24 Hour Comic Day!!!

Ben Sutter · Post by **Ben Sutter** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 2:57 pm

Well, someone had to mention it.

Me and my co-conspiritors, Andy B. and Pat B., will be making 1 24-hour comic each on Tuesday, March 23rd, midnight to midnight. Yeah, it's early, but we have a spring break to use up, and us college boys work on the weekends.

SO, what does everyone think? Are you going to participate, early or otherwise? Is the 24 hour comic an exercise in creativity or futility? The world wants to know!

Actually, it's only me. (wanting to know, not making the comic)

Veleno · Post by **Veleno** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 3:22 pm

Well, I'm still trying to figure out if I can convince myself to do one...

Kris Lachowski · Post by **Kris Lachowski** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 4:33 pm

Veleno wrote:Well, I'm still trying to figure out if I can convince myself to do one...

you should, thy're fun! there that's settled

Good luck next week Ben! The worst part is the middle, just get past that and it's easy well sorta.

Michael_Harker · Post by **Michael_Harker** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 2:00 am

Hi, y'all. I had to register for zwol just to respond to this thread.

24-Hour Comics rule..... you know. Everybody should do it at least once. This means you. Yes, you.

I've already drawn one back in September. (yet to be put on the big list...oh well) And I'm gonna be drawing another one in April with as many suckers, err, people, as i can get to draw one...

24 hour comics rule much so much...So go, draw one. Now.

losttoy · Post by **losttoy** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 10:27 am

For all of the forum members who have done 24 hour comics in the past ... would you like to post links here so we can all see?

Post by **Scott McCloud** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 11:04 am

Lest anyone get confused by the thread title, the official date of 24-Hour Comics day is
April 24, 2004.

Details can be found at:
http://www.24hourcomics.com/

Of course, anyone can do it whenever they want! Good luck with yours, Ben!

William G · Post by **William G** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 5:02 pm

losttoy wrote:For all of the forum members who have done 24 hour comics in the past ... would you like to post links here so we can all see?

Well, I made this comic within four hours of having the idea when I was in Korea.

But, it took me another three days to find a PC room with a scanner.

But it only took me an hour or so to make it webready.

So, what I'm saying, is that I don't think it counts.

Tim Mallos · Post by **Tim Mallos** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 9:40 am

I liked the comic Will. My wife and I have a running Tupperware-as-youth-preserver joke.

Only one critique - The good ol' US of A will NEVER erect a wall that is a kilometer high. We'll never go metric man!

Tim

Veleno · Post by **Veleno** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 6:14 pm

Tim Mallos wrote:The good ol' US of A will NEVER erect a wall that is a kilometer high. We'll never go metric man!

Tim

I blame football for keeping us from going to metric

Rip Tanion · Post by **Rip Tanion** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 7:15 pm

Veleno wrote:I blame football for keeping us from going to metric

Thank God!

Could you imagine the NFL record books listing Jim Brown with 4.773168 meters per carry?

William G · Post by **William G** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 11:18 pm

Tim Mallos wrote:I liked the comic Will. My wife and I have a running Tupperware-as-youth-preserver joke.

Only one critique - The good ol' US of A will NEVER erect a wall that is a kilometer high. We'll never go metric man!

Tim

Hell, I never thought of that. I'll go change that now.

Ben Sutter · Post by **Ben Sutter** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:13 am

Um... I'm contemplating, since there will be three people in the same roon, whether we should do it all in the same room.

The pros: We'll be together, so we can all listen to the iTunes and effect each others ideas, and instantly ask for critiques.

The cons: We might distract each other. For instance, what if one of us were to start the comic off very well? This might have a dampening effect on the moods of the other two members. We might annoy each other, or become irritable after 30 hours+ of conciousness.

And, this might apply to the comic book stores that are participating on APRIL 24th, 2004!!!!(sorry, Scott)!!!! Insane ramblings, or legitimate worries? Only you can decide!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:43 am

Alright. I finished in 23.3 hours, my new comic, "Soul Foundry" is complete. I sit in a Web Page design class as I type this, so maybe I can show the world in a while?

Andy finished his 24-page bundle of joy, "The Birth of Blair's Bean", and Patrick finished penciling his comic, but he only inked about a third of it. He will finish it. All three are great. Ah...

Michael_Harker · Post by **Michael_Harker** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:14 pm

Here at Willamette University. in Salem, Oregon, I'm organizing a 24-hour comics event if my own next Saturday. Unfortunately, this falls one week short of 24-hour Comics Day, but it'll still be awesome. So far we have at least 6 participants, and we'll hopefully have more.

Anyways, if anyone's still looking for 24-hour comics to read, here's an old one I drew last year: www.willamette.edu/~mharker/comix00.htm

And if Scott McCloud is by any chance reading this, I'd just like to thank you for thinking up such an amazing, intensely fun way spend 24 hours.

-Michael Harker, who apologizes for not having posted here very much.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:41 pm

Checked out your comics, William and Michael. Great stuff.

I can't wait to give my first 24-hour a shot...

Chronosome · Post by **Chronosome** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:43 pm

Anonymous wrote:Checked out your comics, William and Michael. Great stuff.

I can't wait to give my first 24-hour a shot...

I'm that guy, up there. Wasn't logged in, apparently.

DecafSilicon · Post by **DecafSilicon** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 7:12 am

I called my local comics store (Bell's) and got them to promise us a place to draw if I could gather some participants.

slinkp · Post by **slinkp** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 11:30 am

Paul Winkler here, I'll be doing a 24-hour comic at Jim Hanley's Universe from Saturday the 24th (noon) to Sunday (noon). I'm not totally clear on who else is participating but I believe there will be Alex Robinson ("Box Office Poison"), Matt Madden (various projects including "Exercises in Style", google for him), and maybe K. Thor Jensen?

Feel free to stop by and say hi if you're in NY city!

slinkp · Post by **slinkp** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 11:49 am

I figured that since I've done four 24-hour comics over the years, and got 2 of them done in under 24 hours (and went way over with the other two), I might give a few words of curmudgeonly advice to the first-timers:

Try a simpler style than you're used to.
Being cartoony is not only fun, it can be a lot faster. Take liberties.
Beware of heavy dialogue.
Lettering is slow, especially if your lettering is as bad as mine. On the other hand, lettering may be faster than drawing something complicated. Do one or the other, rarely both.
Shading is for people who have time.
Gray is for wimps!
Do you really need that background?
Get in the habit of thinking about it again for every panel.
Use really fast tools.
No muss, no fuss. Inflexible markers are good. Brush markers are tricky when you're exhausted, and they dry slow. Real ink is for people who have time.
Big fat markers are your friend. They prevent you from getting finicky.
Is the drawing vaguely legible? Great! Move on!
You can come back to it later. If there is no later - oh well, good thing you stopped when you did.
Go twice as fast as you think is necessary.
You might think, "I do an average of 6 panels a page. I need to do a page an hour. Therefore I have 10 minutes per panel." Nope! Something will slow you down. In fact, many somethings will slow you down. You can't predict or prevent them all. If you are just barely keeping up with where you need to be, you will suddenly find yourself way behind and it will only get worse. I did that on two of my 24-hour comics. They both went way overtime. It hurts your morale too, makes it harder to get all the way to the end.
The solution is to get ahead and stay ahead. Think you need 10 minutes a panel? Make it five.
Let things happen. You may find that in your rush, and your increasingly tired state, you start drawing differently, or thinking differently, or seeing differently. Don't fight iit. Be willing to go places you've never been, and don't try to force the direction! You're not making a magnum opus, you're participating in an experimental artistic process. Something interesting will come, and it will probably not be much like what you envisioned when you started.

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:02 pm

There's an official 24-hour Comics message board. If, like me, you plan on blogging your progress (or lack thereof), there's a thread over there for you.

Kris Lachowski · Post by **Kris Lachowski** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:49 pm

So scott... is there any chance that in honor of 24hr comics day you're going to update the 24hr comic index?

Iain · Post by **Iain** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 11:44 pm

When I first heard about this event, I was pretty gung ho to go for it. As it approached though, I found a slight conflict. It seems my professors all like to give these things called "finals" at the end of the semester, and this is uh... pretty much the end of the semester.

So, note to self: next year, find professors who like to give finals halfway through the semester. Or, something.

Anyway, good skill and luck to all those participating! And now, back to financial analysis.

- iain hamp

PS I am totally into that "updating the 24 hour comic index page" idea. For uh, purely nonselfish reasons. Of course.

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 5:38 am

Blogging (not very exciting, really) and posting images (more interesting, but server is slow and unreliable. Fastest way for me to get them online, though).

Michael_Harker · Post by **Michael_Harker** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 4:06 pm

My finals also conflict with today. So, I celebrated last weekend....

Yup.... updating the ol' index would be a pretty cool thing to do, Scott... cool thing to do.

Happy 24-Hour Comics Day! I wish I was joining you guys today.

Zwol.org

24 Hour Comic Day!!!

24 Hour Comic Day!!!

The Official Date

NYC event at Jim Hanley's

Tips for 24-hour Cartoonists