Did one in January 2006
2 years ago
Wasn’t the greatest piece of literature, but I learned a lot about my limits.
How to do a 24 hour comic
It made me
feel accomplished! 
"It was exhausting, and I can't say it was a piece of Deathless Art, but it taught me a lot about myself and my work ethic."
How I did it: I set aside some vacation time specifically to do this and to recover from it. I started at sunrise, with the thought that finishing up by the next sunrise would be a pretty profound experience (I ended up finishing a few hours early, at about 3am, which was still pretty moving). I didn't plan out a story, I just set pen to paper and started writing, so rather than telling a story, I ended up with a series of essays about doing creative work. I also knew I would hit a wall about 2/3 of the way through, and as I was outlining my essays, I planned one that dealt specifically with that (that part is stylistically different from the rest of the book, which made it possible to pull it off while my hands were shaking from exhaustion. It also created a situation where I could work faster, and create a space to take a nap right after I finished.)
I'll be making my 24-hour comic available to read on my blog in the next day or so.
Lessons & tips: What you take away from an experience like this is going to depend a lot on where you are in your journey with your work. I am at the beginning of my journey with comics, and I needed an initiation.
I can't stress how rewarding and exhausting this is. Do it! Let it change you.
Resources: Get materials you like using. I had a set of Pitt pens, a couple of grey-tone prismacolor markers, a great mechanical pencil I've had for years, and a gum eraser. Oh, and correction fluid, which I strangely stopped using about a quarter of the way in.
People doing this:
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Toronto
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Auckland
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East Lansing
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Las Vegas
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Portland
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People doing this are also doing these things:
Entries
October 7th 2006
3 years ago
24 Hour Comic Day is October 7th this year. I am not a major comic reader, though I like them well enough. A couple hundred comics from my childhood to teens, then a couple dozen just after high school. Maybe 6 graphic novels, all said. I don’t think I have any ambitions to be a comic artist in any professional sort of way. But! A 24 hour comic. I am more than willing to spend 24 hours to challenge myself, and hopefully come out the other side and be able to say that I achieved this goal. I like to be creative, and not just to creatively think, but to have something tangible come out of it. Goals like this a great, because they are so focused and seem so do-able that I am willing to tackle them.
I have no idea what I will come up with. I guess we will see in a month and a half…
