Magic Torch 2016 Review

22 Pages Exhibition Artwork - Mhairi M Robertson

2016 was, lets be fair, a pretty rubbish year on many levels. However, in between the moments of inescapable darkness, teetering over chasms of endless despair, Magic Torch did have great fun with our projects.

There was our awesome 22 Pages exhibition at Paisley Museum - which reinterpreted key Scottish events and characters as comic book covers. Hopefully, more folk will get a chance to see the exhibition again next year.

22 Pages Exhibition Artwork - Andy Lee

Our First World War graphic novel Achi Baba - Gallipoli 1915, won a national award for innovation from the Community Archives and Heritage Group. You can still read Achi Baba for free online.

We were supported by Heritage Lottery Fund Scotland and Inverclyde Place Partnership to reinvigorate the tradition of performing a Galoshans play at Halloween. We created a new version of the play, which you can read and download for free, and film-maker David Newbigging filmed the projects workshops in schools and also a performance of the play by our new Galoshans Troop volunteers.






We published our first adventure of the Rowan Tree Legion - The Skeleton Key - a Dad's Army with witches romp, inspired by local legends and featuring a few local landmarks. Skeleton Key is available from the Magic Torch Comics shop.

Rowan Tree Legion - The Skeleton Key by Paul Bristow and Mhairi M Robertson

And of course, more than anything else, we made lots of comics this year, with Magic Torch Comics getting support from Firstport to develop into a separate educational social enterprise. We created comics with Whinhill Primary, Gourock Primary, Newark Primary and Ardgowan Primary. All this years comics, with schools and for various events, can be read for free on our Magic Torch Comics ISSUU page or below.

2017 is the Scottish Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology - and we have a few projects lined up already. Comic wise we have our adaptation of John Donald's The Stowaways created with Ardgowan Primary for the Heritage Inverclyde project. And we will finally be publishing our Captain Kidd graphic novel in May.

We'll also be working on a new comics project with Notre Dame High School. And hopefully, we'll be delivering on our new interactive fictions project IF / Then - with all sorts of unusual creative outputs. Fingers crossed.

For now, be merry, be safe, share stories and hugs with your nearest and dearest.

See you in 2017.

The Stowaways created by Magic Torch Comics and Ardowan Primary School for Heritage Inverclyde