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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Zander's 2008 24-Hour Comic is Online!

Here we are again.  I'm already forgetting how emphatically I swore I'd never do this again, sometime around 2 in the morning this past Sunday.

This year, I was forced to abandon my beloved Pentel Pocket Brush Pen by an errant air conditioning duct that somehow made the pen ooze ink out of the side of the bristles.  Sorcery!  So I had to scramble and quickly switch to Micron pens, and it actually made for a cleaner and sharper looking comic.  

As with every year, I decided on a genre (this year, a superhero thriller), and then drew a Pictionary card to determine the plot points.  This year, the card had the following words to be made into a plot:

Wing
Freezer
Brainwashing
Fig Leaf
White

Also, this is the first year that I have not actually accomplished the 24 hour goal.  I regret to say I had to turn in a Noble Failure: Eastman Variation.  I was not finished at hour 24, so I stuck it out and finished by hour 25.  This is not fun, when everyone else is done and leaving.  And sitting next to you saying nice, helpful, supportive things.  And your brain has almost shut down with fatigue and frustration.  

The reasons for this failure are several:  

1.  I drew too many panels (167; the accepted number for a qualifying online comic is 100)
2.  I ignored my own advice and pencilled the second half of the comic before inking or lettering it.  I was behind and I thought this would help.  Foolish.
3.  Working with a pen forced me to be a bit more precise than I would be with a PPBP, and so I had to think about the details of each panel a bit more so it wouldn't look bad.
4.  There were some very chatty people at this year's event, one of whom, whose name I will not mention, was not working on a 24 hour comic and so had just a bit too much time on his hands.
5.  I've been working on a similarly-formatted comic without such strict time constraints and got a little soft.

Anyway, the comic is called Golden Wing versus The Freezer, and it's not all that bad.  You know, all things considered.

Click on the following image to read this year's attempt:

If you don't have a Flash player on your computer, here is the comic in one long scroll:


Warning:  It's 1.2 Megabytes.

14 comments:

bewilderedkid said...

Zander,

Good stuff. I do love the flying and reading page, it really paid off. Also, page 16 turned out real nice. I definitely didn't see that ending coming!

At least you toughed the whole thing out! Glad I could help you out with your brush pen dilemma!

Donn Ha said...

"There were some very chatty people at this year's event, one of whom, whose name I will not mention, was not working on a 24 hour comic and so had just a bit too much time on his hands."

Wasn't me this year!

Anonymous said...

Page 10 had me laughing out loud. Great stuff, Zander!

Matthew Kriske said...

"There were some very chatty people at this year's event, one of whom, whose name I will not mention, was not working on a 24 hour comic and so had just a bit too much time on his hands."

Was me this year!

(Humble apologies sir.)

Unknown said...

Kriske-- you are forgiven. But more important than that: I want to read a Kriske 24 hour comic next year.

Donn Ha said...

Thank you for clearing my name Mr. Kriske. :)

Brian said...

Great stuff.

What do you mean by PPBP?

Unknown said...

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. I'm trying to make "PPBP" the new cool (and easier to type) word for it.

Z

Mike Hales said...

Damn, this is amazing. I made it out to 24 Hour Comics Jam in San Francisco, but didn't get all 24 pages completed.

Matt said...

Damn fine work, Mr. Cannon.

I loved the introduction to all the side characters. Instantly, it had me thinking, "How is he going to shoehorn all of these people and powers into the rest of what is a very short comic?" And then you DID, with a great ending, too.

Glad you stuck it out. I'm looking forward to more entertainments.

Unknown said...

I didn't necessarily plan to fit them all in, but then I realized that by fitting them in, I pretty much had the rest of the issue mapped out, which is nice when you're behind. I do regret not having Steve Ochsendorf help him out of a tax problem right before the end, but you can't have everything.

staplegenius said...

Ochsendorfs are pretty bad at actual follow-thru Zander, so its no big thing he wasn't around when needed.

Unknown said...

I should've named him Klonowski!

David Steinlicht said...

Congratulations, Zander. It's great. And funny. The full-page with the city skyline is beautiful.