April 11, 2005

Off-topic: 24 Hour Comics Day 2005

I'm a firm believer that in order to grow, you have to stretch not only beyond your abilities in your chosen field, but to try to expand beyond your chosen field. You never know what you might learn through these little experiments in other fields, but you always come away with a greater appreciation for what other people do.

With that in mind, I have decided to try to participate in 24 Hour Comics Day 2005. My plan is to head down to Lone Star Comics on Mockingbird this Saturday and register. Then I plan to show up at 11:00am on Saturday, April 23 with my art pad (sized so that my scanner at home can scan the result) and my Sharpies and do my best.

I'll be posting the results here to my blog, regardless of whether or I succeed or fail. Now, I'm going to set expectations. I'm going to do at least 24 pages (more if the story requires it), black and white only. No shading, no color. I'll be hand-lettering the comic, but if my handwriting is illegible and time permits, I will wipe out the text and computer letter when I get home if necessary. For my randomizer, I will be taking a small dictionary and when the event starts, I shall flip to three random words in said dictionary, write them down, and build my story around those words.

Will the story be good? I don't know...but I've found that some of my best work occurs when there is a random element introduced. Of course, usually the random element that is introduced is me, but that's besides the point.

So wish me luck!

By the way, I ordered from Lone Star Comics regularly when I was in Utah. I finally went into their Mockingbird store yesterday, and found a clean store, a helpful staff, and a massive drain on my pocketbook for years to come.

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