Well, another 24 Hour Comic Book Day has come and gone. It was only yesterday that I arrived at Mission: Comics and Art to set up and now the final results are here on-line.

CLICK HERE to see photos from the event.

The challenge for 24 Hour Comic Book Day is to completely draw a 24 page comic in 24 hour. The comic can be in any style, size, or media. The challenge is a personal one with you competing against yourself to push your boundary, learn and grow. The challenge lets you see what you are capable of doing in a limited amount of time. The only rule is that you are to create (write, draw, plan) the comic during the event. The challenge is great since even if you don’t finish you still win by learning a lot about how you create.

This year, my meta-challenge was to do a holiday themed comic, possible based on the classic story of the Nutcracker. Besides reading a synopsis of the original story, I did nothing to influence the creation of the comic. I also new that I wanted to add some sci-fi/fantasy elements that were not in the original story. When the even started I started by doing some quick character drawings of Clara, the Nut Cracker, Uncle Drosselmeyer and the Rat King. To start with this was all ready getting to grand, but I still moved forward, excited for the challenge. I started penciling the pages with a light blue Color-Erase pencil on my templates (24HCBD_2010_template ) figuring out the Beginning and Ending. I quickly began to fill in the gaps, but with the story not working too well and the scale being bigger then 24 page it swelled to 30 pages. I knew that I wanted to start inking the story by 1/3 into the event and at that time I still had story gaps, but decided to ink/render the parts I knew were keepers hoping that inspiration and a better idea of how much time left would be my inspiration.

I started with a pass of inking the panel boarders and then cam back and tackled select panels that would help me get a fell of what the comic might be. Soon I was inking full pages with some relief after another one was completed. I also made an effort to jump around to render pages at the end of the comic too so the last thing someone sees would not be my worst work. The process worked and soon blank pages and holes were being filled. By sometime after midnight I knew that the comic would lack dialog since I had given myself so much art to do, but that is OK since I felt that the work would still be well worth the while. I was sure glad to have things pre-penciled since there is nothing like trying to figure out story when you are lacking sleep.

The final comic is far from perfect, but there are places where I really felt I was in ‘the Zone’ and that I was getting a lot of the process. At the bottom of this post are a few Do’s and Don’t that I got from the experience.

HERE IT IS! READ MY COMIC ON-LINE

(Click on the image below to read the comic, or follow this LINK) Feel free to comment below or on Facebook/Twitter and let me know what you think.

NEW Thought and Do’s and Don’ts for 2010:

– K.I.S.S
– Have and beginning and ending early on.
– Penciling first gives you structure to fall back on when you are tired. Keep it simple, but make sure you can understand what your trying to show/say
– I found that I did not use all the reference I loaded up on my iPod and with the stores Wi-Fi to find specific things it was not needed. I could see having 1 page of reference as part of Meta-Challenge though.
– Limit your art supplies. In the end I only used a Light Blue Color-Erase pencil, White-Out pen, Pentel Brush pen, PITT brush pen, small tip brush pen, a Sharpie Pen and that was it. I also had some black ink and brushes to do some washes if there was more time. I would not bring every tool you have, but have back-ups for when the ink runs out.
– Set a Meta-Challenge to help you get started and focused. This year there was: a Holiday story, a comic based on O Henry, a comic drawn with mostly Bic pens, and a 3D comic with photo material taken before hand. As long as the comic is written and drawn during the event, your OK.
– Bring a cushion to sit on cause folding chairs hurt your butt after 24 hours.
– Take breaks, stretch, eat, and drink water too.
– Go in with a positive attitude that you will get something out of the experience and don’t give-up.
– Have fun.