The 24 Hour Comic

Got up at 5:30am, loaded some Green Teas into a cooler I borrowed from Bro, dropped the dog off at Ma and Pa's place, loaded up on Candy Bars at the gas station, and badda bing badda boom I was off for Comic Quest in Evansville, IN for the 24 Hour Comic Book Challenge.

For those of you that are unaware of the nature of the 24 Hour Comic Challenge, allow me to explain. Created by Scott McCloud of "Understanding Comics" fame, the concept behind the 24 Hour Comic is to create, write, pencil, ink, and letter an entire comic book in 24 Consecutive Hours. For those of you that don't create comics on a regular basis, it takes a lot longer than 24 Hours to make a comic. I'm Superultra Fast, and I need about 144 Nonconsecutive Hours to make a comic. All in all, it's an exercise in Speed, Creativity, Endurance, and Dedication. I had never made a 24 Hour Comic before, but my buddy and frequent partner-in-crime, Clint Bassinger of Cosmic Moustache Comics had made a couple and wanted to do it again in order to clean a few concepts our of his brain. We made arrangements with Comic Quest to host the event, put the word out with other local creators, and we were off to the races.

Unsurprisingly, Clint and I were the only fools foolish enough to undergo this Herculean task. Other members of the Creator's Alliance stopped by over the course of the day, but only Clint and I gutted it out for the 24 straight hours.

Interestingly, both Clint and I decided to cheat a little. Clint walked in with character designs and a full script. I had a Cactus Joe story I wanted to tell, and had a vague concept for it in my head. So neither of us took the clean slate approach.

The Game began at 8:30am on Saturday. Clint started by drawing thumbnails of his entire book. I just barralled into the pencils. My pencil rate was initially somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 Pages per Hour. I vaguely remember taking a lunch break around 1pm with over half my pages penciled. Made the mistake of eating at Long John Silvers. Stomach was utterly disrupted for remainder of the Game. Also, they got my order wrong. Got my pencils done at some point, can't remember when. Started slowing down. Started taking little breaks every two pages. Read the stack of comics I purchased. "Batman: The Return" and "Batman Inc." are AWESOME!!!!

Inking began. Clint's still pencilling. Ordered a pizza from Papa Johns. Bigger mistake. Stomach's too upset from lunch to enjoy greazy pizza. Ugh. Making great time on Inks. About two pages an hour, which is fast even for me. Clint's not sure if he's gonna make it in time. I tell him he needs to cut corners and not spend so much time adding greytones and heavy blacks with his ink wash. Call Bro at Midnight for Moral Support and to find out how the UFC PPV went. Good to hear Bro, but the UFC card was apparently a disappointment, with Lyoto Machida losing to Rampage in a crummy split decision. Resumed inking. Getting slower, losing focus. Clint's playing odd Mix CDs on his little CD player. Doing okay.

Then. At 4am. I. Hit. The. Wall.

THUD!

With pages 19 through 24 left to Ink, I ran completely out of gas. I thought it over and decided discretion was the better part of valor, and laid down on the floor and went to sleep for two hours. Woke up in the middle of the dream feeling crummy but lucid and resumed the Game at 6am with two and a half hours on the clock. Drank my last Green Tea and ate a big bag of M&Ms. Clint was almost caught up to me by now, having inking his comic up to page 19 as well. Worked diligently for the remaining two hours and finished Page 24 (the only truly embarrassingly bad page) at 8:20am on Sunday. GAME OVER. Our Hero Wins! Ten minutes later, Clint wrapped up his last page as well. There were bands and parades and celebrations and dancing girls and monkeys and elephants and dancing girls. No wait. There was none of that. Just two dudes waiting to be let out of an empty comic shop. We waited till 9am, and when no one came to let us out, we locked up and left through the back. I was gonna get a hotel, but my emergency nap gave me enough juice for the 2 hour drive home. So home I went.

My 24 Hour Comic is Called "Dicks for Hire", and is the humorously surreal adventures of Cactus Joe, Pengy Penguin, and another classic TORCverse character starting a Detective Agency. It will be available sometime in 2011.