This is my attempt at a 24-hour comic for 24-hour Comic Day 2007 (20th October).
I started at 6.15 in the morning and had to stop at 12.30 in the evening. I managed to do all the pencils and three pages of inks in that time. Despite not finishing, I've scanned everything in so you can read the story - though I'm afraid I had to make the pencil scans pretty dark for the sake of legibility; and, obviously, fairly sketchy. And you'll have to deal with my handwriting. Oh, and it's a bit silly.

If you're in any way interested, I've rambled about my experiences of doing this and posted it below. Otherwise, just ...



For those of you who don't know about 24-hour comics - the challenge is to make a complete 24-page comic in one 24 hour period. That means script-writing, layouts, pencils and inks, the whole lot; you aren't allowed to write anything down beforehand. To find out more (and read other peoples efforts) visit this site.


21/10/07

Hmmm. Well. That was ... interesting.

I can't deny that the idea of doing this somewhat terrified me. For a start it sounds completely impossible. 24 pages? That's, what, six months work? And I've never thought of myself as good at being creative to order (like most people who don't do it as a job). I had visions of myself sitting at the desk and not being able to think of a single idea; and not even managing to start would have been fairly upsetting.

In the end, I did think a little about the story beforehand - which is allowed by the rules, I checked! - so I knew I would at least have a starting point. I don't know if this would be the best method for everyone, and I know a lot of people have said it's fun to just run with an idea on the spur of the moment, but I'm a planner by habit.

I went to bed at 6.30 the night before. I think it did help. I didn't sleep that well, but it made getting up at 6.00am on a Saturday that bit easier. Okay, so that was pretty early, but I'm a morning person and there's no way you'd get me being all creative and on the ball past lunchtime. Once I got underway, it wasn't too bad. I managed to get the script finished by about 8.30 and the layouts done by 10-ish. And after you've done that, it's just a matter of whether it's physically possible to get the work done, rather than whether you've got the mental capacity to think up that much crap in time.

As I said, in the end I didn't manage it. I had the pencils done by about 11 in the evening, and after a couple of pages of inks I knew I wasn't getting much further. I think technically I could have finished, if I used every minute of the twenty-four hours; but by the end I was starting to write words in the wrong order and getting visions of a glorious future somewhere over the horizon where I could actually ... go to bed. Still, I wasn't in the position I expected to be in – namely sitting there thinking 'there is no way in hell I'm ever going to get done in time'. It was more a case of 'there is no way in hell I'm going to stay awake for the next five and a half hours, which I need to do to get it done in time'. And I've got to say I'm pretty pleased about that, at least – it was a problem with stamina, rather than being impossibly slow.

For the record, out of the 18+ hours I managed, I think I took about an hour out in total - for lunch, dinner, tea, carrots etc. ... yeah, I wanted to avoid lots of fat and sugar as they always make me sleepy / irritable after a couple of hours. So, carrots. And apples. (Seriously, people, British Cox's are great at this time of year – get out there and buy some.)

The great thing about the 24-hour comic, is that it's an exercise in saying 'screw it'. Yeah, that dialogue could be better; yeah, I could think of a fancy viewpoint for that panel; yeah, that wall doesn't look right, but screw it. If you can tell what's going on, that's good enough. Because the challenge is, how fast can you go and still create something comprehensible. And it's such a relief after drawing comics where you spend hours repeatedly rubbing out and redrawing the arm of that one guy in the background beside it isn't 'quite right'. I'm sure there are panels in this where things break down, but it's fascinating to see how far you can push things before they stop making sense.

A few things I wasn't expecting:

1) The pain in my hand. Okay, I should have expected that, but I didn't think of it. You draw for that long, it does actually start to hurt.

2) The pain in my jaw. Apparently, clenching your teeth for 17 hours puts a bit of a strain on the muscles.

3) Being that frigging hungry. Honestly, that came as a complete surprise – I'd done nothing but sit at my desk for ten hours and I felt like I could eat a horse. If you ever try this, have lots of food in fridge - you'll need it.

4) Being unable to sleep afterwards. I thought that once I got into bed I'd go straight to sleep, I was that tired. Instead I stared at the ceiling for a good half hour – I just couldn't get my brain to switch off. Which made me feel guilty, like I should be carrying on, even though I knew if I actually got up I wouldn't be able to see straight.

On the whole, I'm glad I did it. It would have been nice to finish (obviously), but it was definitely a worthwhile exercise even though I didn't meet the challenge. I'm still astonished at the amount I did do. Plus, I got to do a silly time travel story! I've always wanted to do one of those ...