Yesterday (October 20) was 24 Hour Comics Day!
What’s a 24 Hour Comic, you ask? It’s an invention of Scott McCloud’s:
To create a complete 24 page comic book in 24 continuous hours.
That means everything: Story, finished art, lettering, color (if applicable), paste-up, everything. Once pen hits paper, the clock starts ticking. 24 hours later, the pen lifts off the paper, never to descend again. Even proofreading has to occur in the 24 hour period. (Computer-generated comics are fine of course, same principles apply).
Although one can do a 24-hour comic any day of the year, it’s more fun to do it in tandem, hence 24 Hour Comics Day. Yesterday, at the studio where I work, myself, Jake Richmond, Ben Lehman, and Alan Ward all did 24 hour comics.
So here’s mine. It’s silly and not enormously well written or drawn, but perhaps you’ll enjoy it anyway. And it not, at least it won’t take more than a few minutes to read.
Continue Reading…
Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite’s release date is November 1, but it seems that some copies are showing up early… I heard on twitter yesterday that someone had bought one at a store. Very neat!
But in the meantime, I got this nice email early this month:
My name is Ellen Gustafson, and I am currently a student working towards a master’s degree in School Library Media at the University of Michigan. For a class assignment, I have been asked to create a video book trailer for a book of middle school or young adult fiction–I would love to create a book trailer for Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword.
I could not say “YES” loudly enough! So here is Ellen Gustafson’s very cool trailer for the first Hereville book. Thanks, Ellen!
My friend Ken Koral, who does the excellent horror webcomic Eventy-Seven, did this hilarious drawing of the troll from Hereville.
Is that awesome or what?
So Hereville 2 is nearly done! I’ve drawn all the story pages and the cover, and I just finished penciling the title page a few minutes ago. Jake is blazing along on the colors. I want to go back and revise some drawings I’m not happy with, but basically, my part is done.
After all these months of drawing, it’s hard to imagine that eight days from now I’ll turn the pages in and have no more drawing to do! What will I do with my time?
(Answer: Begin writing Hereville 3. But I also plan to do some more of the things I haven’t had time to do in the last half-year, such as blogging and laundry.)
Anyway, here’s the penciled title page, subject to the approval of the nice folks at Abrams:
So here’s a big change for Hereville book 2: a new collaborator! Cartoonist Tina Kim has joined what must now be called the Hereville team and will be drawing environments (aka backgrounds) on about a third of the pages. (I’ll be drawing the backgrounds on the remaining pages).
Before I began Hereville, I had always worked alone (other than some collaborative comics done in high school). What I’ve found, working with Jake (who provides Hereville’s distinct colors) and now Tina, is the wonderful thrill of being surprised by how great their work is, most of all when they approach a problem or a scene in a way I wouldn’t have thought of myself.
Here’s a sample of Tina’s Hereville work. Thanks, Tina!
I always enjoy seeing what Jake’s colors look like without my drawings and word balloons getting in the way.
You’ll have to buy the book to see it with the word balloons and color. :-p
Hi! Sorry I’ve been blogging so little lately. I’m just spending long days every day drawing Hereville. And it’s not just the time; it’s also, somehow, mental creative energy being expended. Even when I have a few hours after work, I just don’t seem to have it in me to write new posts.
Anyway, this too will pass.
I’ll be appearing in Vancouver, Canada this weekend, at the Vancouver Comics Arts Fest. It should be a lot of fun, and I think admission is free; so if you’re in Vancouver, please come see me and say hi.
Here’s the page from Hereville 2 I finished yesterday — and it’s a pretty spoiler-free page. I’m pretty happy with how this page looks.
It has two unusual elements for me. First of all, it’s yet another attempt at an Eisner-style collage layout. I wouldn’t say it’s completely successful — certainly not as nice looking as an Eisner page, but that’s a given, isn’t it? — but I think this works better than the Eisner-attempts in book one did. (Which were pages 31 and 32, if you’re wondering and have book 1 handy.)
Secondly, drew panel one with the kind of over-the-top foreshortening that artists like Jim Steranko used to such great effect, which is not something I can recall ever attempting before. I think it came out okay, but I probably won’t be doing this often in the future — it’s so visually oddball looking (to my eyes, at least) that I think it’s bound to distract from storytelling in most contexts.
I’ll be at Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon this weekend. If you’re there, please come up and say hi.
I’m planning a very light con schedule this summer, incidentally, since most of my time is going towards drawing the second Hereville book. But in May I’ll be appearing at VANcaf in Vancouver, Canada, and in August I’ll be at GeekGirlCon in Seattle, Washington.
