Another 24 Hours

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience with 24 Hour Comics Day back in 2006. And on October 2, 2010, I gave it another shot.

This time around, I created my book at Discount Comic Book service in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was able to work alongside fellow Summit City Ink members, Zack Kruse and Ben Tiede, along with a handful of other talented individuals.

So how did it go? It went well. It went well indeed.

For starters, I ended up much happier with the final product this time around. I decided to do a comic based on my two cats, much like the ones posted on this blog. It's basically a superhero action romp, following Olive and Hazel as they fight off an invasion of dog-martians. My goal was to create a funny comic that people of all ages could enjoy, and I think for the most part, it works.

There were a lot of funny things that happened that day too. In the first hour, we had a small child come in to work on a book. He couldn't have been older than four or five and was brought in by his Dad. He kept a steady supply of funny lines coming like, "Dad, why do you make me draw all the time?" and "the boy's cat died ... the boy was sad." Needless to say, a child that young wasn't about to draw for twenty-four straight hours, and at roughly the one hour mark, he seemed to have gotten more than his fill and departed. I still applaud him for his effort.

The hours continued to pass as we pressed on. We seemed to keep each other entertained with a steady supply of impressions, which was great. Zack does a dead-on Stan Lee who's alway taking credit for big ideas while Ben does a really good Harvey Pekar who doesn't seem too thrilled with anyone's ideas. I pride myself on being able to imitate Christian Bale freaking out at the Director of Photography on the set of Terminator Salvation.

We also owe some credit to Stan Bush, whose music kept us going in those last few painful hours. If you're never heard of Stan Bush, just know that every song he's every written is about fighting, winning and rising to the top. If Chuck Norris had a theme song, Stan would be the man to write it.

Eventually, twenty-four hours drew to a close, and we now have a handful of books to share with everyone. The goal is to put them together in an anthology which will be available to purchase. I was able to catch glimpses of the other books as we worked, and what I saw looked great. I was even able to read all of Zack's book about Johnny Appleseed, and I have to say that it's one of the funniest things I've read in a long, long time.

I've also included a few of my favorite pages from my cat comic. I will have copies available at the Mid-Ohio Con in just a couple of weeks.