Roly Blankwater, Mercenary Butterfly

Notes on my latest 24 hour comic:

This was my 6th 24 hour comic session, and my 5th story (last time I did episodes of The introvert Manifesto). Going in to this one, I felt at risk of falling into a rut with these spontaneous stories. There is a pattern of opening zaniness giving way to weightier peril, which on some level is probably an attempt to replicate my success with The Danger Club. I toyed with the idea of actually going back to an established cast of characters, probably Zigzag and friends, as a way of accepting the pattern and building on it rather than trying to fight it. 

Well, I didn’t go with Zigzag. My trusty story seed generator gave me “cathedral,” “mysterious box of doom,” and “giant butterfly.” I resisted the butterfly at first, like doing a story about a giant butterfly was too girly or something. But what better way to break out my 24 hour rut than focusing on a character outside of my comfort zone? 

But that’s not what happened either. Roly turned out to be well within my comfort zone, and actually one of my favorite characters. I wound up with several familiar themes: an agent of evil transformed by experience, a girl with messed-up teeth rejecting a monstrous suitor (although, “Roly’s Regret” could be interpreted any number of ways), and strong female characters dressed like Catwoman. What’s that about? I couldn’t begin to speculate. I wanted to at least acknowledge it though, hence the re-appearance of Stella Beretta and her former-lizard-cruise-ship-crew companions. It’s looking like all my 24 hour comics take place in the same universe, and the various characters could run into each other at any time.

This is a short one, only 19 pages. I’m happy with it though. I sort of meant to go political (three guesses who the Ultimate Overlords of Unspeakable Malevolence are) but never got around to it. I did not allow myself any “filler” pages; every page had to advance the story somehow. Even the splash pages have additional inset panels. Also I was performing certain host/organizer duties that kept me away from my table for at least a couple hours. So even though the page count fell short, I consider it a success.

24 Hour Comics Day – The Wrap Up

We had a cozy 14 artists in the library, well over 100 pages produced, and unknown quantities of pizza, coffee, and donuts consumed. Kevin Uehlein and Allan Ecker both made it to 24 pages, and Trillian Spencer hit 25. We are in the process of uploading all stories to PNCA’s comic archive. 

Our east-side rivals at Cosmic Monkey completed 83 pages, making PNCA the winners of our friendly competition!

The Final Hour

The wall is out of control and spread across to the opposite side. Allan and Kevin are finished, both hit 24 pages! Benjamin has a lot of great looking pages, but he’s taking them home to add all the text. Vanessa is the last survivor, still drawing after everyone else has stopped. I made it to page 19 and concluded the story. 113 pages are on the walls, and at least another 50 went home with their creators.

Only a handful of people are still here. I’m done blogging for now. Stay tuned, all stories will be posted to PNCA’s Graphic Novel Showcase.

3:40 am

I got past the inevitable 1:00 am meltdown and went deep into iPod land, trying to catch up. 3 pages in 2 hours; still not enough to put me within reach of 24, but the story is going somewhere. I’m going to shoot for 18.

Indigo left, but not before kindly supplying us with Voodoo Donuts. Trillian is done! 25 pages! BT is also done, having met his personal goal of 25 pencilled pages. Genevieve and Kim are napping. 

The wall is busting out! Practically everybody is up there now. 

1:26 am

Just finished page 10. There’s no way I’ll make it to 24. My story sucks anyway. Why am I even here? Comics suck. I could be at home, asleep in bed right now. I just did a splash page of a rocket ship. Same thing I did last time. Was it also page 10?? No, it was page 20 or 21. Probably happened at 1 am though. I’m trying too hard to control my story. I have to let it gooooooooo!

Hour 12

10 pm, the halfway point, and energy is up. Maybe because the coffee from Backspace arrived an hour ago. Adrian, Kim, and Trillian are on the wall. Vanessa and Daniel are back from excursions. Everyone takes a break to watch Dr. Horrible.

 

Hour 8

Benjamin’s hands are covered in paint. Genevieve, Trillian and Kim are building up some fine artwork. BT and Indigo are using the time to work on other projects. Vanessa, Alan, and Neal are growing the wall.

Hour 5

Midway through our 5th hour, and were up to 14 participants. After a quick break for lunch it’s back to the scribbling. Our wall of pages has plenty of room to grow.

24 HCD: kicking off

At the official start time of 10:00 am we are 10 strong and hard at work.

24 Hour Comics Day is here!

The day has arrived. Soon the feverish scribbling will begin. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this.)

To kick things off, here’s a newly minted solo effort from Max Key, who is unable to join us this weekend.

See all photos here.