Hieu Nguyen

Creating Comics with My Kid: A Cat Kid Comic Club Inspired Adventure!

May 4 2025

Recently, my daughter and I started a fun creative project: making our own comics! It started as a way to help her organize her wonderful imagination and get a handle on structuring stories, but it quickly turned into a fantastic bonding experience filled with laughter and learning. We took a lot of inspiration from one of her favourite book series – Dav Pilkey’s Cat Kid Comic Club.

If you’re looking for a fun way to encourage creativity and storytelling with your own kids, here’s a peek into our process:

Step 1: What Do You LOVE?

Just like Froggy, Flippy, and the other characters in Cat Kid’s club learn, the best stories often start with things you’re passionate about. So, we sat down and made a list of things my daughter absolutely loves. Her list quickly filled up with:

Step 2: What Do You LOVE To Do?

Next, we thought about activities she enjoys. This helps add action and scenarios to the characters or things she loves. Her list included:

Step 3: Mix, Match, and Imagine a Story!

Now for the fun part – combining elements from both lists to spark a story idea. Could a fish travel to meet a capybara? Could a dinosaur read comics while playing with toys? The possibilities are endless, and often silly, which is perfect! This brainstorming helps connect interests into a potential narrative thread.

Step 4: Start Creating – Don’t Wait for Perfect!

This is perhaps the most crucial lesson, heavily emphasized in the Cat Kid Comic Club books: Just start making! It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. The goal is to get the ideas out and practice the process.

It’s so important not to be scared of failure or imperfection. My daughter’s very first comic was simply called “Toy.” It was just a couple of panels and didn’t have much of a story arc or detail. But that wasn’t the point! She made something.

comic_1_toy

Her next attempt, “Fishy,” had a bit more detail, a slightly clearer sequence. Neither “Toy” nor “Fishy” were complex narratives, but they were vital stepping stones. They taught her about panels, sequence, and the basic feeling of putting a comic together. They showed her she could do it, and each attempt helped her understand how to improve for the next one. She was learning to organize her story visually.

Beyond Drawing: A Key Dav Pilkey Lesson

One of the most freeing ideas Dav Pilkey champions is that comics aren’t just about drawing! You can use anything at your disposal: photos, collage, clay models, pipe cleaners, anything!

Inspired by this, we tried making a comic using photographs. This was a game-changer! My daughter gathered her favourite toys, set up little scenes, and directed the action. I helped with the camera, but she was the storyteller, the director, the set designer. She created all the story beats and organized all the toys exactly how she wanted them.

This led to her first really complete story, starring one of her favourite animals. It’s called “Capybara,” and it was amazing to see her excitement bringing it to life frame by frame.

Seeing her “Capybara” comic come together was fantastic. It proved that focusing on the story and the fun of creation, rather than worrying about artistic skill, is what truly matters.

Making comics together has been more rewarding than I imagined. It encourages creativity, planning, resilience (learning from mistakes!), and most importantly, it’s a joyful way to tell stories. If you’re looking for a creative project, give it a try! Grab some paper, pencils, toys, or a camera, maybe check out Dav Pilkey’s books for extra inspiration, and just start making!