Speaking Of Creating Comics En Masse
Something interesting over at Melonpool today. Let’s let Steve Troop explain, from an email he sent us on Friday:
After months of puppet-related hijinks, I’ve been getting the itch to draw again, so …
The comic’s coming back following my participation in the 24 Hour Comic Challenge on Saturday. Whatever is created that day will go on the site, one a day until that’s depleted.
If it goes well and revitalizes me, I’ll do a 24-hour comic in this manner once a month and post it M-F. If it has the opposite effect, I’ll probably hang up the brush and ink for good.
… and this morning:
Welp. I finished in 17 hours and am mostly-pleased with the 24 pages I produced. I was the third person to finish at my location (The Comic Bug in Los Angeles), and will probably do it there again next year. If you’ve never participated in one of these events, by all means do — or at least check it out.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it currently, but it IS the first Melonpool story in about a year, so I should make a cover for it and release it through Lulu. Or maybe online. We’ll see. ;)
The point is, of course, that the rumors of my retirement from comics may have been over-exaggerated. ;)
So there’s new Melonpool for the next 24 days; if you like what Troop’s doing, let him know. It would be interesting to see what happens if a webcomic were to be released only in 24-hour format — I can’t think of anybody else that’s considered doing this to himself on a monthly basis (Scott Kurtz can tell you that even as an annual event it’s a strain on mind and body).
In a related vein, William G has an interesting post on longform story comics, up at his blog. Reader’s Digest version: Bang Barstal will henceforth be updated monthly, but as a full, self-contained, 12-page story (in B&W; I’ll be sorry to see Bang’s baby blues go away). It’s not a masochistic as doing a 24 hour comic once a month, and the results will be presented all at once instead of doled out over a period of time; if Troop decides to forge ahead, consider this the companion in the new-ways-of-producing-webcomics experiment. So set your alarms for 25 November (Thanksgiving weekend, for you ‘Mericans out there), ’cause that’s when we see what hits.
It’s great to see more Melonpool, and I hope that this schedule works for Steve.
I can see a few plusses in doing large amounts of work at once, since an artist gets more of a chance to focus and might also be able to make the comic itself more uniform. If the plan works out, it’ll be interesting to see what the results are.
By Alma Mater on 10.09.06 2:47 pm
Aces High is another Graphic Smash comic that has gone monthly as well. We’re not making any crazy site-wide shifts in updating at GS but both creators made good cases for the schedule change and we’re gonna give it a shot because WE ARE BREAKING ALL THE RULES, BABY.
By Timmy D on 10.09.06 6:14 pm
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