Making of "Love of Reading"

I've been adding a bunch of cool chapter books to my 9yo's bookshelf and encouraging him to dive in when he says he has "nothing good to read!" but none of them were getting picked up. In a stroke of pure genius, I decided to move them all to a bookshelf on the landing and lo and behold, it only took a few days before the first one was "discovered"! Score 1 for Mummy!

I knew he couldn't be the only kid to be like this, so I thought Fran laying some elaborate book trap would make a good comic. My first attempt was this:

I really liked the idea of Joel finding Fran in a pillow fort, but the hook through the book was a bit weird and the comic was too long and visually uninteresting for the payoff, so I put it on the back burner. When I came back to it with fresh eyes a few months later, I realized the pillow fort was getting in the way of the storytelling. Without it I could hide what she was doing until the very end, making her look crazy while she's telling Joel he is!

I decided to really challenge myself with the poses. I'm always such a mess when I'm doing craft stuff sitting on the floor, so I wanted to show that leg chaos. I also needed Joel to move from standing to crouching (so he wouldn't be seen in the last panel), so I had the bright idea of Fran literally throwing the book at him! :)

What do challenging poses need? Embarrassing reference photos! My cat was very confused about what I was doing and why I wasn't petting him

Right at the end I had to decide what book to use. One of the ones on my shelf which he hasn't found yet, but I'm excited for him to read is Redwall -I was a sucker for adventuring mouse books when I was little! I realized having a mouse on the cover would make the cat pouncing joke even better, so legally distinct "RedWell" it became!