Preparation for 24 Hour Comic Day

So, preparing for 24 Hour Comic Day once more. It is happening tomorrow at the Globe Gallery. Stop by and say hi!

This will be my fourth, and my third in company. I've learned a few things, and I'm going to write them down now so I don't forget them. Here are Twenty Four top tips.

Things to do with the survival:

1. Start as early in the day as possible. No point in wasting waking hours.
2. Prepare Supplies: Fruit. Juice. Fizzy Water, Crackers, Salsa. Olives. Minimal meat, cheese, bread crisps. But some of those or I will get sad.
3. Clothing, in layers. Bring all the layers. Good socks.
4. Walk around and go outside, while it is still daylight, get Sushi if available rather than, for example, a massive curry. The downsides of a massive curry are quite obvious in retrospect.
5. Mints, deodorant, hand cream, face wash.
6. As Matt points out: Douglas Adams reminds us that: "A towel ... is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have."

Things to take that will help with the comic:

1. All of your usual drawing kit, naturally. Plus spares.
2. Music and Headphones will both build morale and help the story along. Bring some Small Press Big Mouth to listen to while drawing.
3. Chargers for any electrical devices you take.
4. Something to throw ideas your way: the latest copy of The New Scientist, Britt's box of random cut out words, Tarot cards, etc.
5. Tipex, scissors and double sided tape so you can patch artwork quick sharp if you need to.
6. A folder with 12 plastic sleeves in, so you can get a feel for the whole comic.

Things to do with the story:

1. Spend the first hour or two planning, figuring out the characters and story.
2. Cheat: Make that 20 pages not 24, using four pages for covers and introduction/contents pages.
3. Have a complete page by page beat sheet for those 20 pages before beginning to draw.
4. Know the story before figuring out the plot: The story is what your character wants, the plot is what stops him/her getting it. If the plot drives the character, he/she is probably merely reacting to it and you'll end up with a shaggy dog tale that (since you aren't The Coen Brothers) leads nowhere.
5. Utilise the Cuttlefish Method: The beginning and end are the important bits. You can leave pages blank for a B Story or where the purpose of a page is to get a character from A to B and 'something happens along the way'. The nature of these pages will probably turn up later, and allow you to foreshadow retrospectively, which is better than foreshadowing something you don't get time to figure on a good payoff for.
6. Talk, share ideas and problems. Offer solutions.

Drawing the damn thing:

1. Pencil all of the pages first (except for those covered by The Cuttlefish Method, above) but only to the degree of blocking in panel, character and speech balloon placement. You don't have time to do detailed pencils.
2. Do not waste time colouring in large areas of black, cross hatching, or drawing anything that isn't telling the story. That mahoosive fantasy landscape can be done once the story is finished.
3. If things are going well, you'll be well into the drawing by 4am.  Hysteria will probably be kicking in around this time. Things will happen, people will have wandered off to watch daft youtube video's. People will say stupid things. Incorporate these in your drawing and story.
4. In fact, don't draw your panel borders, speech bubbles or lettering in ink or bother being tidy with them. These are the things in a comic most likely to need moving, and the quickest job to do if done at the end.

Finally:

1. You will presumably be returning home at some point: the meat, cheese and bread you haven't had should be there for you. Going shopping after a 24 hour comics won't be great fun.
2. Hmmm, that's only 23 Top Tips. What is the 24th top tip for surviving 24 hour comic day? Any ideas?

Newcastle Mini Comic 2012 Review

The 2012 Mini Comic event was an amazing success. Despite me making a mistake with the dates it was part of World Mini Comics day in May.

The day began with Paul Thompson's and Ingi Jensson's presentations about all things comicy and Icelandic. Both were brilliant, I learnt absolutely loads to use with my own work. Paul spoke eloquently about all aspects of comic storytelling and making visual jokes work. Ingi gave a powerful presentation about style and the ups and downs of his comic career. We also learnt alot about Iceland and Ingi's cool uncle.

The comics making event was great. We had a constant stream of people of all ages attending wihich totally nearly 70 overall. The pace was relentless and everyone had a great time. Loads of great comics were made.

It was great to speak to all of the various folk who attended and help them get started. Everyone was full of enthusiasm for comics and cartoons. It was particularly good to speak to Kris, a gifted cartoonist, who wants to get into comics after retiring. The Awesome Comic Machine award should go the Ruth aged 11, who spent the whole event relentlessly drawing amazing comics without moving, pausing or flagging.

There was great works byPaperjammers Matt Gan and Lydia Wysocki. Ingi did a great one too, but I'll have to pick up a copy next week so I don't know its name. Britt Coxon's were amazing too. It is now a tradition that Paul never finishes his work during the event.

It was amazing to see Nigel Auchterlounie and his mini comic The Adventures of Whinnie the Dog. There was also a great comic by Peter Coulthard titled the Scarecrow, there was loads of great comics made by unknown makers one titled A Trip to the Shops was a particular hit. The photo shows most of them that I picked up, but I know I didn't get them all.

As part of the workshop we will be sending samples of them over to Mike. He was able to attend the morning but hopped on a plane to Malta, so the comics will reach him in the next few days. He's doing a reciprocal zine which he's promising to send back to us.

I couldn't have managed the event without the help from a number or folks, especially Britt and Paul for doing the photocopier duties. Also, Sophie and Judith were both brilliant as well.

As usual the Newcastle City Library were great and the success of the event was due to the helpfulness of all the staff involved, particularly Pauline and Patrick.

Many of the attendees were keen to hear about future events, which got us thinking.  You'll have to wait and see for now.

Thanks for the Support!

Well, nearly everyone has posted their stories and some pictures of the event and I believe that there are a few still to come.

On behalf of everyone who took part, I'd like to thank Martin for organising this. It was a great event, and everyone had a great time and the stressful parts are just another part of the story in the end.

Thanks to Judith and Sophie (author of Teddy Bear Holiday, co-author of Alan the Confused Tortoise from the Space Monkey anthology) for the provision of the finest cakes and surprisingly accurate and predictive signage, and moral support.

Thanks to Ian Mayor who provided a most excellent selection of fizzy drinks, story ideas and cheerleading during the day.

Also, thanks to everyone that called or texted or tweeted us during the 24 hours. Let's do this again :-)

But not too soon, y'know? ;-)

Awesome? yes Martin, but how much Awesome?

This much:

Awesome

Well I had a great time and got the comic finished. Started well, struggled a bit for a few hours around the evening but finished strongly. Did a few pages I'm overjoyed with.

Many thanks to everyone who attended and kept the faith 'til morning.

Respect

Previously : March 2010 : Martin Newman

Unlike must normal human beings, Martin started in a fairly stoic frame of mind and gradually became more cheerful as the sleep deprivation kicked in. Instead of leaving the day with the words 'never again', he was saying things like 'we should do this again, very soon!'

This is not because he's mad, it's because he had actually hit on the best possible approach to a 24 hour comic... come up with a decent engine for driving short sketches featuring the same characters rather than sustaining a single story for 24 pages.

By the end of the evening, he'd constructed an ending which tied the whole thing together in a bow made of solid PATHOS, and called this tale of one robot's interactions with mankind: Evolution and Beep.

You can obtain this fantastic comic at Travelling Man Newcastle. Do it. Martin is currently chief of the Project Z, due to launch at Thought Bubble in November.

Welcome to the Newcastle 24 Hour Comics Day Blog

Welcome to the Newcastle 24 Hour Comics Day Blog.

Organised by the Magnificent Martin, creator of the tremendously successful Evolution and Beep 24 Hour Comic at the Learning Revolution / P.R.E.S.S. event in March 2010 at the Tyneside Cinema, this 24 Hour Comics Day Event will be hosted in Heaton Methodist Church.

From the 09h00 on the 2nd of October to 09h00 on the 3rd of October, we will suffer once more, but we will prevail, we will have 24 pages of comics, each, in 24 hours.

The Heroic Mister Daniel Clifford will be recording and interviewing participants for the North East Geek Feast.

Photo's and stories from the event will appear here, clueing you in on what sleep deprivation makes us find funny at 04h34 on Sunday Morning, as well as on Twitter and Facebook.

The Flickr Group is newcastle24hrcomic, we'll be broadcasting on the twitter channel #24hcd.