I woke up, just about noon cuz I knew that I had to be at Spazdog soon......
Something like that. After dropping my boys off with their grandparents, I headed to Spazdog comics where the event was happening. You can do a 24hr comics day anywhere, but it's much more fun and enjoyable with others around. I've done several events with Shawn at Spazdog, so I pretty much knew I was going to be treated excellently while there. I got in with about 10 minutes to spare and found out I was only the second one there so I started to worry that most people would not show up, but thankfully they were all running just a tad late. My friend Daniel was the last to arrive and had to set up his G5 as he does all his work digitally, so we officially started with I think 7 or 8 people at about 12:20 or so.
I felt really good the whole time and started out pretty strong realizing I could keep the quality I wanted and still finish the pages in under an hour. That pace was good as it let me have time to stretch my legs and snack, etc. I was penciling, inking and lettering even though I knew I would re-letter the pages digitally later. Freehand lettering and typography are 2 of my weakest points. I had a breakdown of "beats" in which I knew where story transitions needed to go, but I did not have a script or firm story planned outside of the first 2 pages.
The group we were with was pretty good, and at times became very sociable, unfortunately, because I knew I wanted to finish the project I often did not engage or seem sociable to everyone. Even when I was interacting I often did with my face buried in a page, so I apologize if I seemed rude in any way. Over the course of the night we lost most people as they packed it in and left, so by sun up, there were 3 of us remaining and Shawn asleep on his couch.
Glenn is a computer programmer from
Tucson who created a pretty popular computer game in the early 80's called Rouge. He was the only other person to finish the full 24 pages. His story was very funny and reminded me of an early 80's children's book. We both finished early, a little after 10 am.
Daniel Davis rocks the world with his Steamcrow site and his goal was to pad his Monster Commute webcomic with future strips. He also proved to be both entertainment and mentor to many of the artists in attendance. He never fails to impress me with his infinite patience and generosity with his time when it comes to helping others and spreading his knowledge. He also helped keep the mood jovial throughout the night, he's a class act and a real
grapple in his own right.
For my part, I accomplished exactly what I set out to do, finish a 23 page comic + cover in 24 hours and keep the quality to where I think I could publish it. I did both, and the story actually flowed together pretty well too. The no-sleeping part really wasn't all that bad, I never had a hard time focusing or staying awake, but I do think there are stronger pages and weaker ones, and maybe that has something to do with the time of night I did them. The hardest part was actually trying not to re-use too many standard shots (which I did alot of) and managing the aches in my hand from inking. I'll be posting the line-art pages over at the
Sketchjam over the next few weeks but here is the cover + page 1. I will be adding grey-tones to these and re-lettering them prior to publication, which should be under my Super75Press banner in time for the Phoenix Comic-Con.
This was actually the last page drawn, I need to re-draw the girl since her angle is all wrong and the logo will be re-done of course.
Here is an example of how the final panels will look.
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