My current recommendation for finishing a 24 hour comic is to sleep loads and while awake never be without a glass containing the following ingredients:
- Lemon
- Grated Ginger
- Hot Water
- Honey
- Jack Daniels.
I tend to view 24HCD as a massively intense idea development day - and while I technically finished a comic with 24 pages, it's not going to get published anywhere. This has been the case every time i've done it. That's not to say I'm not happy with the outcome - I am - but more as a learning exercise and providing me with ideas to develop further in other comics.
So here's the breakdown of the comic:
Pages 1-5:
A robbery is occuring in a sci-fi city. A sci-fi city was chosen because it would allow a certain flexibility with realism.
Not enough flexibility as it happens, and this is a lesson for next time: choose a minimal environment you can draw sustainably and quickly. Make your characters fish, robots, beans, monsters but most importantly, closer to 2D than 3D. Don't make them real human beings with real human hands, because that's just too damn hard at the best of times and 24HCD isn't the best of times.
The robbery fails, and our hero, Jupiter Junior is saved after jumping off the building roof by the Techno Robbery Examiner in her flying car, who tells him that he's failed his Techno Burglary basic certification due to a) bungling the safe, and b) failing to spot that one of his colleagues deliberately tampered with his parachute to take all of the loot.
Pages 6-13:
Junior returns to his caravan and tries to announce his PASS to his girlfriend, Malena, who is already aware that he failed and dumps him, because really what she wants in a boyfriend is someone who can rob her fathers house.
Junior returns to his caravan and tries to announce his PASS to his girlfriend, Malena, who is already aware that he failed and dumps him, because really what she wants in a boyfriend is someone who can rob her fathers house.
His next phone call is to his two partners in failed crime, both of whom passed and complain that they would have distinctions if Junior hadn't bungled the safe. No hard feelings about the parachute, oh and by the way, they're still going to do the job on Malena's fathers house he told them about. A shame he can't make it, but they'll still give him a ten percenter cut for putting them onto the job.
Junior gets himself together to do the job anyway, due to some television documentary on Malena's father, which contains some baiting aimed at him from Malena. The object we're stealing is apparently some artifact from a war against Carnoxotles where the dad was a general. The plot starts to fall apart at this point, but Junior doesn't notice so buys all the kit he needs and starts the job.
Pages 14-18:
The job: Junior makes his way through the mansion grounds and into the mansion, dealing with dogs, getting onto the roof, lasers, secret doors and pits full of spikes. The artefact looks suspiciously like a chess piece modelled on an axolotl, and on page 16 the safe type and cracking echoes that on page 2.
The job: Junior makes his way through the mansion grounds and into the mansion, dealing with dogs, getting onto the roof, lasers, secret doors and pits full of spikes. The artefact looks suspiciously like a chess piece modelled on an axolotl, and on page 16 the safe type and cracking echoes that on page 2.
Once the artefact is removed from the safe, Junior is attacked by really cute Carnoxotle's who can't decide whether he qualifies as food. They conclude that taking some small bits out of him would allow them to make this judgement.
Junior flees, and encounters his two ex-partners who are already on the job. They end up being eaten by the Carnoxotle's that he's set free by removing the artefact.
Pages 19 and 24:
Junior escapes into the bedroom of Malena, and tries to convince her that now he has the artefact they can be rich and move away from her father etc.etc. But this turns out not to be why she wanted it.
Junior escapes into the bedroom of Malena, and tries to convince her that now he has the artefact they can be rich and move away from her father etc.etc. But this turns out not to be why she wanted it.
The father turns up, shoots Junior in the back and explains to Malena that trying to awake her sisters to have him (and all the evidence) eaten was quite a trick and reminds him of her mother. The sisters are back in their room now. While this father/daughter conversation is going on, Junior escapes through the window.
Junior ecapes across the lawn, The Father notes that Junior did ok - almost a pass, revealing himself to be the head of the thieves examining board/guild/whatever, and tells Malena that if she sees him again, she should tell him.
The final page is an epilogue of Malena on the phone asking Junior if he wants to come around to her house for dinner, to meet the family.
And that's that:
Too ambitious and doesn't quite hang together, but having some good bits of action, a few bits of funny and some ideas worth stealing for other comics.
A successful 24 hours I think. The others should be along shortly to tell you how it went for them.
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