The dare: To complete a 24 page comic book in 24 continuous hours.

comic panel thumbnails, by galen

Back in 1990 comic artist Scott McCloud thought of a creative exercise to improve his drawing speed. He decided to challenge himself (and fellow comic artist Steve Bissette) to draw a complete 24 page comic book in 24 hours.

McCloud recalls that first venture:

“Feeling increasingly alone and silly, I called Steve to see how he was coming along on his comic to discover he couldn’t do it that day after all because of family obligations. This made me feel even more alone and silly of course, but I kept going anyway.”

Since that first solitary experiment (which you can view here) the challenge has taken off to become a bit of a phenomena with many notable artists and writers participating. Also, it is no longer a solitary event:

“On April 24, 2004, the first annual “24 Hour Comics Day” (more comics, fewer hyphens!) took place at comics stores all over the country, producing thousands of pages of comics in a single weekend. By 2007, the celebration had grown to events in 18 countries, involving over 1,200 artists and an estimated 20,000+ pages of comics.”

For more information about participating in the “official event” check out this interview with ComicsPRO executive director Amanda Emmert and Wikipedia’s summery of the the rules (with various “noble failure” options). This Saturday it’s gonna be happening all over the place, maybe near you. (And if not, you could get one going :))

A few years ago, John Nakamura Remy invited me to do this with him and a few friends. Our version was a scaled down 18hr deal which we shared with each other via twitter, blogs, and flickr. See the invitations here and here; Final products here and here.

Now we’re gonna do it again!  My personal variation this time around: I’m going to start Friday and will be breaking a rule by using a short story written by Jaym Gates. I plan to have it turned into a 12 (ish) page comic by sometime early Saturday (before family arrives from out of town). Feel free to join in using whatever parameters best fit your life and your creative goals.

John and I will be sharing the process via twitter (@johnremy, @galendara and hashtag #24HCD) as well as google+ ( @John Dewey Nakamura Remy, and @Galen Dara).

So there you go! Collect your art supplies, your ideas, a stock pile of microwavable food & caffeine, and join us for a 24 Hour Comic Day!

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October 3rd progress update: The comic day was a success with much awesomeness created by all.  Specifically, I direct you to John Nakamura Remy’s amazing multimedia creation “All Paths Cross in Time” (live-blogged here),  Jaym Gates dreamy mixed media assemblage comic here, here and here, Jacob Ruby’s live-blogging of his own venture, and my own creation based on Jaym Gates story “Song in my Bones” (on flickr ,  +Google, and live blogged).  In addition, here is the Comic Alliance write up w/ links to many many other artists and groups that participated  in 24 hr comic day: Quite pleased that Jacob, Jaym and I were included in the write up!