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October 27, 2008

I recently took part in an event called 24-Hour Comic Book Day. It's a world-wide event in which you get twenty-four hours to create a twenty-four page comic. Do the math. That's one page per hour. Having just finished my Complete Adventures of Ryan comic book, I thought this would be a fun way to unwind from it.

It may have taken place all over the world, but I sat at a table in 4-Color 8-Bit, the local comic shop in town. I brought a few litres of Starbucks coffee for everyone to enjoy and sustain themselves with. 24-Hour Comic Book Day is neat for many reasons. Firstly, it was just awesome to sit in a room with other creative folks and joke around, laugh, swap ideas, and bounce thoughts off of. I usually lock myself in my spare room (the one I'm in writing this blog right now!) to be creative, so this was definitely different. Second of all, it was a real challenge to create that many pages in that short of time. I usually spend about three hours or so per page of art, so I really had to haul ass. It was time to man the fuck up.

Getting down to business was crucial. After my first page, I looked at my watch and realized I had spent nearly two hours on it. Uh-oh! It was then and there that I knew I had to simplify even more than usual. I hate to admit it, but I started cutting the background out of my work. My friends Johnny and Adam will give me so much shit when they hear I did that. I complain a lot when artists don't draw backgrounds.

Anyway, the story I worked on was about these two burnout teens that were going to vote and the adventures that befuddled them along the way. Across from me, Kevin had begun work on the story of a super-hero who was forced to work at Wal-Mart. To my left was a kid named Brandon and he was drawing stick figures running from ninjas... I think. "Asian Nick" kept running around the place with pizza, cookies, soda, and comments about how everyone and everything simply weren't "Asian Enough".

Two girls, Tara and Katherine, were there filming a documentary of the entire shin-dig. I know what you're thinking: Wait! There were GIRLS in a comic book store???
I can't wait to see how their video turns out. I finished my book at 2 am, which was only fourteen hours in. I had gotten tired, my wrist was hurting worse than an all-day free preview of the Hustler network, and I really wanted to grab a slice of pizza. So I blew up the main characters and ended the story on page 23. Then I added a horribly shitty drawing for a cover and called my mess complete. The next two days I don't really remember.

Speaking of not remembering things... my buddy Dustin had his birthday the other night and I'm hoping he remembers his very first attempt at playing "Big Buck Hunter" at the Brass. If not, I have some good photos for him. Sadly, he wouldn't follow me to The Grizzly Grill. I really wanted to get him a cougar for his birthday. Oh well, there's always next year.
- Ryan

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