Long Beach Pike in the 30s and 40s

Each of us is creating new history every day. This project seeks to connect and empower all through history.

In late 2019, I started a project to bring history to youth today. That project was to produce a community-created comic book about the historic Long Beach Pike.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit early in 2020, but the project limped along.

We hosted tours of the Long Beach Pike, that started at the Makersville studio in Shoreline Village, mini-camps to develop comic book making skills, and interns who created content for a book on how we wrote the comic book... as we worked on stories for the comic book. It is circuitous because discovery based projects are circuitous - and the publication date is still to be determined - but we succeeded in engaging students in history, the real goal of the project. We made jigsaw puzzles of artists' work and a local Long Beach landmark.

We attended the Long Beach Comic Con and advertised the project. It was this combination of convention, creators and visitors to the convention that helped to boost the project. It was at this convention that the creative team of Rafael Navarro, Mike Wellman, LeClair Pearson and Don Schmidt came together for this project.

In fall, 2022, Makersville published a non-fiction book with the memories of Paul Miranda, who was born in 1928 and lived and worked at the historic Pike. That book is available at local events we attend, at our studio in Shoreline Village and on Amazon. It will help those who did not know about the historic Pike to have some perspective as they work on the comic book.

We did not intend to create non-fiction, but now we do. We will be creating new editions of the book, work on other decades at the Pike, on the Rainbow Pier, the Municipal Auditorium, the Virginia Hotel and the Pacific Electric Red Car. We will create works on the connectedness between the Long Beach Pike, the Santa Monica Pier, Coney Island, amusement zones in other countries such as Great Yarmouth in the U.K. and Tivoli Gardens in Denmark. We will learn and write, draw and create and execute projects.

I should add that we did not intend to create non-fiction about the Santa Monica Pier, Coney Island, Great Yarmouth and Tivoli Gardens, but now we do. That is a story for another time.

There is still room for creators on the growing project. Those wishing to participate in this project should please contact Trish "Squigglemom" Tsoiasue info(at)makersville.net. Partial proceeds from the sale of the book will be used to support the comic book creator team and future projects in the program.

Trish "Squigglemom" Tsoiasue is a creativity consultant working on community-based STEAM Education projects, particularly using the engagement models of Making and the Maker Movement. Trish is a trained facilitator in LEGO® Serious Play (LSP) and the intentional creativity methods of the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI).

Makersvilleprojects support and are supported by a number of institutions and groups, but especially the Makersville Services 501c3 non profit. To support Makersville Services on Network for Good click here.