Hey all! I’m back from the dead! Well, sleep at least. For those unaware, 24 Hour Comic Day was this weekend, and I somewhat completed it. Here is how it all broke down…

Wasn’t able to sleep on Friday. I think I got somewhere between 4 to 5 hours. Absolutely horrible, especially since I wanted to be fresh for the day. When I arrived I was promptly told by Zander Cannon that I looked like hell….thanks Zander! At any rate, around 12 AM I started feeling awful. I totally hit a wall and was about a page behind the standard rate, which is one page per hour. I even went so far as to call my wife AJ to ask if she would come pick me up. Thankfully for me and her, she was at a movie and couldn’t be reached. I say thankfully, because I ended up picking up my second wind - or maybe it was more like a fourth or fifth wind. I cruised along at a great speed, catching back up to where I was supposed to be. Then somewhere between 6 and 7 AM, my hand cramped up and it absolutely killed to pick up a pencil or pen. I had to quit at 7:05 AM. AJ came and picked me up and I went home to sleep. Upon waking up, along with my hand feeling 100%, I wanted to, no, needed to finish. I was two and a half pages away with more than three hours remaining to complete this story in a non successional 24 Hour period. At 6:29 PM, October 19th, I finished.

Last year, I put together my first 24 Hour Comic, “The Origin of Man the Ladybug” in 22 and one half hours, exactly, with a cover thrown together at the last minute to account for the last page. This time, it took 23 hours and 29 minutes with a break in between and no crappy cover pages.

For next year, I will do a few things differently.

1) Try to get more sleep.

2) Work smaller - Zander and Kevin over at Big Time Attic stressed this so much, but I never paid much attention. Well, I am not foregoing that sage advice next time around.

3) Eat bananas. AJ told me on the car ride home that I should have had more potassium to keep from cramping up. My question is, why didn’t she tell me that before?

4) Finish 24 pages, without a poor looking cover page, within 24 hours.

At any rate, I think the comic turned out rather well. You can read Somewhere in Montana by clicking on the previous link, or the graphic at the beginning of this post.

Also, check out all of the 24 Hour Comics that have been posted so far, at the Minneapolis 24 Hour Comics Day website.

Hey everyone! Here is my 24 Hour Comic for this year! However, there is a bit of required reading. If you hadn’t read my comic from last year you may not get all of the jokes referenced. They are best read back-to-back. So, do that first! Click here to read “Somewhere in Montana.” Then click on the graphic below to read “Meanwhile in Wyoming.”

This year I did things a bit differently. I learned a lot last year from watching Zander Cannon, Kevin Cannon, and Danno Klonowski do their respective stories. Instead of working at 8.5″ x 11″ paper, as I did last year, I worked smaller at 5.5″ x 8.5″ pages. I was still able to do my average of six panels per page, but it looked a lot tighter. Also, I ditched the “pencil, ink, and write as you go approach” that had practiced since my first 24HCD and broke up the process into two parts. First, I wrote and penciled the entire story, which gave me the opportunity to have a pretty structured story. Then I finished each page up with inks….which was nice, because I could pretty much remain a zombie and not have to think, too much, for the rest of the night.

Once again I took the “Pictionary approach” to my story. Since I didn’t have any Pictionary cards when I started, I just picked out five words at random in the dictionary. My words were mop, rave, kung-fu, cumulus, and rookie. I did bend the McCloudian 24HCD rules and had somewhat of a plot figured out before hand. Basically, I knew that I was going to use the same characters as last year.

Eventually, I finished at 5 AM, quite impressive as I had to leave at about 7 AM last year after my hand cramped up and it hurt to draw. To alleviate that problem, I ate bananas, got a good nights sleep, and kept myself somewhat hydrated throughout the event…although in retrospect, I could have used more water.

Check out other Minneapolis 24 Hour Comic Day results at the Minneapolis 24-Hour Comic Day blog.

Here it is! My 2010 offering for the 24 Hour Comic Day Gods! As it was last year, there is a bit of required reading before diving head first into this.. If you hadn’t read my comic from the last two years read these first “Somewhere in Montana.” “Meanwhile in Wyoming.”

Then click on the graphic below to read “Elsewhere in Utah.”

Over the course of the year, I had been challenged by Danno Klonowski to do fifty 24 Hour Comic adventures including Bret Blackberg and crew for every state in the union. That sounds like a great idea! An idea I may just tackle! But not yet, I’d like to finish a couple of other projects first!

This year I did only a couple of things a bit differently and learned from a mistake early on that I intend to correct next year. I worked at the scale I intend to print these at, which is 5″ x 7″ and is similar to what I did last year. I worked on 11″ x 17″ graph paper, just like last year, but instead of having two 5″ x 7″ pages per each 11″ x 17″ piece of paper, I tried to be more efficient and divided the paper into fourths.

I paginated the comic before starting on the story. I believe this is a good idea, since it will save you time should you decide to scan and print these later. Next, I wrote and pencilled the story. Basically I created detailed thumbnails, which I inked over later.

Before inking the book, I lettered and inked the panel borders. When I began inking, I looked over my pencils and searched for items that required more detail, such as buildings and inked those first. I did this, so when fatigue set in, I was able to work on less detailed panels without fearing that I was going to create really sloppy art on, what I hoped would be, nicer looking pages.

The lesson I learned is that I should have had each paginated section flipped so I could work at the bottom of each page rather than reach across the paper. What I mean by this is that I would have pages 24 and 1 facing the bottom of one half of the 11″ x 17″ paper, lengthwise, and pages 2 and 23 facing the bottom of the other side. This caused smudging, which although wasn’t a big hassle, it did require more erasing than should have occurred.

Once again I took the “Pictionary approach” to my story. Since I didn’t have any Pictionary cards when I started, I just picked out five words at random in the dictionary. My words were knick-knack, senile, protractor, cranny, and isotope. I didn’t really use these words in a particularly clever fashion, as I had already had a vauge idea of what my story was going to be about before hand. Basically, I knew that I was going to use the same characters as the last two years.

Eventually, I finished at 4 AM, but finished inking at 3 AM. I spent the extra hour erasing and correcting my pages. This is even more impressive than last year, since I left last year at 5 AM, without having erased and corrected my pages. As usual, I ate bananas, got a good night’s sleep, and kept myself hydrated throughout the event.

Check out other Minneapolis 24 Hour Comic Day results at the Minneapolis 24-Hour Comic Day blog.