It’s that time of year again, 24 Hour Comics Day! This will be my second year participating and I’m really looking forward to it. Last year’s event was fun, but tiring. And as some of you may know, I actually met my goal with time to spare.
What will be different this year are the additions of Twitter and Ustream. Since I work digitally, I didn’t go to an actual event location, and wrote short blog posts roughly every hour to chart my progress. This year, everyone gets to watch! And instead of writing whole blog posts about my progress, I can simply tweet about it!
At 0:00 hours (midnight PST) on Saturday, October 18th I will begin broadcasting live at TooninView.com (this links to my Ustream page). And except for meal breaks, I’ll be on there all day, until I’m done (hey, if I finish early like last year, I’m a goin’ to bed!) So, stop by to chat, to watch, or just listen to my 24 hour long mp3 playlist! lol
Now, as far as what I’m actually going to be creating on that day, I’ve bounced around a few ideas in my head since last year. Last time, my goal was to create three strips per “page” to create a 24 page comic book, totaling 72 individual comics strips created in a single day. That was a major undertaking by itself, but I used a very simple art style that allowed me to complete a strip an average of every 12.5 minutes.
Even on my best day, an “Oy” strip takes 25-35 minutes to complete; often an hour or longer if I have complicated details. And since I also have to write the jokes/story within the 24 hours, and the fact I don’t really have time to do a non-Oy related project, I have to make the nature of the event match my comic creation needs. I also don’t want to just slap it out since the final product will publish on the Oy website (and even books down the road) for all to see. So, I don’t want to have something embarrassing at the end of the day.
Inspiration struck a few nights ago, and the answer was so simple, I wonder why it took me almost a year to figure out: In 24 hours, I will draw 24 strips in their normal horizontal format. Then I will rearrange each comic into a vertical format (old comic strip collections used to do this before the “Garfield” size books came along; some publications still do this), three panels to a page. This cuts my workload down by 2/3rds and will allow me to focus on quality over quantity. I will have content for my site, and a publication to send in to the 24 Hour Comics Day powers-that-be. It’s a win-win!
So mark your calendars for Saturday, October 18th @ 0:00 hours (midnight) Pacific Standard Time, and check in on my progress at Tooninview.com, and/or follow me on Twitter.
