24 Hour Comic Challenge

To commemorate Inktober, a month-long artist celebration for ink during October, the local thriving comic book store, Famous Faces & Funnies, hosted a challenge event. The challenge: Within 24 hours, create a 24 page comic.

The event started, the room full of a dozen artists, laughing and having a good time. I joined, a bit self-conscious.

Now, before going into the event, I had made the beautiful mistake of reading the gorgeous and layout rule-bending comic, Sandman: Overture… The story is about dreams, timelessness, other dimensions, and the universe ending, so… Let’s just say that as a comic-making novice, I may have set my bar a little too high.

First Attempt

I dove in, the first few hours working on some crazy layouts. I didn’t have a story in mind, but thought a story about the first lion tamer set in early 1800s America would be fascinating.

I was pushing through and drowning in eraser shavings, meanwhile, sitting across from me, a middle-schooler and enthusiastic comic-maker was having lots of fun with her simple–yet still entertaining–story, and her cartoon style characters that lacked detail without lacking personality.

Across from her, I was struggling, and eventually realized—I was going about this the wrong way. Looking at my three pitiful boards, I realized I would never finish at this pace, so I might as well scrap it, start over and have fun with it.

What I learned from the first attempt:

• Relax and have fun. If you’re struggling, you’re doing it wrong.
• Have a goal, a direction, a story at the ready. Without this focus it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the unlimited possibilities of blank pages.
• Eraser shavings are an indication of indecisiveness. If you’re spending more time erasing than drawing, then that means you need to stop and plan. Visualize before you act.

Second Attempt

By the time I was ready to start over, luckily my close friend, Brandon, joined. We re-grouped, got in our pajamas and ate. We were ready to have a good time with this challenge.

Its midnight, and artists were dropping like flies. The middle-schooler had long since finished her comic and gone home.

Starting over, in my sketchbook I just started doodling.

The story concept I’ve been the most fascinated in is social conditioning, and I remembered this concept:

You see a massive fully grown elephant held captive by a flimsy rope hanging from his neck and secured to a short pole. You ask why the elephant doesn’t just break free—it would be so easy.

You’re told that the elephant was first introduced to the rope and pole when he was a baby. Back then, tug and try with all of his might, he was unable to break free. Now he doesn’t try anymore.

And thus, the Dejected Elephant was born.

Having fond memories of elephants growing up with Dumbo, the thought of a fed up, and maybe even straight-up sarcastic circus elephant made me giggle. Brandon gave him better eyes.

A handful of us remaining, we were joking, and the comic store owner let us blast Disney music over the speakers. We were all singing along while our pencils worked the night away. I found a rhythm.

In addition to learning the basics of making comics, like composition, drawing characters consistently, placement, and so on, I also learned:

• Create characters you like and want to explore the world with. Stories are your vehicle for doing that, and for you to grow with them.
• How do your characters evolve? You can have this end point in mind as goal for the story. What events or people can they encounter that will push their evolution?
• Story comes first. It’s the hardest but most important part, the foundation that all else is built on. Visual technique can only amplify what’s already there, not substitute it. Having a bad story, or none at all, is like trying to multiply something by zero. You get more nothing.

Pencil worn thin and my drawing wrist was on fire. Brandon left and it was just three of us left. One of the artists gave me a well-needed hand massage and I was eternally grateful. (I still use that massage technique to this day!)

The middle section was a challenge to fill, so I put in a journey between different landscapes. My eyelids demanded to shut, and it was so enticing… But fellow artist, Tony, pushed me to stay awake. He was a long-time regular to these events and always completed his comic. “Don’t you want the satisfaction of having finished it?”

Okay, okay.

Then he gave me the real nugget of advice: wiggle your toes, it’ll keep you awake! To this day, I use that trick to wake up in the morning.

In the haze of toe wiggling and eraser-shaving-filled air (or maybe I myself had become an eraser shaving), eventually…

We finished!

My first attempt ate up a lot of time, so this was actually more like a 12 hour comic for me. The quality decreases as you reach the end because my drawing hand and brain were fried, but I am so glad that I completed it nonetheless. Adding the second character of an enthusiastic child added a nice dynamic, and I’m happy with the story. Here it is in its messy and beautiful entirety.

Walking out, the early morning sun burned, and we hissed like any other creatures of the night. I slept for a million years.

It was fun, let’s do it again next year!