Welcome to This is Me! This project is a partnership between Comics Youth SCIO and Feeling Strong, bringing together young people aged 12-18 from our Comics Corner and Art Night groups. These sessions ran for 12 weeks, from October-December 2025. At the beginning of the project each young person was given a sketchbook, and the challenge to express themselves creatively. The group experimented with lots of different artistic techniques such as drawing, collage, painting, printmaking, and riso printing, and they explored themes around identity, what makes them unique, and what brings them joy. Pop in to the Feeling Strong Hub to pick up your copy of 'This is Me', or click to view the PDF. Dive in and enjoy the work crearted by our amazing young people.
For Book Week Scotland 2025, Comics Youth SCIO, Feeling Strong SCIO and Yalla Riso collaborated on a unique workshop to bring an interactive riso printing session to the ‘This is Me’ project.
To kick off the session, we all collaborated on a Feeling Strong/Comics Youth SCIO poster. We each designed and drew a character that represented ourselves, cut it out, and stuck it on a collaborative poster that was later riso printed for the group. This poster has since been hung up in the Feeling Strong Hub for everyone to see and is a reminder of the Book Week Scotland activity.
We then explored the themes of friendships and guided the young people through making their own graphic! Some participants created their own zines with narratives, and others created posters that represented friendship.
Our event was hugely successful with all participants engaged in the process from start to finish. We could see friendships growing throughout the session, accompanied by lots of fun conversations. One participant even found inspiration through the graphic novels we bought in with funding from the Scottish Book Trust. They used the characters and quotes in their artwork and took the book home to continue reading in their own time.
With thanks...
Thank you to The National Lottery Young Start Fund, The Volant Charitable Trust, Creative Scotland, the Youth Arts Open Fund, and Book Week Scotland for their invaluable support, which allows us to deliver projects such as this. Thank you also to the University of Dundee’s Museum & Archives for allowing us to explore your collections, and to The Beano Dundee for their generous donation of comics.
Our biggest thank you goes to our amazing young people! This anthology is a celebration of each of you - your creativity, your voice, and your skills. We are delighted to share these zines, comics, posters, doodles, and some behind the scenes photos of the activities we did week-to-week.