The Original 24-Hour Comic. Created as a challenge to my friend Steve Bissette. The deal was that we would each do a complete 24 page comic in a single day before the end of August, 1990.

Completed on August 31st.

True to his word, Steve turned out his own morbid masterpiece and held up his end of the deal in every respect.

Completed on August 36th.

After seeing a copy of Steve's comic, Dave Sim seized on the idea and created an elegantly drawn (though bleak) 24-Hr. comic of his own.

This was the third 24-Hr. Comic. All three were "true" 24-Hr. Comics (24 pages in 24 continuous hours) and all three would eventually be previewed or printed in the back of Sim's Cerebus helping to spread the challenge far and wide.

Our friend Rick provided the fourth in the series, but with a twist. His dream-diary "Rare Bit Fiends" was completed in a series of short morning sessions. The results were indeed the product of less than 24 hours, but not a full-blown unbroken session.

As it happened, this was the first installment of what eventually became an actual full-sized comic book series!

Full title: "Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus." This was the only thing Neil had drawn in 14 years and was a delightful "story" filled with several memorable I-don't-know-how-to-draw-this-so-I'll draw-something-else-instead panels.

Thanks to Joe Fulgham of The Dreaming for putting Neal's comic online.

The Gaiman Variation: If you get to 24 hours and you're not done, end it there.

13 pages (plus cover), completed in 24 hours.

That's the title of the printed version (The original was "F**k the Dead" but Kevin decided an alternate title might be more marketable for some reason.)

I can't find my copy of the printed comic for an illo but maybe you can still hunt down a copy for yourselves.

The Eastman Variation: If you get to 24 hours and you're not done, KEEP GOING UNTIL YOU ARE!

24 pages, completed in 50 hours.

Tobie writes from the Philippines:

"Message: Started: January 14 3:45pm
Ended: January 15, 12:50pm
26 pages + 1 cover

Time is fleeting.. time is precious... time is pointless... what is time to you?

mature readers please"

See Jack Masters [below]

Dylan writes:
"This ended up as an 18-pager completed in about 23 hours and 40 minutes. the three of us had wanted to do this ever since we first heard about it, and we seized a free day to finally go for it. We were originally going to use some randomizing devices to provide story when we ran out of ideas (a trivial pursuit set was one candidate for this job), but we discovered that our-sleep deprived brains were plenty random. The artwork goes from mediocre to just plain bad, although there's a nice panel here and there. Penciling was done by Dylan, inking and ink washes by Reed, and lettering by Joey. We all contributed to the'plot', which involves a Mesopotamian sacrifice ritual gone wrong, which causes the world's ducks to inherit the earth in the year 2001. However, they must face the mighty opposition of Radiohead's Thom Yorke, the last in a long line of Mesopotamian priests, the dreaded ninja/janitor Ikiryu, and a random tourist.

[Note: This one was collaborative. Dylan penciled, Reed inked and Joey lettered. (Most 24-hour comics are one cartoonist affairs as you'll see in the list below, though some like to do their solo efforts in the context of a larger group get-together). --Scott]

"Ethan and I were bored college freshmen in New York City, so we decided to do this. Ethan still needs to scan his Actually mine's only 23 pages if you don't count the title. 10:00 AM to 10:00 AM 2/22/2002 - 2/23/2002. I used a 60% Grey marker for the shading. Pretty obvious Chris Ware influence. The first comic longer than a page I've drawn since grade school."

"24 pages in 24 hours, 40 minutes. The jury's still out on whether I would have made it or not if I hadn't taken a break in the middle of the night. My friends have already started pressuring me to get back on that horse."

"Had to go for the Gaiman variation on this one, since I had just enough time to put a THE END on page 22 when the timer went off. Drawn between Jan 19-20, 2000, starting and stopping at 3:17am. I'm usually a very meticulous, methodical artist, so it was quite a challenge to draw simply and make it up as I went. I'd often flip open the dictionary to random pages and use the first word I saw for inspiration. It was fun, and I learned a lot of lessons from it."

JC writes from Mexico:

"24 pages, finished in about thirteen hours inside a 24-hour-and-a-half timeframe.

This is a very weird, personal little piece of autobiographical surrealism. Actually what's depicted in it has never happened to me in real life, but I have no doubts that the guy on the first page is me. Whatever else happens after that, well... your guess is as good as mine.

All in all, the comic was finished exactly 24 hours and thirty minutes after it was started. I thought since I was oh-so-fast, I could sleep eight hours, have dinner and even play a videogame, and still finish the whole thing in less than 24 hours. But I was wrong, and had to go with the Eastman variation in the end (that's what happens when you ASS-U-ME...).

I hope that those who haven't played RPGs before don't think it's too obscure.

Oh, and I spent one of my precious 24 hours just developing characters so they DID NOT look as anyone I knew.

Hope you like it"

"I wanted to draw a comic for the first time in twelve years and so I thought a 24 hour comic would be a good idea. I like the sideways pages and need to practice if I want to draw sci-di again. It was also the first time I 'd used a brush to ink anything."

• Last Night On Earth. "The first, and probably most instantly-accessible of the 24-hour comics I've done. It's sort a CLERKS-goes-to-hell scenario, combining irreverent humor with exsitentialist pondering.
  And gum. Lots of gum.
  (Alright, maybe not the gum.)"
• Life in the So-Called Space Age. "In the future, cities build upward, cars stick to walls, and skyway bridges make wonderful terrorist targets. Kate's having a bad day. She's a cop in this world, and after waking up to bad news, her day is only going to weirder. It's Life in the So-Called Space Age. Definitely not all fun and games. This is the second 24-hour comic I finished. Done in May of 2002, it is the most manga-esque of the comics on my site."
  
• Dirty Blood. "Gabriel's a creature of the night. Stronger than any man has a right to be. But he's just trying to get by like anybody else. Staying in the shadows, Gabriel meets his match-- or is he just hallucinating? The third 24-hour comic I've completed, and the best on an artistic level. Like the others, it's a full 24 pages squeaked into 24 hours. This comic's approach is somewhere in between the previous two's. And forgive the somewhat cheesy ending. When you've been going all night, things seem quite a bit more witty than they actually are. And so it goes."
  

[Also see "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry below for more information on "Last Night On Earth".]

"Maltese history x was made as part of the 9th art 24 hour challenge. I completed 24 pages including cover.A very inspiring experience, made more so by being part of a group."

"3 seperate 24 hour comics, "Cop Show" isn't so much the subconscious-laid-bare-on-the-comics-page of most 24-hour comics--it's amphetamine mayhem with none of the usual mental stops in place; "Cop Show" is my subconscious, but by way of a Jim Thompson scripted "Hunter" episode.
The first was created in 28 hours (unfortunately) in December of 1996, the second (on time) in 1997, and the last (25 pages in 24 hours) in December of 2000--though on-line the pages become a little less relevant."

"Midnight to Midnight, 12 June 2002. Throughout the first 6 hours of the challenge I felt like I was going to be able to make it - somehow, I felt that I would begin drawing faster and faster and would be able to complete the 24 pages in time. Unfortunately, I failed - only 7 finished pages when I lifted my pen after 24 hours. But WHAT pages! To my eye (and compared to my previous work) these are crisp, beautiful, and exactly what I have been STRIVING to create. THESE are the kinds of pages I have always WANTED to be able to draw but didn't believe I could! It's incomprehensible, but this was the most fabulous day of drawing I have ever experienced. Failure? HA! I wouldn't trade those 24 hours for anything. Thanks Scott! Now I'm gonna treat every day like a 24 hour challenge ^_^"

"Banana Cream Pie Comics.
Daily Comic Strips and Panels"

?

"Started 9:25 PM April 3, 2002. Finished 9:15 PM April 4, 2002. (Scanning and such were later.) 24 pages plus cover. I doubt I'll do another since I'm employed now, but I'm glad I did one."

[See "Comics Lockdown!" below.]

"24 pages completed in a 22 hour span, december 29-30 2001. I stopped because I had been up for about 40 hours at that point. A group of four of us got together to do them. Two of us were successful, two of us were not (the other success can be found at http://www.gothhouse.com ). This was my first comic longer than 3 pages... Quite fun."

"This is an almost 24 hour comic. It was written and drawn in something like 15 hours followed by me collapseing. Followed by me waking up and inking it, killing a sharpie along the way. So 24 non continuous..or is that contiguous hours. Hope you enjoy."

[See "Comics Lockdown!" below.]

John writes: "Started 1:40 AM, Sunday January 14th. We had to go with the Gaiman Variation because we spent most of the time plotting without drawing. Jason only ended up drawing about 8 pages. But we learned our lesson, and we will prevail next time."

The Brotherhood of the fin is a Savage Dragon fan site. When S.D.'s creator Eric Larsen did his own 24-hour comic (along with Chris Eliopoulos) he publicized the event and in turn, inspired the following young cartoonists to give it a shot as well. All of the following can be read through the well-designed index linked to above. Check 'em out.

• Last Night On Earth by Greg Aubry
• Untitled by Chris Dakin
• Road to Nowhere
  James Frail: Story, layouts, inking
  Joe Shuler: Story, pencils, inking
  
• The Amazin' Adventures of Produce Boy! by Jason Green
• Thru the Looking Glass by Paul Little
• Detached by Kyle Morton
• Protector by Lee Napier
• The Great Shatsby by Juan Ruvalcaba
• Counterstrike by Joe Shuler
• Slay Ride by Mark Welser
  
  

To my knowlege, Jennifer's 24-hour comic is the only one ever done entirely with photos of Lego Blocks. Very cool.

Elijah wrote in July of 2002: "Last month some Seattle Cartoonists hermited themselves away and worked furiously on their 24 hour comics... though at around hour 18 we were all cursing your name for coming up with this idea I think it turned out well."

"Gaea" arrived with special instructions to read by candlelight and return. I complied, so I no longer have my copy. I'm pretty sure I remember liking it, but it's been a while!

"24 pages in about 17 hours beginning at 9:30 AM July 24, 2002 and finishing up around 4:30 AM on July 25, 2002.
Originally, I presented the challenge to 3 other people... all but one other chickened out. (For some reason, he doesn't want to show his 24 hour experiment to the world...)"

"20 pages, written & penciled from 6 PM 9-11-99 to 6 PM 9-12-99 and inked the next day. Two pages were drawn and co-written by Renee Riddle."

This is a "noble failure" for two big reasons. One reason is that I didn't finish it in 24 hours (I spent less than 5 hours shy of Eastman). The other reason is that, when compared to the amount of information in a typical 24 page, 24 hour comic, my comic has hardly anything in it. Oh, well. I'm happy.

START: 10/18/2000 at 8:08 PM
FINISH: 10/20/2000 at 7:43 AM
TIME ELAPSED: 1 day, 11 hours, 35 minutes

P.S.
The Millard Fillmore postcard by Scott McCloud is at http://www.stas.net/2/simulacra/art/iryf/index.html

Prior to it's creation, I received this note:

"Hi Scott, My name is Edmond TOURRIOL and I live in Bordeaux, France. I'm leading a small association of comic book artists : CLIMAX COMICS. We publish a lot of super-heroes fanzines and we're always looking for some fresh new ideas to get people know what we do and how fun comic books can be. At the end of this week, my team will go to an amazing place called "Café BD" where you can read comic books while you eat and drink comic themed goods. From 12:00 to saturday 12:00, we'll write, pencil, ink letter... and publish (!) our own 24 hours comic book. Yes, the book will be xeroxed and bound and sold on the shelves of the local comic shop on saturday 12:01. Well... that's the plan, and we hope we're gonna be able to do it for real."

And they pulled it off!

"Mine actually took about 22 hours, though in all I was awake for 36 (the photo below is taken after all 36). For inspiration I used an old family photo album and a book on world religions (mainly the Buddhism section, hint hint) Also, sorry that the text turned out so small, it wasn't intended for internet viewing when I wrote it. Enjoy!"

One of four comics appearing at The House of Vertigo (a Vertigo Discussion List).

• Brad Collins - The Adventures of Artis the Spoonman
• Rob Hackney - "Siberia... 1996"
• Alex Tam - Time... well, spent!
• Eric Simons - A Witch Lives in this House

..

..

.

The most remarkable 24-hour comics event to date (at least, as of late April, 2002, when I added this entry) was this fifteen artist gathering in New York City, March 9-10, 2002.

The artists involved were:

• Eli Bishop
• Jason Brightman
• Amy Beth Dubin
• Eric Feurstein
• Jessica Fink
• Tom Hart
• Dean Haspiel (sort of)
• Stephen Hindman
• K. Thor Jensen
• Ellen Lindner
• Josh Neufeld
• Alex Rothman
• Tim Steier
• Jonathan Thayer
• Lauren Weinstein
• Sherry Wong

Check out the Pictures!

[And did somebody archive all the comments on the Comics Journal messageboard thread? I can't find it. Any additional info would be much appreciated.]

"This was done alone, in one long stretch, and is a complete 24-page story (with only a few noticeable oversights in the drawing.) In other words, nothing strange or exceptional about it. You were right about it being a sort of pilgrimage, an "alone in the desert" sort of experience."

See Jack Masters [below]

Written and penciled in 24 hours. Inked later. ("sorry. i tried but had to cheat." sez Warren on the inside front cover.) Like most Craghead creations, it's a cool formalist maze of evocative words and images.

A terrific small press package including a "12 Hour Speedy" "Page-a-Day Speedy" and another "24 Hour Speedy."

"I started this at 9.45pm on 17 Nov 2000 and finished at 9.45pm the next day. The story started out as a kind of biography of Genghis Khan but quickly turned into the story of a man protesting against the building of a superstore on housing land - its surprising how when you are tired and hungry, two strands like this can suddenly run together! The actual comic runs to 16 pages although in the 24 hours I also completed the front and back covers, and an introduction. I added an advert for my web sites after the 24 hour period. Although I did not make 24 pages, I believe I kept to the spirit of the challenge."

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information.]

"(ATTEMPTED SEPTEMBER 30, 2001) Heh. I have always been a very SLOW artist, and I should have known better than to try and draw something with ANY amount of detail, especially if i would be sticking with pencil... Of course, it didn't help that I was undertaking this challenge with the love of my life, who is ALSO a cartoonist. Needless to say, we both failed (we kept, umm, distracting each other the whole time!), but she managed to pull off a 13-pager that was a complete story, compared to my measly *FIVE* pages of a beginning to the epic i had churned up in my head during the first hour of the challenge.

Oh well, I'll just have to draw the rest of it as my 2nd 24-hour comic, maybe?"

"This is not a 24 hour comic, but it should be. After visiting Scott McCloud's website and reading about his invention of the 24 hour comic, I decided to take up the challenge and create my own 24 hour comic. I began on March 29, 2001 at 2:54 pm. By 8:31 pm I finished brainstorming, went to the library to do research and completed the panel to panel layout and dialogue. By 11:00 pm I finished the art for page one. A short time later at 2:35 am, I quit. I realized that I could never finish this comic in 24 hours at the pace I was going; so instead of continuing with the 24 hour guidelines I went to bed. To make a long story short, Killer Croc, for better or for worse, is a comic that was completed in about 48 noncontinuous hours, excluding the cover, printing and book binding; these steps took a considerable amount of time, probably more that the actual interior artwork."

The author of The Spiral Cage showed me this comic in San Diego and my head is still reeling! I hope anyone who plans to do a 24-hour comic takes a look at this beauty first, to see just how high to set your sites.

Published as a flip-book with Alex Robinson's Brilliant Mistake.

"Completed, published and distributed all within a 24 hour time frame... started on 4/15/01 and completed on 4/16/01. Posted on line at http://www.tbpress.cjb.net "

Part of "the Bagel Sessions" which also includes Jennifer Lee's "The Flower Started it...," Paul Winkler's "Let's Call it 'The Squigglies'" and Kip Manley's "The Story I was Going to Tell on Halloween Night But Couldn't"

"This comic took me two or three mostly sleepless days, and in some ways was a textbook example of "how not to do a 24 hour comic." For example, I took the first four hours just to write a complete script, and only after that was finished did I even begin to draw."

"Done May or June, 1991. 24 pages, but it took 43 hours to complete."

--Barry

"24 pages, done in 23 hours and 59 minutes, beginning on September 26 1998. The first 24-hour comic I've actually completed in 24 hours."

--Barry

"I want to say :THANK YOU SCOTT MCCLOUD!
I really liked the experience and will do it again!!!
I would like to have as many comments as you can give (not only Scott of course)
again
thank you for this great idea"

"This felt to me like one of those rights that one must do to find out who your spirit guide is.
I'm soo happy I made it, ....but.
It is funny, what comes out after 9 or 10 hours when you have to make up your mind if you are going to drink more coffee and eat a snack or take a nap, and then all this scarey smeg that hadn't said "boo" since Jr. High comes out onto the page and makes up your mind for you.
Yup,...that's not my spirit guide, time for a wee nap."

Bryan's is one of three 24-hour comics available online under the umbrella of Space Age Comics. (The other cartoonists were Mike Woodson and Jeff Young.)

Just added!: Bride of Jericho

Bryan sent the latest round from Space Age Comics with the following: "Actually, I quite like my friends' work...  It's my own stuff I'd rather you not find out about.  After you read the part with the laser guns that only kill pregnant women, I'm half-convinced there'll be a new 24 Hour Comics rule:  Anything Done By Bryan Douglas Does Not Count.   By the way, thanks for the brilliant invention...  We love doing these things!"

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

"Currently I'm going to Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I did the 24-hour comic to ease my soul. It is difficult to work on my comic AND do all my art school homework at the same time. "Hey," I said, "It's only ONE day!"

"At the moment, my school is working on getting all of the comic illustration majors together in order to do a mass 24-comic-a-thon. School sponsored, of course. Trying to promote the comic illustration program we are. I'm the only one to have done one so far. It is an excellent sense of accomplishment. Everyone should do one."

"I'm not really sure where any of it came from, and hopefully I won't have any Little Prince fans screaming for my blood, but it was fun, and well worth doing."

Part of the Australian Anthology (sic)Bag which put out two editions containing 24-hr. comics.

This one looks like Beanworld meets Space Invaders. I like it!

(See above.)

This one sports an interesting conceit. You can read it traditionally or vertically (i.e., Pg. 1 panel 1 to Page 2 panel 1 to Page 3 panel 1, etc.)

Check out this Very Cool Write-Up of the day Chris "Desperate Times" Eliopoulos and Erik "Savage Dragon" Larsen decided to each do a 24-Hour Comic!

Sent to me along with Gavin Thomson's [below].

"Took up just about exactly 24 hours on Easter weekend 2001. This was done for charity - raising just over £700 for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. Each sponsor was allowed to submit one plot element that would appear in the story. Five of these elements, randomly chosen in the 1st minute, actually dictated the plot (such as it is!)."

From Venice (California, that is) Dain writes: "It is an Eastman variation of a 24 hour comic. It is an autobiography of Orson Welles with comic interruptions from the Zombie Kid. It is made up of famous quotes and interview of Orson Welles as if he is taking you on a tour of his career. This comic remains, sadly, hurried and finished I would like to do more pencil work. "

"My first comic and my first 24 hour comic was both a failure and a success. 15 pages in 15 hours... then sleep and then 9 pages in a month. Then I reinked it after photocopying it and... well I meant to get it done in a day... Anyhow I still like the final product so..."

"So, here is my 24-hour comic 'Monkey See', completed on May 27-28, 2001. Truly a unique experience and an illuminating exercise. Thanks for sharing yet another wonderful idea."

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

Nick writes from the U.K.: "OK, so there it is. My first attempt, and I actually finished! 160 panels! Although some were very quick to do (the lights out ones). But anyway, finished within the 24 hours, and I feel very pleased with myself. My personal opinion is that the middle is better than the start and end, but that's just me.
Oh yeah, and 20-21st July 2002, from 11am-10.40am.
"

• Out Side In
• Waiting for the Third Day

A nice, quirky group site that includes 24-hour comics from:

• Marshall B. Smith
• Stephen Ingram
• "Kelsey"
• Brian Dooley

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information.]

This is 20 pages completed in 24 consecutive hours, 1/20/01 5:00AM - 1/21/01 5:00AM. I knew that I wanted to do a comic incorporating some of the Hawaiian history/mythology I'd read, so I made sure to have lots of reference books available during the 24 hours.

"Until I started it, I didn't fully comprehend the difference between a comic and an animation. Although I was using Macromedia Flash, I resisted multimedia temptations. I wanted at least two panels on every frame, 2*50=100 panels. It's a meditative exploration of color. See my comic collection on the last frame of the movie."

A particularly skillfull use of the motif of time—a motif which seems to be rather popular among 24-hour cartoonists for some reason. :-)

Part of the Australian Anthology (sic)Bag which put out two editions containing 24-hr. comics.

Not a genuine go at it (only 3 pages) but he belongs with his mates so here he is.

"It's 24 pages.
Started: 9:00pm, May 20, 2001.
Stopped: 9pm May 21.
I did not sleep in between, because I knew if I did I'd be finished. It was most difficult to create the story because I made no preparation at all. This one is strictly out of my head and literally plopped right onto the paper!"

Webcomics' leading mad scientist cooks up 24 hours' worth of weird and wonderful images. Great stuff as always.

A great little comic with a bottomless pun of a title.

"When Erik Larsen and Chris Eliopoulos completed their 24 hour comics, they announced their accomplishment on the Savage Forum, Erik Larsen's message board. A number of us who frequent the board, going by the name "Brotherhood of the Fin", were so jazzed about the idea that we had to try it for ourselves! While several made it to the full 24 pages, most of these ended up as Gaiman variations. They all still came out nice, though."

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information.]

8 and a half sort-of continuous hours for 16 pages.

"I did this on a whim. Yay me. It turned out decent. I have never drawn anything even vaugely resembling a comic. This was cool and I promise my next one will be better. Yes I am doing another one...Yes you should be scared. Of course I fear anything that is created by me when I haven't slept in a while. Like right now. I will write a Haiku in honor of this site.

Twenty four hours man
I must have been going sane
To take this challenge

Thank you."

An account from Veronica's live journal can be found here.

Heard about this one third-hand. No further info at this time. (Jeff, are you out there?)

[thanks to Sean C. Duncan for the name and title]

One of four comics appearing at The House of Vertigo (a Vertigo Discussion List).

• Brad Collins - The Adventures of Artis the Spoonman
• Rob Hackney - "Siberia... 1996"
• Alex Tam - Time... well, spent!
• Eric Simons - A Witch Lives in this House

• Maria (image at left)
• The Most Powerful Gate
• The Ditch, The River, The Sea and The Snake

From the esteemed author of The Sands and Hutch Owen's Working Hard.. One of my favorite cartoonists of the decade.

[Also see "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

"This story pretty much wrote itself, so don't blame me if you don't like it.

Started November 17th, 9:15pm
Completed November 18th 6:53pm."

"I wished to do a 24 hour comic with all that I was. Really I did! But then this girl from down the hall knocked on my door. And she said, "Hey, what are you up to. Me and anonymous friend are going to see crappy musicians play crappy songs." I said, "Can't, drawing a 24 hour comic." "What's that," she asked. Then I had to show her where I was, and then an example I had found from your site. She said "Umm,, ok." And left. Then another person bugged me. And another.

"This went on and on until I had passed 12 hours and accomplished precious little. Went to bed. Woke up. Unplugged phone. Locked door. And tried to be as quiet as I could. 24 hours. Just not in a row, I'm afraid."

[See entry for Carter Adams, above]

"A 26-Hour Comic!"

"Saturday-Monday of this week was a proud day for me. I along with 1 other friend that went the distance finished a complete 24-hour comic.

Not only is it one of the best things I have done creatively and artistically but it has been a great experience that is driving me in all new directions. I followed every rule. And I like it more than anything I would have imagined. Needless to say I was as tired as hell, and still went to work for 8 more hours after the thing was done, but that's not the big deal."

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

Kurt's 24-hour comic joins several others available online under the umbrella of Space Age Comics (with cartoonists Mike Woodson, Bryan Douglas and Jeff Young.)

"This is part of that German 24h-action last August (see Peter Triesberger's entry). It was done within slightly more than 24 hours (36, I think), and the cover was done the next day because (surprise) i was tired. I hope you don't mind it being in German. If I'm going to translate it, I promise to do it in 24 hours and tell you."

"(no title, it has a picture of a dog on the cover) One of many 24-hour comics produced at what has been dubbed COMICS LOCKDOWN, a massive group of cartoonists in an apartment in Queens. Pictures are here:" http://homepage.mac.com/jasonbrightman/PhotoAlbum1.html

Great little comic from Mr. J.

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above for more info.]

"I gave you a copy of this when you visited Art Center in Pasadena about a year ago. This is based on my own variation of the 24-hour comic which I call "the 24-minute comic". At the time, I was on a deadline for a big project due the next morning and I neeeded to procrastinate in a way that somehow felt productive. And there you go."

"An impulsive, failed attempt at a 24-hour comic, and my first stab at a comic of any sort. I began on July 13 at 3:17 am with only a ball-point pen and some printer paper and passed out at about 1:30 pm (having paid no attention at the beginning to how long I had already been up.) I awoke the next day to find that in all my feverish work I had only produced 5 measly pages. Despite my disappointment, though, I still feel a strange sense of gratification when I look at the crude, scribbly panels, which has finally led me to put what little there is online. (To compound my failure, I also cheated, adding the field of stars in the third panel later. Gooh.)"

"24 Hour Comics are for wimps. This is a 15 1/2 hour comic, done as part of the Ninth Art 24 Hour Comic Dare. Which meant I managed to get a good six hour sleep and then enjoy a luxurious breakfast as people frantically panicked over their pages. Smug me."

• Untitled

"This was done in the last days of 2000. I went an hour over, but more importantly I became completely delirious and incoherent. It was a beautiful experience and I have since done another.
Big props to Mister Scott McCloud for this challenging and insanity instigating invention. Also, a personal thanks to Mister McCloud, because I used his "Understanding Comics" extensively for my senior thesis to receive my Fine Arts degree. By the by, it impressed the pants off my profs!"

Richard also sent:

• Into the Sun

"Technically, MF isn't a pure 24 hour comic for three reasons. 1) It's 19 pages, not 24. 2) I ran out of paper in the middle of the night (I'd originally only figured on only doing 12 pages and was low on Bristol)... so I was forced to take a break. I stopped the clock, got a little sleep, got some paper in the morning and continued. And 3) I had a general (but very vague) idea for MF rolling around in my head (and my sketchbook) for a little while before I started. But the creation of this thing was very spontaneous and took place within 24 (unfortunately non-consecutive) hours. About halfway through I realized I knew exactly where the story was going, and it almost sort of works. Doing the 24 hour comic was fun, and useful. Thanks for the idea!" --Billy K.

"I did this comic in just over 23 hours, between 10:00pm EST June 6, 2003- 9:25pm EST June 7, 2003. I did 24 full color pages directly onto the computer. No script, no layouts, no ideas. Each page was written as I drew it. I hope you enjoy it!"

Jakob sends his greetings from Slovenia, along with this excellent, understated story.

Asked about links, Jakob responded:

"It would be great if you would include my e-mail address (jakob.klemencic@ff.uni-lj.si) and perhaps also the URL for Stripburger (http://www.ljudmila.org/stripcore/com.htm) although none of my comics are there."

"24 strips, 19 hours, on April 7-8, 2002. Originally I set out to do something completely different, but after four hours, it just wasn't working. I'm really not an artist, as the strip makes clear (the premise of Arctic: a polar bear and an albino in the Arctic.)

So I fell back on doing a 24 installment "miniseries" for my daily comic strip, instead. It's pretty self-contained; you don't need to know much about the strip to follow it.

There are some typos, and one glaring continuity error, preserved to stick to the spirit of the thing.

Someday I'll do a "real" 24 hour comic that doesn't use pre-existing stuff, but I'm happy just to have this done."

Check out this VERY COOL WRITE-UP of the day Chris "Desperate Times" Eliopoulos and Erik "Savage Dragon" Larsen decided to each do a 24-Hour Comic!

"This is a comic I created in the beginning of marts 2001 (somehow I forgot to write down the exact date - stupid, huh?), according to the rules by Scott McCloud. It was all done in the timeframe of 24 sequential hours! Okay... I had to use 25 hours and 4 minuts... but then I also slept for seven hours in between ! :-) The comic was first texted in danish (because I'm danish... duh) - but because the vast majority of the world population does NOT speak the fine language of dansk, I desided to translate it... including lots of possible misspelling!"

One of my favorites.

Part of "the Bagel Sessions" which also includes Barry Deutsch's "Grace," Paul Winkler's "Let's Call it 'The Squigglies'" and Kip Manley's "The Story I was Going to Tell on Halloween Night But Couldn't"

The fact that Jennifer Manley Lee (she's married Kip Manley since) isn't making comics professionally today is proof positive that this industry is screwed-up beyond repair.

(see above)

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

Jason has since gained some well-deserved acclaim for his Xeric-winning comic Jack's Luck Runs Out. His new website is the bee's knees!

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information.]

• Smoked Fish
• The Wyrm's Treasure
• Bedtime with Boo

"This is a compilation of 24 hour comics created over the Winter Solstice (aptly the longest night of the year) December 21-22, 2002. Four people began, but only three finished... This is their story."

Two comics from Mr. L.:

• Sleepless

"This was my first 24 hour comic and I definitely plan to do more! I ended up finishing all 24 pages and a cover in the 24 hours of December 19th, 2001. It took me 23 hours and 41 minutes. Talk about cutting it close!"

And sure enough, Alec wrote back in September 2002 with a link to:

• Super-Dream

"I really think this is one of the most amazing artistic processes that exists. I plan on attempting one per year for the rest of my life! I think it will be an amazing series to read through."

"I did this on Aug 6, 2000, and I was able to finish about an hour and a half early, but I felt like it had been about a week since I'd started it. It was a surreal experience--the comic was done almost completely stream-of-conscious, and turned into this weird postmodern stew of autobiography, commentary on comics, toilet humor, creepy horror, and a deconstruction of the process of creating a 24-hour comic inside itself. Goofy."

"24 pages .. from 9PM to 9PM in a 24-hour stretch.
Pencils & paper - Done sometime in April 2001.
This comic is for a mature audience only, so if you qualify, please come on in with an open mind."

Matt sent what he described as two "12-hr. Comics." He reports that he was already doing these "instant comics" when he first heard about the 24-hr. comics.

"25 pages cyclic story which contains a happy(?) love-story, a tenacious snail, a devilish pyromaniac, fast-growing trees and flowers, a hot-air balloon, a giant grinning face with a striped cap and more. Completed between 4.55 pm July 5th and 3.15 pm July 6th 2001.

The comic will be displayed fram-by-frame in a total of 97 frames on the website linked above."

A great little comic I stupidly asked Matt to send me twice!

Matt checks in from Mexico City:

"I talk (enthusiastically) a bit about the process of making one and what I got out
of it in an on-line interview:"

"I did a presentation on minicomics at a small convention here last week centering on a Spanish translation (mine) of Matt Feazell's "How to Make a Minicomic" mini. I brought samples of stuff, including "First Warning," and this group of young design students, who I had met previously, got really excited and promised they would get together and do one soon. I'll let you know if/when it happens."

Part of "the Bagel Sessions" which also includes Barry Deutsch's "Grace," Jennifer Lee's "The Flower Started it..." and Paul Winkler's "Let's Call it 'The Squigglies.'"

[see "Jennifer Lee", above]

Tero sends his regards from Finland and adds:

"It sounds fun to do a comic in 24 hour so i give it a try during my sort summer vacation. It turned some romantic knight tale in some post holocaustic fantasy world. It was a hell to do it, but worth of it. It wasn't full success because some page are truly minimalistic."

"Started at 27.6.2002 17:00 at Finnish time.
Ended 28.6.2002 17:00"

Dale Martin:

• One Long Day. "This was my first attempt, and the one with the least pre-start thought that went into it. I was really happy with it, and I came up with a story much more involved than I typically did. My favorite 24-hr. comic and one of my favorites period. Published by (and available from) me as a digest. - (Sept. 1996; 24 pages/38 hours)"

• Get a Job. "My second 24-hr. comic, and the closest to being done in 24 hours, this was my chapter of the ongoing APA-5 jam comic (so character designs, and the starting point was already there for me). Appeared in APA-5 #306. (May 2000; 24 pages/26 hours) "

• Dimension of Fire. "This third 24-hr. comic is a sequence of a longer story I'm working on (again, character designs and start were there for me) - once again, this turned out to be more involved than I first imagined. A natural break popped up at page 20, so I quit there since the next sequence would take more than just 4 pages. Still unpublished. (Jan. 2002; 20 pages/23 hours)"

"Made on febuary eighth and ninth starting and ending at 9:00 PM. I had a fever. The comic does not make, shall I say, a ton of sense. It's about 13,275 pixels long."

[I love this one, for obvious reasons. -- Scott]

Jack also did a House of Stairs 24-Hour comic with:

• Sana Abbasi
• Stephen Conway

about which, Stephen writes:

"We started the project at 11:30. Jack made 3 or 4 panels and an unintelligable set of instructions, and then went to sleep for 6 hours, during which time Sana and I made the majority of what would become the finished comic.

At 6:15 Sana decided to stop working on the comic and give me the remainder of her time.

At 6:45 Jack woke up, deleted nearly half the panels, made some of his own using dingbats and things he stole from the internet, and animated an empty rectangle so it would bounce.

At 7:15 he said he was done and went back to sleep again.

I assembled the comic into a table and at 8:45, uploaded it to the internet."

• Dogs Save the World
• Ghost House

My Jaw was ON THE FLOOR.

On August 17-18, 2002, my daughter Sky (then age 9) did her own 24-hour comic without any prompting from the old man at all. Ivy and I were bowled over by her dedication, with only one and a half hours of sleep, she finished her comic with one hour to spare. Final total: 29 pages plus a written account of the experience. I swear to God, I didn't put her up to it.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of it is that the same day she was working on the comic, I needed (yes, needed; I was doing research for an article) to go out and buy a PlayStation. And that still didn't stop her from finishing her self-imposed quest.

If that wasn't amazing enough, she's now done it again! Her second 24-hour comic "Ghost House" was completed June 23, 2003 just after midnight in a mere 18 hours.

At some point in the near future I hope to scan both comics in and offer it online. They're really, really cool.

"I never thought I could do it, but I finished all 24 pages in 17 hours on January 13, 2001. Doing this gave me a sort of natural high, a feeling of "I can do anything!" Copies are given out a prizes once a month at http://www.newintowncomics.com. Thank you, Scott!"

New addition: New In Town -- January, 2002

-- about which, Mac writes: "Last January, I wrote and drew a 24-hour comic with actual pen and paper. So, this January, I've done an all-digital one, following the "at least 100 panels" rule. It was the "Eastman variation" this time, but I got all 100! I hadn't intended it, but the story ended up as a set-up for the next issue. Does this make me the first to do a 24-hour comic that's part of a larger, ongoing story? It was tough, but I'm glad I did it."

"Drawn in 23 hours from December 29-30, 2001. I've been drawing Goth House for ten years, but never seriously attempted anything this long before. Normally I'm stingy with the bristol board and draw tiny little panels all crowded with text. This exercise forced me to loosen things up. The giant squid is based on real-life events."

"Hey, Scott. I've been meditating on this concept (the 24-hour comic) ever since I came across your website and had a chance to really absorb the idea into my noggin. I tried once before and failed, producing six pages, some of them not even inked. I am easily slower than any of you pros put together, so I was happy to find myself at a critical period of my development recenly where I seem capable of executing panel-filled pages. I still am not up to the speed I would like, and a few of the slightly dodgier panels and could-use-a-redraw scenes are left intact for your perusal, but only on principle. I tend to ink when and if I am able, but since I scan to computer everything I do, and bump up the original lines until I see something clean enough to work over, I don't beat myself up too much if ink never even touches the page. That said, I still think I could do another week's worth of finish work on this, to get it up to the standard that I hold for myself, lowly amateur wanna-be that I am. But nonetheless, HERE! I did this for my fiancee in Minnesota, who is waiting patiently for me to emigrate from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She is most certainly my soul mate and my muse in all things. Guess I'll have to marry, huh?"

Part of the Australian Anthology (sic)Bag which put out two editions containing 24-hr. comics.

(see above)

"I started at 6 pm on Sat May 20th (after drawing 8 hours at work) and finished Sun May 21st right around (Yes!) 6 pm. After that, I went to a barbecue at a friend's house and walked around like a zombie."

A variation on the 24-Hour Comic for those without 24 continuous hours to spare! Artists included:

• Jerry Welch
• "Psycho" Ann Neko
• Tom Hall
• Mark Melton
• Joe Endres
• Lynn Bradley
• Ben Avery
• Chris Well
• Jamie Cosley
• Brian Bradley
• Wil Hartman K
• Wendell Washer
• Monte Wilson
• Billy Leavell
• Eddie Medina
• Dave Weiss
• Erica Well
• Shaina Widmer
• Jen King

Christian themes abound in this group. All entries are scanned in and online, with some diary accounts of the experience.

"A love story between a man and a fish. This is my first comic ever. I experimented with messy mark making, charcoal and water. If you want to contact me, try pmmeier@hotmail.com.

"Twenty pages, from ideation all the way to finished shockwave file in 24 hours. Completed between 11:00am May 1st and 11:00am May 2nd."

Very cool digest-size mini. (Features brief in-panel cameos by Tom Hart, Warren Craghead and Matt Madden at a gas station!)

Readers take note: Both links lead to Paul's site where the comic is posted. Designers, check it out; a very effective interface.

Paul reports:

"Created on Nov 13, 1999

"A friend convinced me and a few others to do this 24 hour comic thing. The only thing we were told was that we had to produce 24 pages in 24 hours. I finished 30 pages in 20 hours and then threw out my least favorites until I had 24 that I liked.

"My end result is a little strange and i feel that it needs a little explanation. I'm more interested in comic strips than in comic books so I took a three panel strip design. In the first panel I had to introduce the main character (little bunny fuu) in a strange situation (with 12 syllables)... in the second, introduce roo (7 syllables)... and the last create closure (10 syllables) and end in a word that rhymes with roo/fufu.

"Why do it this way? I like working under lots of limitations. little bunny fufu is a nickname of my lover Velvet and neither of us can remember the real story about the character so we enjoy making up our own.

"Ever since I graduated from a private art school I feel like I've been trying to unlearn so much of what they taught me... to reach a point where I can enjoy creating art again. I tried to take an approach to the 24 hour comic that would help me regain the playfulness and spontaneity of my art."

Paul

[see "Solitary Confinement" below]

[One of six in Berlin, taking place between August 31st and September 1st, 2001. See Peter Triesberger's entry for more info.]

"This comic was completed between midnights on December 22, 1999. I took one nap, stopped 3 times to eat, and about 72 times to pace around and fear failure."

"The title was picked at random from an unabridged dictionary and spontaneously explored in the comics medium. 'Inward' is, strictly speaking, a failed attempt at a 24-hour comic. It was finished in 3 sessions of 13, 8 and 4 hours, respectively. I do not however look at it as a failed comic."

[I agree with Timothy. --Scott]

"Drawn only a few feet away from Barry Deutsch's Filling a Hole on the same night a year ago. I almost did it in 24 hours, but crapped out and grabbed a few hours sleep; I clocked in at 26 hours, I think. Anyway, the story is about a gremlin's coffee order gone wrong and his attempt to get back at the coffee server who angered him. I conceived of it as a Saturday Morning Underground Cartoon - silly, slapstick plot with disturbing, graphic violence and (surprise, surprise) sex."

"11 pages in 24 hours. Little piece of advice for those of you who are thinking about giving this a whirl: don't "take a quick nap"; it'll end up costing you. Next time, and there will be a next time, I'm going to load up on the Mountain Dew."

"This didn't quite get done in 24 hours, and it's not enitrely 24 pages of comic book greatness. I decided to make some pages primarily text. It's a mostly true story and doing this comic helped me to shed some inhibitions. It was a great experience and I hope to try similar things in the future."

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information about the group that was producing 24-hour comics alongside Morton's "Detached".]

Kyle Morton has done FIVE 24-hour comics!:

• Detached
• Freeflow
• The Art of Conversation
• Tequila Mockingbird Part One
• Tequila Mockingbird Part Two

In a letter accompanying the finished digest-sized publications, Kyle wrote:

"...I'm currently a senior at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and for my senior project I did one 24-hour comic per month for this fall semester, 2001. My professor that I was studying under, who knows next to nothing about comics, was pretty floored by the results, and is thinking about making one of his assignments for his drawing class to have each of his students do a 24-hour comic of their own."

Now, that's dedication!

"This is the cover. A new page went up every day. Sunday's are actually another person's comic, so they don't count. Oh, and this isn't very good. And none of the pages took nearly a half hour."

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information.]

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above for more info on the multi-comic event that Josh was participating in.]

"What an experience! Oy! I think my problem was I was a little too ambitious. I had this whole meta-fiction idea about a day in the life of Nestor, the butler in the Tintin comics. During the course of his day, he would drift in and out of episodes from previous Tintin adventures. You know, like when he answers the phone with the wrong number for Cutts the Butcher...Or when the step on the marble staircase breaks... And all drawn in my inimitable HergÈ style! It was great idea, except it was so labor-intensive that there was no way to keep on the schedule of one hour per page.

"Around ten hours into it, I began to panic. I realized I would have to cheat to get back on schedule. My cheating began on page 7. Even that didn't do the trick and I tried to cheat even more (page 12). It didn't help. By 7 a.m. or so, I was defeated. The only thing I could do was wrap the whole thing up. So I drew page 24 ó despite there being eight empty pages preceding it...

"Suffice it to say that I was unable to complete all 24 pages within the allotted time. I did my best, but my best wasn't good enough."

From the popular online comics magazine...

"The contenders:

• Sean Azzopardi
• Paul Black
• Lindsay Duff
• Rich Johnston
• Ryan Richards
• Natalie Sandells
• Alasdair Watson

in South London

• John Mazzeo
• Tony Rollinson

in North London

all under the watchful eye of overseers Marysia Kolodziej and Andrew Wheeler."

"Your host: Ninth Art."

read more...

"24 pages plus a cover done between noon on 1/28 and 1/29 2001. Nearly went crazy because it was a schoolnight kind of situation, but yes, it was fun, in a grueling masochistic sort of way."

Update, 06/03: Now in Audio! [Scott reports that he's now living outside Barcelona and getting married].

Scott O. wrote on the back of his delightfully weird little comic that he was sending it from Goldsmith College in London. He identified himself as Irish, 25, and – like most of the entries on this list – a writer-artist.

Here's what he added, via the internet in late May, 2002:

"A few weeks before my final show at art college I realised in my student halls, that I would have no money for two days. A friend of mine Ken Keenan had put me on the Scott's book and I read it over the christmass holidays.

"A few weeks before i had to break out into the big bad world, Two weeks or so before the final deadline of work that we had a spent a year preparing , I was tired and broke and I decided that I would be broke for the next day or so. So late in the night I started drawing and just went with it planning to slep half way and go to the pub when it was finished. I decided to draw for the first, sleep for the second and on the third go to the pub and a have a beer. I didn't really use many panels - but started drawing and ended up running out of inks, pens and pencils, a problem I'd never had before.

"I started drawing without pencils and seeing what I was going to draw half formed before the ink hit the page and just go with it.

"Later I did a thirty page ink and watercolour space opera murder mystery with one eyed air hostesses in two days.

"Now I've started I can't stop - its scary.

"Now I'm in barcelona and I've been working on many isues of a small format book called Ubu cluB based on my experience here and there and in imaginary splaces.

"I left college owing a 1000 pounds sterling or so to Goldsmiths College, University of London, and they won't let me graduate without paying it off.

"If people would like to read a copy of Mr kid and Jimmy and would like to make a donation to help me graduate from college and get on to doing some really crazy things, I can be contacted at fishking385@hotmail.com

"I'm Looking for for Flash animators who are keen on disturbing society."

"My comic was from midnight to midnight of Monday, August 7, 2000. I now have a new appreciation for Cabaret Voltaire, creators of comic books, and the length of a day. Thanks Scott."

"Second attempt at a 24 Hour Comic, inspired by a love of those two noble gentlemen, King Conan and Thundarr the Barbarian. A dose of Elric and Tarzan thown in as well as some oddball humor due to sleep deprivation at about the halfway mark. Old school sword and sorcery, the name, character, and even general thrust of the story all emerged pretty much fully formed. Eastman variation: full 24 pages written, inked, and lettered inside of 25:30 hours from 5/7/01 to 5/8/01."

and:

Power Mad

"24 pages written, pencilled, inked, and lettered inside of 21 hours between Saturday, May 4th and Sunday, May 5th of 2002. Weird, not-quite-linear adventure in a fascistic future controlled by a vain young man with the power to alter reality. Part adolescent power/sex fantasy, part excuse to draw whatever I felt like. Dark, twisted, violent, non-sensical, fun. Done simultaneously with fellow Brotherhood of the Fin member Greg Aubry's "Life in the So-Called Future." We set it up to keep each other motivated via message board and IM, which is good since I almost gave up halfway through inking it because I thought it was turning out like crap. You be the judge."

Elbert logs on from the Philippines:

"Another variation on the rules: "If you finish early, keep on going." I got myself to 30 pages including the cover. It's a complete story in itself, although I'm now working on an extended version of it, because there were some ideas I didn't get to do but want to get back to."

"Created noon 21 Jul 2001 - noon 22 Jul 2001, this is my first comics work--24 pages in 24 consecutive hours (including an unplanned nap!). Done completely solo, aside from internet friends and my pet rat. No plotting or planning was done ahead of time, so I ended up writing about myself. Follow me and my bicycle "Tree" as we wander through a small Florida city with our heads (as it were) in the clouds. Semi-autobiographical, semi-informational, and semi-sleep-dep-fictional. Definitely an experience!"

THE OZCOMICS 24 HOUR CHALLENGE!!

Dozen's and dozens of artists from Australia and around the world! Many more details at the above site, but here's a partial listing of the participating artists in 2002 and 2003; the first and second annual occurrences of this massive group event:

• Matt Bayliss
• Scott Beattie
• Mal Briggs
• Michael Connolly
• Jade Denton
• Edward J Grug III
• Matt Huynh
• Charles Foster Kane
• Sean Lee
• Mark Selan
• Komala Singh
• Nathan Soehardi
• Gavin Thomson
• Steve Turner
• David Blumenstein
• Laura. B
• Darren Close
• Nicholas J French
• Troy Kealley
• Gary Lau
• Simon McGill
• Marty & Ray
• Colin Sharpe
• Stephen Bai
• Brendan Boyd
• Shane Burns   
• Chelsea Fritzlaff
• Doug Holgate   
• Bryn Honeyman
• Grant Hunter
• Liegh Rigozzi   
• Michael Keller
• Mike Kirouff
• Richard Knight   
• Steve LeCouilliard
• Patraix
• Gary Lau
• Christian Read and Jen Hook
• Doug Holgate
• David Blumenstein
• Matt Bayliss
• Nicholas J French
• Steven Turner
• ...and many more!!   

Can't possibly offer details on each one, but fortunately the site had details galore. Happy hunting!

"A 16 page GV finished at 7 AM, Friday June 22, 2001.
A very mundane problem led to a very mind-expanding experience. I'll do it again someday, and plan to work without interruptions next time."

From the author of the Xeric-winning series Awakening Comics.

Steven writes: "I think mine is probably another "noble failure" for two reasons: number one, I understand you're supposed to do the entire comic in one sitting, and I took a nap (it WAS done in 24 hours, though!). Number two, I only did 16 pages, though that's the length of all the comics I was publishing at the time."

[Actually, I always said you could nap all you want -- so long as the clock keeps ticking -- so you're fine there. If it was truly "one sitting" we'd all need bed pans after a few hours! Thanks for giving it a try, Steve. -- Scott]

"Although procrastination comics is not a TRUE 24-hour comic... when you do the math, it works out to be one. created in the few days before spx 99, it was done on the mac using illustrator."

Carol is a great friend of the family's and, it turns out, a terrific writer too. This one came as a wonderful surprise one Friday night as we all sat down to play board games.

"Started this project on the 26th of December and managed to complete the book in 23 hours and 21 minutes. I figured this format was perfect for my Spontaneous Misfortune Man series, plus I also wanted the challenge and to show that us Canadians do have REAL TALENT!!! Hurrah!!! Go Canada!!!

Anyway, I very much enjoyed it, and am planning another when I get two days off in a row again.

My comic is posted at my site, so please feel free to come read it!"

"Written from 8:00 pm April 28 till 8:00 pm April 29, 2002. It was my first attempt, and was sucessful, though I am tempted to break the rules and work on the art more. When my time ran out, a few of the pages had only penciled artwork, though the entirety of the text was inked."

"24 pages done in 24 consecutive hours, starting December 30th, 2001, at 7:15pm. (I did sleep, so the pace was fairly blistering; I figure I averaged two pages an hour during the time I was actually drawing.) I used Tarot cards to get a plot, but didn't follow it particularly closely (especially after I realized that I had no hope of putting the whole plot into 24 pages), but the beginning and end are from (my interpretation of) the cards. I can't say the comic is all that great (in particular, there are many panels I don't like), but it was definitely an interesting experience. Thanks for the idea, Scott!"

"Yep, I gave the ol' 24-hour comic a shot last month. (Back before I came down with carpal tunnel and had to stay away from the computer for two weeks.) :(

"Mine turned out to be a Gaiman Variation (13 pages)."

"18 pages, started in Lexington MA 8-6-2002, actually finished in Syracuse NY 9-2-2002, because I fell asleep 3 pages from pencilling the end about 12 hours after the start (also went out for three hours to return movies and get comics in between there)... I inked it in the spare hours after work and school, so it probably ended up taking about 30-35 hours altogether."

[This is eerie; I grew up in Lexington and went to college in Syracuse! --Scott]

(see "Charlie Athanas and Marc Rettig")

Click here for a great write up on Alex "Box Office Poison" Robinson's 24-hour comic experience.

Published as a flip-book with Mike Dawson's Death Row Junkie.

" 'South' actually came to 27 pages. It was done by the book, 24 hours straight through. I'd made the attempt once before, but this was the first time I'd managed to stay awake. I had no intention of printing it, but about a year later I DID print the next attempt, "Frankenstein's Horses", and people really seemed to like that one, so I figured why not? "Frankenstein's Horses" is only 23 pages long, and the session only lasted 22 hours, but the story was finished; I had no more to say. I even went BACK in that last hour and stuffed a page between two existing pages (a good thing, too, it helps the flow quite a bit...) but it still only came to 22 hours."

[bit missing here for some reason --Scott]

"...'em up and glued the pieces onto cereal boxes; made hundreds of cards (still adding to the pile, in fact), and this mishmash made its official debut at the Underground Publishing Conference in Ohio this year. (Matt was there, he can tell ya all about it.) I left them on a table and people would play with them as they passed by, placing pieces in all directions, back and forth across the time flow, building a sort of Scrabble board, or crossword puzzle, of comics. You woulda loved it.}"

"On August 26-27 2000, I completed 24 pages of full-sized 10x15 layouts in 24 hours. Doing this broke through the artists' block in my head. The fun part about getting together with my friends and doing this was how encouraging it was for us. Of the 4 who worked that weekend one of us now pencils and inks full time and the other moved to NY to do the same. I've gone back to re-work this story this summer so now it's just over 50 pages. I'm making it into a graphic novel, God Willing. I've also been concentrating on my pencilling samples and have been collaborating on 2 8-pagers to do so."

"It's a comic about a guy called Bob and a girl called Cathy and the miss-adventure with the Uber Goths, overseen by the leet monster.
Made: 27/1/03
Length: 24 pages"

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

"This comic evolved in bizarre ways over the course of 25 and half hours - I didn't start with any set narrative, and I just drew whatever made me smile anytime I got stuck. SO much fun to do - I recommend it to anyone.
Started: Sept. 10, 2002 at 3:30 p.m.
Finished: Sept. 11, 2002 at 5 p.m.
Total length: 19 pages."

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information.]

[One of six in Berlin, taking place between August 31st and September 1st, 2001. See Peter Triesberger's entry for more info]

Completed in two 12-hour sessions.

" 'Mixed Media' was started just before noon on 7-7-00 and finished 11:21 AM on 7-8-00.

I relied a lot on clip-art and "borrowed" works since I'm not an artist. It's an odd thing ... a lumbering, clumsy three-legged monster on a high wire unicycle. I'm glad I did it. Thanks for the challenge."

[One of six in Berlin, taking place between August 31st and September 1st, 2001. See Peter Triesberger's entry for more info.]

I don't know much about it, but in June of 2002 a group of Seattle cartoonists got together to create their own 24-hour comics. Included were:

• Davey Oil
• Scott Faulkner
• Stefan Gruber
• Jessixa
• Ariel Bordeaux
• Marc Campos
• David Lasky
• Elijah J. Brubaker

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that cartoon people throwing cheese into space is very funny at four in the morning.

"I did this at the same time as a friend of mine. We decided to do it during exams week, as everyone else we knew would be up at all hours anyway. A great excercise."

"This was done within 23 hours in June 2002, and I really didn't understand why everyone bitches so much about how hard this is. I sat down and started with some character designs, then plotted page-by-page for an hour, then spent the next 22 hours toiling away with my caveman-like drawing skills. It was relaxed, pleasant, and not at all the onerous burden that a lot of people seem to make it out to be. I worked alongside Bill Duncan, who produced a much more attractive comic than me."

(as well as Road to Nowhere with James Frail)

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information.]

"Started on 19/12/2002 at 9:00pm and ended the next day at 9:00pm (yep, actually pulled it off).

Done as a "sketchbook" assignment for my art class and slightly inspired by The Winter Guest (movie directed by Alan Rickamn) so it gets a bit weird."

One of four comics appearing at The House of Vertigo (a Vertigo Discussion List).

• Brad Collins - The Adventures of Artis the Spoonman
• Rob Hackney - "Siberia... 1996"
• Alex Tam - Time... well, spent!
• Eric Simons - A Witch Lives in this House

"I cheated a bit. I was watching the Thin Red Line and decided on a whim to make a twenty four hour comic. The two combined and I made 34 pages of movie adaption(I didn't finifh the movie, it's over three hours). Since I started in the late afternoon I fell asleep after a while. So I completed it in 24 hours over a 48 hour span. Lotsa fun, really forces one to open artistically"

• Temporarily Definitive
• The Wild Kingdom

"About once a year, maybe more, a few buddies get together and do these here comicbooks. um, some of the other guys may wanna say more, but that's what the fozzlebot page is for, right? thanks for the idea and thanks for checkin' it out."

"I became intrigued with your 24 Hour Comic Book Dare a month ago - mainly because I could never finish a full book. I figured the time crunch would scare me enough into just plowing through the pages without self-editing (which I always ended up doing in the past).   I tried the dare on the evening of April 17, 2001 and got five pages into the book. I fell asleep. So I didn't make it.   But when I woke up I realized I had a full script and could finish the other 19 pages at my own pace. On May 3, 16 days later, I finished. The 24 Hour Comic Book Dare helped me realize the tangibility of a deadline and allowed me to finish the book in a timely manner... not 24 hours, but a good turnaround nonetheless.   The 24 Hour Comic Book Dare is a great idea. I'll probably try it again to get issue 2 off to a roaring start.   Here's the link to the comic book, entitled 'Baraka and Black Magic in Morocco':   http://rick_smith.home.mindspring.com/comics/morocco/index.htm "

"You could ask me how my 24 hour comic came out... and I would break down in tears at its poor poor quality. At any rate, because it was so monstrously bad, I decided to choose some of the more significant points and send them in the stead of the full piece.. because it was bad... very bad..."

[Actually, J. sent excerpts and I think it looks pretty good! --Scott]

"My first attempt at a 24 hour comic. Lessons learned. Created April 19-20th 2003. Hard to put suspense in 24 pages, but enjoy."

"Phew, well I got my comic finished with 10 minutes to spare. I acutually managed to sneak some sleep in between pages, I dont know if thats considered cheating or not. The story I came up with is very odd, I think my subconcious is a very werid place. After a bit of a hard slog, I've set up a webpage with all the details of how it went and what happened, so check it out and tell me what you think."

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

Another massive group 24-Hour Comics marathon, this time organized online.

Case Yorke wrote at the time:

"I am one of the members of Alternative Brand Studios, a promotion-oriented-slash-creative-collaborative effort of seven webcomic creators. Chris was a reader of a few of our comics and approached us with the idea of doing the 24-hour comic challenge and wondered if we could present the results on our site as, like we like to call 'em, an Altertainment event. After discussing it, we felt it would be really cool to try and extend the invitation to all those who would accept it. So while I'm acting as webmaster and looking over the event (more or less in a producer mode) Chris has been doing the nitty gritty with the participants and gluing this thing together."

A list of those attempting to scale comics' Mount Everest are:

• Chris Furniss
• Mess
• Max Brooks
• Brendan Adkins
• Vincent Bondy
• Christopher Harrell
• Shadow Omega
• "MTV's Kevin"
• Damonk
• Joe N.
• Kast
• John Reasoner
• Ellen Exacto
• The Joe
• Steph Avery
• Emily Cook
• Zach Miller
• Automated Alice
• Kaz
• Aaron Spew
• Jeff Greco (tentative)
• Mital K.
• Erik Schoenek
• Valerie
• Maureen Fess
• Goeffrey Hawley
• Jon Lekton
• Nick
• Randy D. Oest
• Andy Dimitt
• Kelly Froh
• Arak Thaylann
• Ciaran Benson
• Faustus
• R Stevens (tentative)
• Murph
• Will White

Check the link above to see which ones actually pulled it off and for links to the finished comics.

"At times, I got behind on the page an hour rate needed to complete the 24 hour comic by as much as forty-five minutes. Sometimes, I got ahead as much as half an hour. It teetered back and forth all day, as friends came and gone, watching movies, drawing a little here and there, and viewing the comic. As the crowd waned, the 24 hour comic went†lighthearted to something a little more serious.
†I went from talking cynically to talking seriously. I delved into areas that I never got into publicly before. †At hour sixteen, I was left alone to finish. †I ended up†working really fast after everyone went to sleep, and at a mark of twenty-one and a half hours, the comic was done. My hand hurt and I was very sleepy, but I'd done the 24 hour comic. I was left in an insomniac stupor and very introspective about what the 24 hour comic meant to me.
†I found that if I worked on something and dedicated my time to it completely, that I could complete a project adequately. While the 24 hour comic isn't publishable in its own†right, it is a great start, and just fine-tuning the project in post -production with careful re-drawing would make for an excellent introspective piece. It also taught me that I have several interesting things that I could do comics about."

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

"This was my second try to do a 24-hour-comic and this time it worked! I am one of "six in berlin" who did it in summer 2001, but that time I gave up in the morning. Now we repeated it from Sunday November 10th 2002 at 2 p.m. to Monday. I had 15 minutes left and did an extra cover, but I have to say that the characters already existed - I hope that counts?
I will do it again!"

"Done while working on whatever issue of CANCER:The Crab Boy in 1997, this quick piece offers a glimmer at the darker work I would do about a year later on ANDI:Raggedy Nation. Guess I liked the taste of it..."

"This is my first 24 hour comic. I'd hoped to adhere to the original rules and do it all in a single 24 hour period but that proved impossible. Instead I wrote and penciled it on August 11 and 12 (at home, at a cafe and a Magnetic Fields show) and then inked it on the 18 and 19. It took a little over 24 Hours total. Oh well. It should also be noted that the first two days I was in a nice vicodin haze. Don't knnow how it affected the process but I do recommend it."

[Off-Topic: The Magnetic Fields are awesome! --Scott]

One of four comics appearing at The House of Vertigo (a Vertigo Discussion List).

• Brad Collins - The Adventures of Artis the Spoonman
• Rob Hackney - "Siberia... 1996"
• Alex Tam - Time... well, spent!
• Eric Simons - A Witch Lives in this House

Includes my favorite line from a 24-hr. comic.

"The twenty-four pages of this Few and Far Between interlude were pencilled at "The Comics Lockdown!" in March 2002, and inked, scanned, and tagged during an 18-hour follow-up session the following Fourth of July. I drew each three-panelled page horizontally with Web-posting in mind."

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

To my knowledge, this is the only hard-core 24-hr. sex comic done to date.

Sent in with another 24-hour comic by "Emma."

"Started Tuesday, January 23 at 11:00 PM. My second attempt at a 24 hour comic -- first attempt alone, and first successful attempt. I wrote my name on the front page at 10:59, literally at the last minute."

"This was done as part of an online 24 hour comic group called Comic Exhaustion. I was the only one of the four participants to finish all 24 pages, but in the intervening months between producing and scanning the comic, I lost a page. It's still 24 pages, counting the cover. Also, there's a weird terrorist/WTC joke, but it's purely coincedence, as the comic was completed Sunday May 20, 2001."

Group Event: Six in Berlin.

"Hi Scott,

Inspired by your website, I created a 24-Hour comic last summer. The event started Friday, August 31th 8:34 a.m. and ended Saturday, September 1st 8:34 a.m. At the same time, two other young german amateur comic artists I met in an internet community took the same challenge.

My result is a 24 pages "underground style" Comic with one strip per page. I hope that's all right to meet the rules. Even the web design and the HTML pages were done within the 24 hours:
http://www.nonpareil.de/comics/h24/index.htm

In order to meet the "Rumpelstiltskin" rule, I send you the URL of my site. I even translated the story into English (well, some sort of...), but doing this, took me more than 24 h. Here's the computer-lettered "international issue" of my 24-h Comic "Visions of Violence": http://www.nonpareil.de/en/index.htm

Happy new year and best regards,
Peter"

Note: The participants, also listed elsewhere on the index, were:

• Max Jaeling
• Andreas Michalke
• Ingrid Sabisch
• Dirk Schwieger
• Peter Triesberger
• Markus "Mawil" Witzel
• Alexander Ziegler

Max also sends the following alternate url for the index:
http://www.loesje.de/maxfiles/24h.htm

"This comic (for some egotistical reason) ended up to be about me and people who annoy me. I felt compelled to do this and had "fun" doing it. (If Scott McCloud told me to quit smoking for the sake of comics, I probably would.)

"Everyone's gotta try this at least once!"

A simply beautiful 24-Hour webcomic in full color, created by one of my favortite contemporary cartoonists.

The first annual gathering of cartoonists at Cal State Fullerton was a smashing success. They even produced a video documentary with footage of an interview they did with me. Very cool.

Participant's included:

• Christian Hill
• Justin Ridge
• Cara Nilsen
• Richard Pose

Wild computer-generated art and creatively appropriated images populate this unusual entry.

"I'm gonna do more!
Page length: 24 pages, plus cover
Date completed: July 20th, 1999
Time of completion: 12:30 am (23 hours after I started)
You can read about it at my site."

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

[See "The Brotherhood of the Fin" entry above for more information.]

"I was going to come home, sleep a few hours, then do this comic. Instead I came straight home from work and start it on January 27, 2001 and finished it exactly 24 hours later. Yep, that was 2001. I didn't print it. I sat on it for more than 2 years for reasons I can't even begin to describe. But now it's out there. Doing it was an awesome experience!"

Part of "the Bagel Sessions" which also includes Barry Deutsch's "Grace," Jennifer Lee's "The Flower Started it..." and Kip Manley's "The Story I was Going to Tell on Halloween Night But Couldn't"

This silent story featuring the journeys of a wayward house cat is one of my all-time favorites.

[One of six in Berlin, taking place between August 31st and September 1st, 2001. See Peter Triesberger's entry for more info.]

"More a writing exercise" reports the author (the art and lettering is very simple). Chris actually included two 24-hr. comics. The other one was titled "Just a Bunch of Meaningless Thoughts Presented in 24 Pages and Done in 24 Hours." Yow.

[See "Comics Lockdown!" above.]

Or so I'm told. No more info at this time. (You out there, Damien?)

[thanks to Sean C. Duncan for the name and title]

Mike's is one of three 24-hour comics available online under the umbrella of Space Age Comics. (The other cartoonists were Bryan Douglas and Jeff Young.)

And a new one too!: To The Present, You Uppity Wench

Mike writes:

"'Seize Him!' is only 19 pages long plus a cover page, and that's with quite a few splash pages. I'm just too slow with my art. Anyway, the story follows a young man named Robot who chases an actual robot, one which supposedly has the power to inflict horrible damage to the city. It is a ridiculous, silly story, but funny. At least, I meant for it to be funny."

From the creators of Bobo's progress. (Tom also holds the distinction of being the best editor The Comics Journal has had so far).
Shelton is a series of digest-sized 2.4 (!) hour comics. From #4, the following explanation:
"...Sheltons [are] completed using the following process: Dan draws whatever comes into his head, as quickly as he can. Tom writes over Dan's drawings as quickly as he can. Dan feels free to trip Tom up with the occasional non-sensical panel or sequence. Tom feels obligated to have it all look planned. The end result takes only a few hours, most of that time used by the artist. It's not very interesting, really."

Part of the Australian Anthology (sic)Bag which put out two editions containing 24-hr. comics.

(see above)

"Hey! My name is Adam Yeater and I am an aspiring comic book inker. I did my comic while taking care of my kid. I'm a stay at home dad. Which meens I have some free time. When I was not wipeing a dirty butt or shoveling large amounts of of mushy carrots into my kid's mouth. I was constantly working on my 24-hour comic. It turned out to be a wonderful challenge. I would like to thank the fan's who came out and saw the movie. WOOPS! Wrong speach. Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh yeah. It was a blast and I suggest everyone try it. I used alot of cheap markers an alot of white-out. I would also like to thank Scott for makeing us all believe. All together now! THANKS SCOTT!!!!!!!!! WOOO-HOOO (Man! I gotta get out of the house more.)"

Jeff's is one of three 24-hour comics available online under the umbrella of Space Age Comics. (The other cartoonists were Bryan Douglas and Mike Woodson.)

[One of six in Berlin, taking place between August 31st and September 1st, 2001. See Peter Triesberger's entry for more info.]