CREATION OF TWIGMAN
By His Creator
In 1996 I was without volunteer activity. I made contact with the Retired Senior Volunteer Program. Through them I made contact with, what was at that time, the Y.W.C.A. day care in North Kansas City, Missouri, and, because of my interest in children and history of telling and writing children’s stories, I started visiting there once every week. I began in rather feeble fashion, sort of feeling my way, getting library books and meeting with all of the kids at one time. The classes have since been divided and I spend about twenty or thirty minutes with each class every week. I also, early on, took some of my own stories which fell flat on their face. I soon realized my stories were targeted for children a little bit older. A few years later I found them to be immensely popular with eight, nine and ten year old kids. I thought I knew a lot about kids but it turned out I had a lot to learn. Among those things were; small kids like big colorful pictures; small kids like very little dialog; small kids do not have a long attention span; kids like stories they can relate to; reading to a group of small kids is in no way similar to reading to a small child, one on one. When reading to a group you are bound by the child with the shortest attention span. I also realized a few other minor but important realities needed to be dealt with. I decided to create a character and story style to meet some of the qualifications. I didn’t want to infringe on anyone’s copyright so I created Twigman. As you can see, my artistic level is that of a four year old. They really can relate to that. I am often asked, “Grandpa Harley did you draw that?” I sometimes wonder exactly what are they trying to say. When I read the first story, Twigman and the Wolf, I knew I had a really big hit. The kids asked the names of Twigman’s children. A challenge that I loved. Now every humanoid character has a tree related name. I wrote seventy five of these stories over a five or six year period. A few of them are adaptations of other stories told in Twigman format and one, or maybe two, are not about Twigman at all, but adaptations of other stories. Many are taken from actual family experiences. Kids have been observed on the playground putting sticks together and talking to Twigman. About a year ago one of the older ladies who volunteers at the Y asked me if I could write a story about a white squirrel. I thought she was pulling my leg but I gave it a shot. Think about it! How do you draw a white squirrel in black and white? She seemed surprised but pleased when I read story number seventy six, the final one. A few years ago the Y.W.C.A. got into financial and administrative trouble and I feared greatly that I would lose my device for keeping my grandchildren young forever but the Y.M.C.A. took it over, improved it immensely, and it is now called the Y.M.C.A. Early Education Center of North Kansas City. Four years ago my daughter suggested I make Twigman calendars for the kids using pages from these stories for the monthly panels which I have done every year. They have proved immensely popular. Twigman was never about money or fame. A significant number of these stories are protected by registered copyright which my daughter owns. Basically Twigman is for the purpose of entertainment for young and old. The copyright insures that purpose will be fulfilled but these stories may be used or reproduced for any purpose except resale.