Well, the 20th was 24 Hour Comic Book Day, and it was the first one I have ever participated in. I did it at Mission Comics and Art which did an excellent job hosting the event. It was also surreal seeing drunk people come in to look at or buy comics at 2 AM. One woman in a group of people that stumbled by, fresh out of a bar, shouted “Guys! Look at this comic book! No, look at this comic book!” but her friends were not so excited about doing a late-night comic run as she was so they walked on.
I finished drawing and inking my comic at about 4AM, so then I decided I might as well colour it! Well, I regretted that choice at about 5 AM when I started crashing. But I took a nap in a rolley-chair and pressed on. I finished colouring my comic at about 9:30 AM. Once I get that thing scanned, I’ll post it here. I may have sort of cheated by doing “The Unquiet Grave,” which is an old old English folk song so I didn’t really have to think of my own story. But I did re-write the whole thing for flow and to fit into 24 pages, so… who knows.
I decided that I wanted to draw the whole thing in a medieval drawing style, to look like those illuminated manuscripts and the like, including weird perspective, wooden poses, and expressionless faces. I soon regretted that decision because it was boring to draw and difficult to make dialog interesting, so things got trippy in my comic for a while, but c’est la vie!
If you want to see more photos of people drawing comics at the event, Leef posted a ton of cool photos to a Mission Comics facebook album here.
And if anybody would like to know what it’s like to participate in 24 Hour Comic Book Day, this is an accurate summary.
I’m glad we both decided to watercolor our comics. They are way better now.
Too right!