Max and Alison circa 2002
Tomorrow, I’ll be heading downtown and traveling back in time.
I’ll be joining the Owlkids team to talk about the history of the Max Finder Mystery comic I created ten years ago. It’s all part of the Comic Arts for Kids Expo (CAKE) happening at 12:45 on March 23rd, 2013 at the Lillian H. Smith Library (239 College Street, at Spadina.)
I still can’t believe it’s been over ten years since I sat down and ripped off, er, was inspired by Encyclopedia Brown and created Max Finder and Alison Santos and a little town called Whispering Meadows. Every month since around 2002, Max and Alison have stumbled into a fresh mystery and middle grade readers across North America have joined them in cracking the case. Now, Max and Alison have their own European editions and soon they’ll be translated into Spanish and Dutch. More on that later.
In the meantime, if you and your favourite comic fan are looking for some mysterious fun, come on down to CAKE and check out the whole day of activities.
In honour of the time traveling fun, I’ve included a vintage Max Finder Mystery below the jump. It was illustrated by Michael Cho that appeared in Owl Magazine back in 2002, I think.
Enjoy!
Click on the image to make it bigger.
Max Finder Mystery: The Case of the Garden Grind-up Page 1
Max Finder Mystery: The Case of the Garden Grind-up Page 2
Max Finder Mystery: The Case of the Garden Grind-up Page 3
Max Finder Mystery: The Case of the Garden Grind-up Page 4
Solution to the Case of the Garden Grind-up
Dorothy Pafko isn’t a science whiz, she’s a beauty queen and winner of the “Little Miss Cutie Beauty Pageant”.
Mr. P said that his “Dot” was mad at him for being in Marcus’s video. “Dot” is a common short form of Dorothy. Mr. P is short for Mr. Pafko, the same last name as Dorothy. Mr. P is Dorothy’s father. Her pageant winning photo is proudly displayed on the shelf in his office, which can be seen during his video interview.
Dorothy was so scared that she’d lose her science whiz reputation for winning a beauty contest, that she lied to Marcus. She said she travelled to Toronto for a science competition.
She really went there for a beauty pageant. When she heard that her father blabbed about the pageant to Marcus, she decided to steal the tape to keep her secret safe.
Unfortunately for her, Dorothy made a few mistakes when building her alibi.
She claimed to be in Mr. Bailey’s class teaching the budgies how to speak. But Mr. Bailey said that Dorothy was quiet for the whole period. If she was really teaching the birds, they would have been screeching loudly, like in the video footage.
Mr. Bailey is nearsighted, that means he can’t see far away things very well. When he looked up, he said he could see Dorothy’s white lab coat. But Dorothy wasn’t wearing the coat. She wasn’t even in the science lab. She had put her lab coat over the shoulders of “Bones”, the class skeleton, to fool the nearsighted teacher.
When confronted with this evidence, Dorothy broke down and confessed to stealing the camcorder. She retrieved it from her locker and gave it back to Marcus, who vowed to never do anymore secret snooping.
Thanks for helping solve a Max Finder Mystery!
Did you solve it? Yeah, I couldn’t either. Oh, well. Next time, for sure.
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As an award-winning children’s author, gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have Tech Teaching ideas and project news to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.
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Thanks!
Liam
