At 9 a.m. on Saturday morning preparations are underway. Pencil sharpeners are hard at work. Coffee is brewing. Batman shirts are spinning in dryers, waiting to be taken out to adorn the backs of champions. For the next 24 hours, artists and writers from across the globe, who are more powerful than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound will engage in the process of making a 24-page comic in 24 hours in an event known as 24 Hour Comics Day.
In Austin, 72 comic artists are huddled around desks in the back room of Austin Books and Comics on North Lamar. They are poised to spend a full day creating a page of comic history every hour. Pencils out, pens ready, they begin on bristol board, on typing paper, in sketch books. The clock is already ticking.
Saturday, 2 p.m.
Hidden away behind stacks of graphic novels and boxes of archived books from the golden age, 72-plus artists and writers have slaved away for the past six hours. Their styles are many, ranging from black-and-white inked works to Japanese comic-inspired pieces colored with a glittering assortment of Prismacolor pencils.
Adam Webb and Steven Phillips from Corpus Christi are six pages in to their comic chronicling the adventures of Greg the Snail. Greg embarks on a quest to find a safe place for his snail brethren to live, Phillips says.
When midnight rolls around for his creators, Greg will be in the dark, too. They intend to finish pages in real time by stamping the time they finish right on the page and drawing Greg's scenery appropriately.
"When it gets to night, we'll use a lot of Sharpies," Webb says.
Following Greg's tale, the dynamic comic duo plan to kick out two more comics individually before their time is up.
Armed with standard-issue, disposable mechanical pencils and fine-tip pens, UT radio-television-film senior David Drell is sketching out panels for what he describes as a "twisted Disney" comic collaboration. In his storyline, Hitler, who "has been up for three weeks straight addicted to Nazi speed," decides to destroy the world's dirigibles fearing that their combined forces could blot out the sun's rays.
"My partner went to lunch and left me here to draw," he says, sketching in some cartoony eyes.
Nearby, a galactic struggle for comic supremacy is underway. Danny Potter and his collaborator Elizabeth Contreras are sketching out an Iron Man parody comic. So far, they've finished about 12.3 percent, they say, adding that it's been a bit of a struggle. Despite a lack of comic creation experience, the team has pressed on, even in the face of adversity.
"Really, morale went to an all-time low when we were dubbed the nerdiest table," Potter says. Yet with 18 hours left to complete their master work, the pair continues to draw.
"I'm out of my element," Contreras says. "I just draw whatever ... like in class."
Potter and Contreras considered planning out their project prior to the day's events, but decided to relish in the challenge of improvisation instead.
"We'll throw it to the 24-hour comic gods and see what we'll come up with," Potter said.
In front of a rack of Teen Titan comics across the room, Patrick Joseph, Harris O'Malley and Lea Hernandez are trucking away on their respective works. Joseph's comic about two platonic friends and their adventure on a desert island complete with a tiki-god monster is done in black and white with felt pins he keeps stored in a Pocky box. O'Malley has only managed to complete three pages of his love relationship story line, done entirely on computer with a Wacom tablet. Lea doesn't plan to ink at all. Her story centers around what it was like learning that her son is autistic. She doesn't know how it's going to end yet, but one thing's for certain:
"I'm going to make 24 in 24," she says.
Origins
Ironically, the very minds behind the creation of 24 Hour Comic Day were unable to participate this year. Comic artist Scott McCloud, author of the original 24-hour comic "A Day's Work," in addition to "Understanding Comics" and "Zot," was hastily preparing his next book, "Making Comics," during the day's festivities.
"I'm just going to work on my book for 24 hours," he said. "So I'm participating in spirit."
The concept of creating a 24-hour comic started as a dare between McCloud and Steve Bissette, creator of "Abyss," "S.R. Bissette's Tyrant," and artist for numerous comics including "Saga of the Swamp Thing." While watching Bissette do sketches at appearances and conventions, McCloud thought his friend was more than capable of doing a comic in a single day if he wanted to. The two agreed to flesh out a 24-page comic book in a 24-hour period before the end of the month.
"I knew he would only do it if I did it, too," McCloud says.
In 1990, McCloud's comic "A Day's Work" became the first official 24-hour comic. Bissette's follow-up, "A Life in Black and White," became the second 24-hour comic. Together, these sequential art heavy weights inspired others to take up the challenge of creation on the fly. Fifteen years later, there have been a little over a thousand 24-hour comics completed, McCloud says.
Hundreds more will be completed today, according to 24 Hour Comics Day creator Nat Gertler. The event, which started two years ago, came about as a result of "horrible commercial concerns to start a book," Gertler says. The book, appropriately called "24-Hour Comics," inspired a promotional event Gertler intended to be held at a few locations. By the end of the first 24 Hour Comics Day, 57 locations in three countries submitted comics that Gertler published as "24 Hour Comics Day Highlights 2004." This year, seven countries, including Thailand, Serbia and Germany, and 71 locations world-wide are participating in the event. Many will submit their work to Gertler for a chance at being published in a 2005 edition of the book.
By the end of the period, Gertler says, "I'll probably have at least 500 contributions to go through."
Many of those submissions will come directly from Austin Books and Comics. This cozy Austin comic shop has had the greatest number of participants for both events. Gertler attributes the record number to Austin's "creative atmosphere" in addition to his own influence.
"It helped a little bit that I told them their biggest competition was from France," Gertler says. "In Texas, there are people who are willing to show up to an event just to beat France."
Austin Books and Comics employees Brandon Zuern and Brad Bankston credit the success of the event to their attempts at making it a memorable experience. They took great care in planning the day's activities from the perspective of a participant, they say.
"If I'm going to sit in a chair for 24 hours, I want a freakin' padded chair," Zuern says.
Sunday, 12 a.m.
Hours of work are starting to show as Red Bull cans stack higher on tables full of paper, pens and discarded bits of caloric fuel. The coffee pot sitting next to the copier is in heavy use as artists line up for a pick-me-up and copy their completed pages ahead of time to avoid a rush at the end.
With a table full of Jolt Cola and Aqua Teen Hunger Force toys, Potter and Contreras are tackling multiple story ideas at once. One story involves a fight between recording artist Beck and Metallica's Lars Ulrich. Potter has taken to cutting out individual frames with the intent of rearranging them later. So far, things have been far from stressful.
"I get more stressed out with finals," Potter says.
Across the room, Hernandez is determined to recycle two pages that, though completed, just don't fit with the rest of the story.
"Somehow I'm going to make these suckers work," she says.
As of 12:30 a.m. Hernandez has 13 pages, Joseph has 15, and O'Malley has eight. They are resolved to finish their work in spite of any and all obstacles - including a parade of false-mustache-wearing artists at 11:00 p.m. Saturday.
"It was like a Gene Shallot convention," O'Malley says.
Webb and Phillips have sent Greg the Snail underground to avoid drawing him in the pitch black of midnight. They will easily finish "A Snail's Tale," they say, though additional comics may be out of the question. With 10 hours left in then event, most of the 72 participants working hard in Austin Books and Comics seem to be catching their second wind. Then again, maybe it's just the caffeine.
Sunday, 9 a.m.
As day breaks over North Lamar, Veruca Salt pours forth from a 300-disc CD changer that has been in use for the past 23 hours. Frank Sinatra and Elvis also made it in to the mix, Bankston say. Yet the music pales in comparison to the beauty of those two golden words: I'm done.
Several of the artists have already gone home, their arduous tasks completed. Hernandez finishes slightly after 9:10 a.m. Joseph finished an hour or so ago. His story about tiki gods and desert islands ended with the main character wondering if he is trapped in a dream or a comic book. Either way, he and his former platonic friend are in love, Joseph says. Though his 24-hour talent has already been published in "24 Hour Comics Day Highlights 2004," he wouldn't mind being published again as long as other talented artists from Austin are also represented, he says.
At the next table, Christopher "Topher" Sipps is packing up his gear. He didn't finish this year, but that hasn't stopped him from learning a great deal, he says. In addition to learning what he is capable of, he's also received many great tips from his peers.
"I can only compare it to a trip," he says. "It's like standing among some giants."
As 10 a.m. strikes on a clock below a Super Man relief sculpture, few artists remain. Those who do work with the passion of comic masters, bent over their work with expressions of pure joy.
One artist takes a moment to look up from his work and address a nearby friend.
"I've got two more hours actually," he says, "'cause I got here at noon."
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