A Message From Bill Zimmerman
Dear Friend,
I envisioned MakeBeliefsComix.com as a place for you to come to and have fun by creating your own world of comic strips. My hope is that by giving you a choice of characters with different moods and the chance to write words and thoughts for them, you will tap into your creativity and explore new possibilities. After all, there is no greater force in life than the power of the imagination to free us from our immediate problems and to spur our energies to find solutions to our befuddlements.
MakeBeliefsComix is for people of all ages who like to play and explore. They include, for example, those wanting a few minutes of fun; youngsters and their parents; students and teachers; business executives trying to unwind from the stress of work, and activities directors and social workers who try to help people express their deepest thoughts and feelings. My intent is that you will regard this site as a safe place where you feel empowered to create and to test new ideas and ways to communicate through art and writing.
Since launching this site in late 2006, hundreds of thousands of people from over 175 countries have visited. Many of them have been educators who use the site with students to encourage writing, reading and literacy and the learning of English. In fact, Google and UNESCO selected MakeBeliefsComix as one of the world’s most innovative web sites in fostering literacy and reading. http://www.google.com/literacy/projects.html
Many of you have encouraged us and made invaluable suggestions. Acting on your feedback, we have added additional fun characters and incorporated a new feature to allow users to write their comics in languages other than English, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Latin and Portuguese. (We're hoping to offer Chinese, Japanese and Korean language support soon.) And because we have learned how important word-of-mouth is to build a community of users for this resource, we also added a new Tell-A-Friend page which we hope you will use to share the site with friends and colleagues. There is also a Feedback page for you to tell us how to make the site more useful and fun. Please use it – we want to be the best.
Many of you after enjoying this comix site then asked for more writing ideas to help you express yourself. To this end, we have linked MakeBeliefsComix.com to my other web site, www.billztreasurechest.com and to my Blog with Bill Zimmerman page on which new writing prompts are regularly added. The WRITER PROMPTS button at the bottom right will take you there. Have a look.
Enjoy!
Bill Zimmerman
P.S. After you complete each comic strip, you can print it out and color and create your own home comix library, or email the strip to a friend or relative. You can also use the comic strip to create personalized messages or greeting card stories for family and friends and to celebrate special times in their lives. Wouldn’t you like to receive one on your own birthday or when you’re in need of cheering up?