I think that what I took away was that individual events (like Thought Bubble itself) can be catalysts, but only if they feed into an infrastructure of ongoing engagement.

Isn't that exactly what public libraries are? An infrastructure of ongoing engagement?

This is really the core of my project: libraries are the ideal host for creative, comics-based engagement because they're already present in communities and already committed to the mission of access and literacy.

More soon. In my next post I'll talk about the event structure I'm developing and how librarians can get involved. 

Photo credit: Jay Sheridan. My thanks to Zainab for connecting me with the panellists and other delegates afterwards.

[Edit: I realised that I had the wrong photo in the original upload. It showed the Travel & Tourism panel, not the Libraries & Comics panel. I've now taken the photo down entirely. Apologies to both panels!] This post covers a big chunk of news and thinking, so grab a cup of tea and settle in. I should say at the outset that everything here is still developing - I'm sharing my thinking because I want your feedback, not because I've nailed everything down.

**Events for Every Story Needs a Hero**

There are two categories of events.

**Track 1: Group workshops** (for 15-30 participants, ages 8-14, duration 1-2 hours)
These are facilitated creative workshops built around the elements of making comics: writing, drawing, lettering, editing, etc. Each one has a specific focus (e.g. character creation, page layout, scripting a story) and a tangible output that the participants take home with them.

I currently have 8-10 strong workshop ideas in this track. The key thing about these is that they need to work within the resources of a typical UK public library. That means: a community room or children's library space; basic craft supplies (paper, pencils, markers); a facilitator (ideally the librarian, possibly a volunteer or visiting creator); and 1-2 hours of time.

Several of these workshops will be ready for pilot testing in January.

**Track 2: Self-guided activities** (for individuals/small groups, ages 6-12, ongoing)
These are activities that can sit within the library space during National Storytelling Week (and beyond!) without requiring a facilitator. Think of them as 'stations' or 'challenges' that children can pick up and do at their own pace. 

I have about 10 ideas for this track, ranging from very simple (colour in a character and add a speech bubble) to moderately complex (create a 4-panel comic using templates). Some of these are very well suited to take-home packs.

**But wait, there's a third thing.**

Remember how I talked about the 'ecosystem question' - how we sustain engagement beyond a single event? I've been developing what I'll call a 'meta-event': a way to connect multiple libraries' activities into a bigger narrative during National Storytelling Week.

I'm not ready to share the details of this yet (mostly because I'm still working out the logistics), but the core idea is that participating libraries would each contribute a piece of a larger, collaborative story. If it works, it could give each library's local activities a sense of being part of something bigger.

More on this soon. I want to make sure the logistics are sound before I talk about it more.

**The Elephant in the Room: Funding**

Let me be upfront about the financial situation. Right now, this project has zero funding. I'm doing the development work in my spare time, alongside freelance work that pays my bills. The materials I'm buying (books, art supplies for prototyping) come out of my own pocket.

I'm currently exploring several avenues for funding, ranging from arts council grants to publisher partnerships to crowdfunding. I'll share more as things develop.

The good news is that I've designed the project from the start to be low-cost for libraries. The workshops use basic supplies. The self-guided activities can be photocopied. The goal is that a library can participate with minimal financial outlay.

But creating the materials, testing them, and distributing them costs time and money. If you know of funding opportunities or want to support the project in some way, please get in touch.

**Reading Update**

I've now finished How To Make Awesome Comics by Neill Cameron and I can't recommend it highly enough. The way Neill builds from character design through to multi-page storytelling is excellent, and the consistent emphasis on fun is key. Several of my workshop ideas owe a direct debt to this book.

I've also been reading the first volume of the Phoenix Comic, which is the brilliant weekly comic that Neill (and many other great creators) contributes to. Reading it is useful for two reasons: one, it gives me a sense of what high-quality comics for children look like right now in the UK; and two, the Phoenix itself has great educational outreach that I want to learn from.

**Next Steps**

- More librarian conversations (I have two scheduled for this week)
- Developing workshop facilitator guides
- Starting to prototype self-guided activities
- Working on the project website

Questions, suggestions, introductions, and general encouragement are all gratefully received. You can email me at jennie at bycomicscreate dot com, or find me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading! This is the post I've been meaning to write for two weeks, about 'library deserts'. I should emphasise: I'm not a library scientist, and my thinking here is informed by conversations with librarians and by my own research. I welcome corrections and alternative perspectives.

**The concept**

The term 'food desert' describes areas where access to affordable, nutritious food is limited. These tend to be low-income areas, often served only by convenience stores and fast food outlets rather than supermarkets with fresh produce.

I use 'library desert' by analogy: an area where access to the cultural resources that libraries provide is limited. This might be because:
- The nearest library is too far away to reach easily (especially for families without cars)
- The library has been closed or had its hours dramatically cut
- The library exists but is under-resourced (limited stock, no programming budget, reduced staff)
- The community the library serves faces barriers to engagement that the library doesn't have the resources to address (language barriers, distrust of institutions, digital exclusion, etc.)

**Why this matters for Every Story Needs a Hero**

One of the things I heard at the Thought Bubble libraries panel was that the communities that would benefit most from creative engagement with comics are often the ones that traditional library services are struggling to reach. These are, by and large, the same communities affected by 'library deserts'.

My project is designed to be low-cost and adaptable precisely because I want it to reach libraries that don't have big programming budgets. But I also know that the libraries under the most pressure are often the ones with the least capacity to take on new projects, even free ones.

This is a genuine tension in the project. I haven't resolved it yet. But I think being aware of it is better than ignoring it.

**What this means practically**

When I'm developing workshop guides and activity sheets, I'm asking myself:
- Does this require any materials beyond paper and pencils?
- Does this require the facilitator to have any specialist knowledge?
- Can a time-poor librarian prepare for this in 15 minutes or less?
- Is the language accessible to children for whom English is a second language?
- Can this work in a small, awkward space?

Not every activity will score perfectly on every question, but these are my benchmarks.

**Further reading**

If you're interested in the broader question of library access and social deprivation, here are some things I've found useful:
- The Sieghart Report (Independent Library Report for England, December 2014) - just published and highly relevant
- CILIP's various position papers on public library funding
- The Carnegie UK Trust's work on libraries

I'd love to hear from librarians about how these issues play out in practice. Please get in touch.

Next time: I'll be back with some actual event content to share! Over the past couple of weeks I've been developing a set of core workshops for Every Story Needs a Hero. Today I want to share the structure of one of them, partly to give you a sense of what I'm building and partly because I'd love your feedback.

**Workshop: Character Creation**

**Overview:** Participants create an original comic book character, including visual design, personality traits, and a story hook.

**Age range:** 8-14 (adaptable down to 6 with support)

**Group size:** 15-30

**Duration:** 60-90 minutes

**Materials needed:**
- A4 paper (plain, not lined) - at least 3 sheets per participant
- Pencils and erasers
- Coloured pencils or markers (shared between the group is fine)
- Character Profile handout (provided by the project)

**Facilitator preparation:** Read the facilitator guide (one side of A4). No specialist comics knowledge required.

**Structure:**

1. **Introduction (10 min):** Brief group discussion about characters. Who are your favourite characters? What makes a good character? The facilitator introduces the idea that characters have both an outside (how they look) and an inside (how they think and feel).

2. **The Inside (15 min):** Using the Character Profile handout, participants answer questions about their character: What's their name? What are they afraid of? What do they want more than anything? What's standing in their way? These questions are drawn from basic story structure - they're setting up a character who has a motivation and an obstacle, which is the engine of any story.

3. **The Outside (20 min):** Participants draw their character. The facilitator provides some simple tips (start with basic shapes, think about what your character's appearance tells the reader about them). There's no requirement for artistic skill - stick figures are explicitly okay, and I'm developing a set of visual prompts to help participants who feel stuck.

4. **The Story Hook (15 min):** Participants write (or draw) one sentence that starts their character's story. The facilitator frames this as: "Now you know who your character is and what they want. What happens to them on page one?" This is the seed of a story.

5. **Share and celebrate (10-15 min):** Participants share their characters with the group. This can be as simple as holding up their drawing and reading their story hook. The facilitator celebrates everyone's work.

**Output:** Each participant takes home their Character Profile and character drawing. These can feed into subsequent workshops (e.g. a storytelling workshop where they develop their character's story further).

**Notes for the facilitator guide:**
- The guide will include tips for managing the group, encouraging reluctant participants, and dealing with common challenges (e.g. "I can't draw" - yes you can, here's how).
- It will also include some background on why character creation is fundamental to storytelling, to help the facilitator answer questions and guide discussions.

**What I need from you:**
- If you're a librarian: Does this sound feasible in your space? What would make it easier to run?
- If you're a comics creator: Am I missing anything crucial about character creation?
- If you work with young people: Does the structure and timing feel right?

Email me at jennie at bycomicscreate dot com or find me on Twitter. Thank you!

Next time: I'll share one of the self-guided activities. Quick post today: the project website is now live at [bycomicscreate.com](http://bycomicscreate.com).

It's pretty bare-bones right now, because I wanted to get it up and functional rather than waiting until it was perfect. Over the coming weeks I'll be adding:

- Downloadable resources for librarians
- A list of participating libraries (once I have them!)
- Background on the project and the team
- Links to recommended comics and books for different age groups
- A blog (which will eventually replace these posts as the main source of project updates)

Please take a look and let me know what you think. And if you're a librarian who's interested in participating in Every Story Needs a Hero during National Storytelling Week 2015 (31 January - 7 February), now is the time to get in touch. I need pilot libraries!

Email: jennie at bycomicscreate dot com
Twitter: @jsccomics

Thanks! Today I want to share a self-guided activity I've been developing. This is one of the 'Track 2' activities I described a few posts ago: designed for individuals or small groups, requiring no facilitator, and suitable for children ages 6-12.

**Activity: Speech Bubble Challenge**

**What you need:**
- A printed sheet (provided by the project) showing 4-6 comic panels with characters but no speech bubbles or captions
- A pencil

**What you do:**
The sheet shows a short comic strip where the characters are doing things but not saying anything. The child's job is to add speech bubbles (and/or thought bubbles and captions) to tell the story.

**Why this works:**
This activity isolates one of the most important skills in comics storytelling: the relationship between words and pictures. The pictures are already there, providing visual context and narrative sequence. The child has to figure out what's happening in the pictures and then decide what the characters are saying or thinking.

This is reading AND writing. It requires the child to:
1. 'Read' the visual narrative (sequencing, inference, visual literacy)
2. Interpret character emotions and motivations from visual cues
3. Write dialogue that fits the visual context
4. Consider how words and pictures work together

**How I'm developing this:**
I'm working with an illustrator to create a set of panels that are clear, expressive, and open to multiple interpretations. The characters need to be doing things that suggest a story but don't lock the child into only one possible reading. This is a delicate balance.

I'm also developing several versions at different difficulty levels:
- **Easy:** 3 panels, simple situation (e.g. two friends meeting a dog), characters with very clear facial expressions
- **Medium:** 4 panels, slightly more complex situation, characters whose emotions are more ambiguous
- **Hard:** 6 panels, a complete mini-story with a beginning, middle, and end, where the child has to work out what's going on from context clues

**How it works in the library:**
The printed sheets sit in a stack on a table (or at a dedicated 'station') in the children's library area. Children can pick one up and do it right there, or take it home. If the library wants, they can display completed sheets on a board or wall.

No facilitator is needed, though a librarian who's passing by might stop to look at what a child has written and talk to them about it. That kind of brief, informal interaction can be really valuable.

**What I need from you:**
- If you're a librarian: Would this work in your space? Would your users engage with it?
- If you're an illustrator: Would you be interested in creating panels for this activity? (Paid work, once I have funding sorted.)
- If you work with young people: Any thoughts on the difficulty levels?

Next time: An update on librarian conversations and pilot testing plans.

Jennie
jennie at bycomicscreate dot com / @jsccomics Two quick things today.

**National Storytelling Week is 31 January - 7 February 2015.** That's just over seven weeks away. This is my target window for the project. Everything I'm developing is aimed at being ready and in libraries' hands by then.

Is that realistic? Honestly, it's tight. But it's a useful discipline. Even if not everything is ready, I want at least the core workshop (Character Creation) and two or three self-guided activities to be available for pilot libraries.

**I need pilot libraries.** If you're a librarian (or you know one) in the UK, and you'd be willing to trial some of these activities during National Storytelling Week, I want to hear from you. What I'm asking is:

- Run at least one workshop OR put out at least one self-guided activity during the week of 31 Jan - 7 Feb
- Give me feedback: what worked, what didn't, what would make it better
- Let me know roughly how many children engaged with it

I'll provide: facilitator guides, printed activity sheets, and as much support as I can manage from afar (or in person if you're in the West Midlands).

There is no cost to participating.

If you're interested, email me: jennie at bycomicscreate dot com. Or find me on Twitter: @jsccomics. Or leave a comment below.

Thanks! Short update today. I'm heads-down developing materials for the pilot, but I want to share two things.

**The Character Profile handout is done.** This is the handout for the Character Creation workshop. It asks participants a series of questions about their character:

- What's your character's name?
- How old are they?
- What do they look like? (Draw them here!)
- What are they good at?
- What are they bad at?
- What are they afraid of?
- What do they want more than anything?
- Who or what is stopping them getting it?
- What's the first thing that happens to them in your story?

These questions are simple, but they're doing a lot of heavy lifting. The first five establish the character. Questions 6-8 set up the story engine (fear, desire, obstacle). Question 9 is the story hook.

I tested this on a couple of adults this week (my willing housemates) and the results were encouraging: within ten minutes, each of them had a character they were genuinely interested in and a story they wanted to tell. The questions seem to work.

**The Speech Bubble Challenge sheets are in progress.** My illustrator is working on the panels for the three difficulty levels. I've seen rough sketches and they look great. I should have printable versions within a couple of weeks.

More soon. Still looking for pilot libraries! jennie at bycomicscreate dot com / @jsccomics. I attended an event this week that changed my thinking about the project, and I want to write about it while the ideas are fresh.

The event was a workshop run by **Pop Up Projects** (specifically Sean Hayden) at the **Birmingham REP** on Wednesday. It was about engaging children and young people with reading through creative events. I was there because I wanted to learn from people who have been doing this kind of work for years.

(Pop Up Projects, for those who don't know, is the organisation behind the Summer Reading Challenge and other national reading programmes for libraries. They're brilliant.)

Here's what I took away:

**1. Start with the experience, not the content.**
Sean talked about how the most effective library events are designed around the experience the participant will have, not around the content the facilitator wants to deliver. This seems obvious when stated, but it's easy to forget when you're deep in development.

For my project, this means: the workshops need to be fun FIRST and educational second. If a child comes to the Character Creation workshop and has a great time drawing and imagining, that's a success even if they don't perfectly grasp the concept of 'story engine'. The learning is embedded in the experience.

**2. Permission to play.**
One of the biggest barriers to creative engagement is fear of failure. Children (and adults) worry about doing it wrong. Sean talked about how the environment of the event needs to give explicit permission to play, experiment, and make mistakes.

This is already in my thinking for the workshops (the "stick figures are explicitly okay" principle), but I want to build it in more deeply. Maybe the facilitator starts by drawing a deliberately terrible character on the whiteboard and celebrating its terribleness. Maybe there's a warm-up activity that's designed to be silly and low-stakes.

**3. Every child takes something home.**
This is a practical point: participants should always leave with a tangible artifact of their experience. A drawing, a comic, a character profile. Something they can show their family and say "I made this."

This was already built into my workshop designs, but Sean's emphasis on it reinforced how important it is. The take-home artifact is the bridge between the library event and the child's wider life. It's how the experience continues after the workshop is over.

**4. Measuring engagement is hard.**
Sean was honest about how difficult it is to measure the impact of creative engagement events. Numbers are easy (how many children attended?) but quality is hard (what did they get out of it?). This is something I'll need to think about for the pilot evaluation.

**How this affects my materials:**
I'm going back through the workshop guides and self-guided activities with these principles in mind. Specifically:
- Adding warm-up activities to each workshop
- Reviewing the language to make sure it's about invitation, not instruction
- Ensuring every activity has a take-home output
- Developing a simple feedback mechanism for the pilot (probably a one-page form for the facilitator to fill in afterwards)

Thanks for reading. More soon.

Jennie It's been a couple of weeks since I posted, so here's an update on where things stand.

**The good news:**
- The Character Creation workshop is fully developed and ready for piloting. Facilitator guide, participant handout, and visual prompts are all done.
- The Speech Bubble Challenge (all three difficulty levels) is illustrated and ready for print. My illustrator did a brilliant job.
- I have two confirmed pilot libraries: one in Birmingham and one in London. Both plan to run at least one activity during National Storytelling Week.
- The project website has been updated with basic information for librarians.

**The less good news:**
- I had hoped to have 4-5 pilot libraries by now. I have two. This is partly a timing problem (the holidays are a difficult time to reach librarians) and partly a reach problem (I need to get the project in front of more people).
- The 'meta-event' idea I mentioned a few posts ago is on hold. With only two pilot libraries, it doesn't make sense to launch a collaborative element yet. I'll revisit this if and when I have more participating libraries.
- Funding remains at zero. I've submitted one grant application (to Arts Council England) and am working on a second. In the meantime, all costs continue to come out of my pocket.

**What's happening next:**
- I'm doing a final round of outreach to try to get one or two more pilot libraries before the end of January. If you know a librarian who might be interested, please pass on my details: jennie at bycomicscreate dot com.
- I'm preparing pilot packs for the two confirmed libraries. These will include printed materials, a facilitator guide, and a feedback form.
- I'm developing a second workshop (on Page Layout / Panel Sequence) which won't be ready for the January pilot but which I want to have ready for wider rollout in the spring.

**Thank you** to everyone who's offered support, advice, and encouragement over the past two months. This project is very much in its early stages, but I believe in what it's trying to do and I'm committed to making it work.

More updates coming during and after National Storytelling Week. Watch this space!

Jennie National Storytelling Week starts tomorrow. Here's what's happening.

**Two pilot libraries are running Every Story Needs a Hero activities this week:**

**Library A** (Birmingham) is running the **Character Creation workshop** on Tuesday afternoon for a group of about 20 children aged 8-12. The librarian, who I've been working with closely, will facilitate. I'll be there to observe (with her permission and the library's). They're also putting out the **Speech Bubble Challenge** sheets in the children's library area from Monday.

**Library B** (London) is putting out the **Speech Bubble Challenge** sheets (all three levels) and the **Character Profile** handouts as self-guided activities throughout the week. They weren't able to schedule a facilitated workshop this time, but the librarian is enthusiastic about trialling the self-guided materials.

**What I'm hoping to learn:**
- Do the materials work as designed? Are the instructions clear?
- Do children engage with the activities?
- How long do they spend on them?
- What do they produce?
- What would the facilitating librarian change?

I'll be writing up the results over the next few weeks. Whatever happens, this pilot is going to teach me a huge amount about what works and what needs to change.

**A request:** If you're doing anything for National Storytelling Week that involves comics or sequential art, I'd love to hear about it. Even if it's not connected to my project, I'm trying to build a picture of what's happening in this space across the UK.

More soon. Wish me luck!

Jennie This is not a project update. This is something I need to write about while it's fresh.

I was at the Birmingham pilot today. Twenty-two children, ages 8-12, for the Character Creation workshop.

It worked.

I mean, there were bumps. The room was slightly too small. The warm-up activity went on a bit long. A couple of the younger children needed extra help with the Character Profile questions. The 'share and celebrate' section at the end felt rushed because we'd run slightly over on the drawing phase.

But it worked. Twenty-two children created characters. They drew them. They gave them names and fears and desires and obstacles. They wrote story hooks. They held up their drawings and read their sentences aloud and beamed with pride.

A girl of about nine created a character called Shadow, who was a cat that could turn invisible but was afraid of dogs. Her story hook was: "One day Shadow woke up and couldn't turn invisible anymore." That's a STORY. That's a character with a power, a vulnerability, and an inciting incident.

A boy of about twelve created a superhero called The Fixer who could repair anything that was broken. His story hook was: "The Fixer found something that couldn't be fixed." I got chills.

The librarian was brilliant. She facilitated with warmth and energy and exactly the right level of guidance. When children said "I can't draw", she said "That's what makes your character unique - they look the way only you can draw them." That's better than anything I put in the facilitator guide, and I'm stealing it.

Twenty-two children went home with characters they'd created. Several of them asked when they could come back to write the rest of the story.

There is so much to improve. The timing needs adjusting. The visual prompts need expanding. The facilitator guide needs updating based on what I observed today. The self-guided activities are being tried by the other pilot library and I don't have results yet.

But today, twenty-two children told the beginning of a story. And that's why I'm doing this.

More soon.

Jennie The Birmingham pilot was a week ago and I've had time to process what I observed, plus I've received initial feedback from both pilot libraries. Here's what I've learned.

**Character Creation Workshop (Birmingham)**

What worked:
- The Character Profile handout was effective. The questions guided children to think about their characters in a structured way without feeling like a worksheet.
- The emphasis on 'there's no wrong way to do this' was crucial. The facilitator's warmth and encouragement made a huge difference.
- The take-home output (character drawing + profile) was valued. The librarian reported that several children came back to the library the next day to show their parents.
- The 'story hook' question ("What's the first thing that happens to them in your story?") was the most creatively productive moment of the session. This is where children's imaginations caught fire.

What needs improving:
- **Timing.** I allocated 20 minutes for the drawing phase and it needed 25-30. Children were deeply engaged and didn't want to stop. Solution: extend the drawing phase and shorten the introduction (which was a bit long anyway).
- **The warm-up activity** (I had the facilitator do a quick 'draw a monster in 30 seconds' exercise) was fun but went on too long because the children wanted to keep going. Solution: keep it but set a firm time limit and have the facilitator move the group on decisively.
- **Visual prompts.** I provided a sheet with simple tips for drawing characters (start with shapes, think about expression, etc.). A few children found these helpful, but most ignored them in favour of just diving in. I don't think the prompts are harmful, but they might not be necessary. I'll keep them as an optional resource rather than a central element.
- **The 'share and celebrate' phase** was too short. This is where children present their work to the group, and it's important for building confidence and community. Solution: allocate more time (15-20 minutes instead of 10) and consider having children share in pairs first, then volunteers share with the whole group.

**Speech Bubble Challenge (Birmingham and London)**

Feedback from both libraries:

- The **Easy** level (3 panels, clear situation) was popular with younger children (6-8) and was completed quickly. Several children did it multiple times, writing different dialogue each time. This is great - it means the activity has replayability.
- The **Medium** level was the most widely attempted across both libraries. It seemed to hit a sweet spot of challenge.
- The **Hard** level (6 panels, complex narrative) was attempted by fewer children but produced the most interesting results. One child at the London library wrote a complete detective story in speech bubbles. The librarian photographed it (with parental permission) and sent it to me. It's wonderful.
- Both librarians noted that some children needed a brief explanation of what speech bubbles and thought bubbles are and how they're different. I should add a simple visual explanation to the top of the sheet.
- The London librarian suggested including an example completed panel to show children what they're aiming for. I think this is a good idea as long as the example doesn't constrain children's creativity. I'll include one, with a note like "Here's one way to do it, but yours will be different!"

**Numbers:**
- Birmingham workshop: 22 participants
- Birmingham Speech Bubble Challenge: approximately 35 sheets taken/completed during the week (across all three levels)
- London Speech Bubble Challenge: approximately 50 sheets taken/completed during the week

These are small numbers, but for a first pilot with zero budget and two libraries, I'm pleased.

**What happens next:**
- I'm revising the Character Creation workshop based on the feedback above. The updated version will be ready within two weeks.
- I'm revising the Speech Bubble Challenge sheets (adding visual explanation of bubble types, adding example panel). Updated versions ready within two weeks.
- I'm writing up the pilot results in a more formal format that I can share with potential funders and partner organisations.
- I'm continuing to develop the second workshop (Page Layout / Panel Sequence).
- I am still looking for more libraries to run these activities. The pilot has shown me that they work, but I need more data and more reach. Please get in touch: jennie at bycomicscreate dot com.

Thank you to both pilot libraries and their amazing librarians. You made this real.

Jennie I haven't posted in a while, so here's an honest update on where things stand.

**The short version:** The project is still alive, but it's moving slowly because of funding constraints and the reality of doing this alongside paid work.

**The longer version:**

After the pilot in January/February, I had a burst of momentum. I revised the materials, wrote up the results, and reached out to several organisations. Here's what happened:

- **Arts Council England application:** Rejected. The feedback was constructive: they liked the idea but wanted to see more evidence of demand from libraries and a clearer plan for sustainability beyond the initial funding period. Fair points, both.
- **Publisher partnerships:** I had conversations with two publishers of children's comics. Both were supportive in principle but couldn't commit resources at this stage. One offered to provide review copies of their comics for participating libraries, which is generous and useful even if it's not funding.
- **More pilot libraries:** I've had expressions of interest from three more libraries (two in the Midlands, one in Scotland). I'm working on getting materials to them for trial runs.

**What I've been doing:**
- Developing the **Page Layout workshop** (second core workshop). This one is more complex than Character Creation because it gets into how comics work as a sequential medium: panels, gutters, reading order, pacing. I'm about 80% done with the facilitator guide.
- Creating a **Comics Toolkit** - a simple printed resource that introduces the basic vocabulary of comics (panel, gutter, speech bubble, thought bubble, caption, sound effects, etc.) with visual examples. This can be used as a standalone handout or as a reference tool alongside the workshops.
- Thinking hard about sustainability. The Thought Bubble panel talked about the need for an ecosystem, not just one-off events. How does this project become self-sustaining? My current thinking is that it needs to become a freely available resource that any library can download and use, with optional support for libraries that want it. But creating, testing, and distributing that resource takes time and money.

**What's next:**
- Finish the Page Layout workshop.
- Get materials to the three new pilot libraries and collect feedback.
- Submit a second funding application (probably to Paul Hamlyn Foundation, whose Arts Access and Participation fund seems well-suited).
- Continue building relationships with comics creators and publishers who might support the project.

I remain committed to this project because I believe in what it's trying to do. The pilot showed me it works. Now I need to find the resources to scale it up.

As always, if you can help — as a librarian, a creator, a funder, or an advocate — please get in touch: jennie at bycomicscreate dot com.

Jennie Hello. It's been a long time since I posted here and I owe you an explanation.

The short version: the project went on hiatus for several months because of personal circumstances that I won't go into here. I'm now in a position to pick it up again, and I want to talk about what that looks like.

**What still exists:**
- The Character Creation workshop (tested, revised, ready to use)
- The Speech Bubble Challenge sheets (tested, revised, ready to use)
- The Comics Toolkit handout (drafted but not yet tested)
- The Page Layout workshop (80% developed, needs finishing and testing)
- Relationships with several librarians and comics creators
- Everything I learned from the pilot and from the broader research

**What's changed:**
- National Storytelling Week 2015 has passed. The next one is in January/February 2016. That's my new target.
- I've had time to think about the project's structure and I've concluded that the most impactful thing I can do is create a freely downloadable resource pack that any library in the UK can use, with or without my direct involvement. The pilot model (me working closely with individual libraries) doesn't scale.
- I'm more realistic about funding. I'm going to proceed on the assumption that this will be self-funded, with the goal of creating materials good enough that a funder or partner will want to support wider distribution.

**What I'm going to do:**
1. Finish the Page Layout workshop.
2. Test the Comics Toolkit and Page Layout workshop with at least two libraries.
3. Create a downloadable resource pack containing: two workshops, three self-guided activities, the Comics Toolkit, and guidance for librarians on how to use comics in their programming.
4. Make this available for free on bycomicscreate.com by December 2015, in time for libraries to plan for National Storytelling Week 2016.

That's the plan. It's modest, but it's achievable. And it builds on everything I've done so far.

Thank you to everyone who's followed this project. I'm back, and I'm going to see this through.

Jennie Quick update: the resource pack is coming together. I've finished the Page Layout workshop and I'm currently testing it with a library in Birmingham (the same one that ran the original Character Creation pilot - their librarian is a hero).

I'll share details of the Page Layout workshop soon, but for now I want to note one thing I've learned from developing it: **it's harder to teach page layout than character creation.** Character creation is instinctive for children - everyone can imagine a person or creature with a name and a story. Page layout is more technical: it involves understanding how a reader's eye moves across a page, how time passes between panels, how panel size and shape affect pacing.

I've solved this (I think) by making the workshop very hands-on: participants physically cut up and rearrange panels from a pre-drawn comic page, then create their own page layout using a template. The cutting-and-rearranging activity is the key innovation - it makes the abstract concept of page layout into a tangible, physical experience.

More soon.

Jennie The resource pack for **Every Story Needs a Hero** is now available for free download at [bycomicscreate.com](http://bycomicscreate.com).

It contains:

**Two workshops:**
1. **Character Creation** - Create an original comic book character with visual design, personality, and a story hook. (60-90 minutes, ages 8-14)
2. **Page Layout** - Learn how comics pages work by cutting up and rearranging panels, then designing your own page. (60-90 minutes, ages 8-14)

**Three self-guided activities:**
1. **Speech Bubble Challenge** (three difficulty levels) - Add words to a wordless comic strip.
2. **Panel Scramble** - Put a set of scrambled comic panels in the right order to make a story.
3. **Design a Cover** - Design a front cover for a comic, including title, characters, and a teaser.

**Supporting materials:**
- **Comics Toolkit** - An illustrated glossary of comics vocabulary.
- **Librarian's Guide** - Advice on using comics in library programming, including recommended titles for different age groups.

Everything is designed to be printed on a standard office printer. The workshops include facilitator guides. No specialist comics knowledge is required to run any of the activities.

**This is version 1.0.** It's been tested in three UK public libraries with real children and real librarians, and revised based on their feedback. But it can and will be improved. If you use these materials, I want to hear from you: what worked, what didn't, what's missing.

**The resource pack is free and always will be.** It's released under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0): you can share it, adapt it, and build on it, as long as you credit the project, don't sell it, and share your adaptations under the same terms.

Thank you to every librarian, creator, and supporter who helped make this happen. This is just the beginning.

Jennie
jennie at bycomicscreate dot com
@jsccomics