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We did a thing at Comics Club today about how character’s decisions shape your story, and I’m going to try and tell you about it, because it was THE MOST FUN. 1/
So we started out with me drawing a comic on the flip chart, and the kids giving me suggestions. A nice straightforward comic. About a kitten. 2/ 
The kitten smelled a nice smell! What could it be? 3/
It was, of course, an old man’s plate of chips. 4/
Now, this presented the kitten with a MORAL QUANDARY. We’ve all been there. 5/
So, what should the kitten do next? Well, this is where it got interesting. 6/
Because this is where it got interesting. We split into TWO GROUPS. In one group’s story, the kitten went, as I probably would myself, RIGHT FOR THEM CHIPS. 7/
Whereas the other group decided to take the moral high ground, and head home for an ice cream instead. 8/
But, of course, those choices just led to further choices. 9/
Which led to FURTHER choices. 10/
Which led to AN ENTIRE WALL COVERED IN MULTIDIMENSIONAL BRANCHING-NARRATIVE AWESOME COMICS. 11/
Some of the kitten’s adventures were very violent. 12/
Some of the kitten’s adventures were very strange. 13/
Some of the kitten’s adventures were very violent AND strange. 14/
It was kind of amazing, and kind of bewildering, and it made my head hurt a bit, but we DID it. Stories going off in every direction you could see and as high as we could reach. 15/
The whole thing was inspired by this @ComicsClubBLOG activity, Comics Jam Scrabble. Why not have a go yourself? comicsclub.blog/2018/11/29/com…
Anyway, huge thanks to my Gang of Awesome Ninja Helper Elves at @TheStoryMuseum for making the whole thing work. FUN! /END
Addendum! The really cool part, which I failed to get enough photos of, was the kids who really ran with the idea and took their own branches of the story off down yet MORE branches. (Here are some of the boy’s.)
As a couple of people have enquires about giving this a try, here is my original ‘plan’, FWIW.
To try and explain that: you start with everyone in one group, with 1 person drawing on big (A1?) flipchart paper. Then split into 2 groups, with one Nominated Artist in each drawing the group’s ideas on A3 paper...
A few panels at each stage / size, and then you split the groups again and go down a paper size, until you end up with everyone working individually on post-it notes.
My original plan went astray a bit as it was calculated based on a group size of 16, and we had a few extra people turn up on the day. And I accelerated through the middle stages a bit for time / chaos-management reason. But the general shape of it held.
I might try and write this up properly for @ComicsClubBLOG if I get a sec, because attempting to describe it as a twitter thread is kind of ending up spiralling out of control in ways reminiscent of the activity itself.
Anyway, here is another nice big photo of it all. /END /END
