Comic Book Birthday Party!

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Super-Make-It-comic-birthday-cake

My son requested a comic-themed party for his ninth birthday. He loves Calvin and Hobbes, Big Nate, and Garfield and came up with his own list of fun activities based on these characters! For his cake, above, we made toppers by printing out some comics we found online, trimming and then taping them to skewers and toothpicks.

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We printed out extra comics and cut them into triangles to make a pennant garland!

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For party favors we hit Bare Books and Oriental Trading for the following:

I rolled them all up, tied them with some bakery twine, added a lollipop and stuck them in these red paper lunch bags from Target.

Super-Make-It-make-your-own-comic

The first activity was make-your-own-comic. We provided blank comic books, colored pencils and markers, and some comic burst stickers from here and here. My husband helped the kids get their creative juices flowing with some leading questions. Here are a few:

  • Who is the protagonist/hero? Are they a thing? A person?
  • Are there others in the story? Do they have a conflict with them?
  • What happens? What is the conflict? What are they trying to solve?
  • How is it solved?
  • Is it funny? Serious? Real life-y or fantastical?
  • HAVE FUN!

The kids didn't finish their comic books but it was a great activity to have going as people arrived. I tucked their half-started comic into their goody bags so they could finish them at home.
 

Super-Make-It-Cheese-Doodle-Sculpture

The next activity, Cheez Doodle Sculpture, was inspired by the comic character Big Nate and his love of Cheez Doodles. Big Nate even writes poems about them, as in this one:

"I think that I shall never munch
A more delicious crispy crunch.
As nectar summons lovestruck bees,
You call to me, my curl of cheez.
Your taste, sublime.  Your texture, bold.
All other cheese snacks leave me cold.
Your color is a fiery orange..."
-Big Nate

Toothpicks and the doodles were al we needed! My son also suggested a Cheez Doodle poem-writing activity which we did during the sculpting. 

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I love the critters and constructions that the kids came up with!

Super-Make-It-pin-the-tail

Another activity: "Pin the Tail on Hobbes". We printed out an oversized picture of Calvin and Hobbes ($1.99 at Staples, an "engineering print") and cut out some construction paper tails. 

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Other activities:

  • Bean Bag Toss into Garfield's mouth- (sorry, I didn't get a good picture of this). We had another large printout made of Garfield and taped it over a large box and cut out some openings. We used bean bags that we already had... you can also get them here.
  • Comic Character Foosball- we printed out pictures of all my son's favorite characters and he taped them to the "people" on our foosball table. 
  • Pizza and cake!

Let us know if you throw (or have thrown) a comic party of your own!