24 Hour Comics Day Highlights

Creating a twenty-four page comic book story normally involves months of work. On April 24, 2004 - 24 Hour Comics Day - hundreds of cartoonists each tried to create a complete 24-page comics story in 24 straight hours. Some were sequestered away in their homes, working privately, while others were working in the middle of comic book shops, creating comics as performance art. Some were big-time comics creators, while others were enthusiastic amateurs who hadn’t drawn 24 pages of comics before in their life. The founder of 24 Hour Comics Day, Nat Gertler, delves into the results and pulls out twenty interesting examples. These comics show the quality, diversity, energy, and even grace of the 24 hour comic. The 24 hour comic was invented by Scott McCloud, comics’ leading theoretician. He created this challenge as a creative exercise for himself and a friend, never dreaming what it would blossom into. Now, with hundreds of cartoonists having taken the challenge and tens of thousands of comic pages having been created, it has become a rite of passage for young creators and a source of rejuvenation for older ones.