Want to tell a story that truly matters? Harness the power of visual storytelling—where words and imagery combine to leave a lasting impact.

This is the story of Isi Metzstein, a young boy who escaped pre-war Berlin on the Kindertransport and found refuge in Glasgow. Told through Isi’s own voice, drawn from an intimate audio interview, the narrative reveals the danger he faced, the heartbreaking separation from his family, and their miraculous reunion as they built a new life in Scotland.

The story was brought to life through a powerful collaboration between writer Paul Bristow, myself, and the young people of St Bride’s School. The resulting comic is a moving testament to how learners and creators can work together to illuminate history—preserving voices that must never be forgotten.

All the illustrations were created in pen and ink, hand drawn and the artwork scanned and coloured on Photoshop. Have a look at the short video to see all the pages in Isi’s story. The idea from the leaners was to have the fire punctuate the black and white to show the violence of the fire that destroys his Synagogue,

I’ve recently been working with secondary school pupils at St Brides School in East Kilbride with Magic Torch Comics. For this project we are taking excerpts from children that fled Germany in the 1930’s and relocated to the UK.

Key to the learning is to allow the pupils to find their own way through the story and share my experience of illustrating graphic novels. To get them infer from a story’s text, what else could be said and making their own choices in how to best visually tell the tale. .

The short version of Isi Metzstein’s account of how he experienced Kristallnacht was prepared to work with. The two pages you see here have been inspired in part from the classes own work. In my most recent session with the class my two pages inspired from the collaboration was presented to them for feedback.

As the project progresses I will be creating the full version of this story and a another by Dany Metzstein. These stories told as visual narratives will be an important part in telling these important stories to younger people.

Both will be available to read for free at Magic Torch Comics for schools and anyone else interested.

These interviews can be found here and tell of the horror inflicted on these young lives.