24 hours and 11 years.
In 12 hours we’ll probably be on final approach to San Diego.
In 24 hours, asleep on the floor of someone I haven’t met yet.
For about four or five hours in there, at least, I imagine we’ll be wandering around a very large room filled with 50,000 fans of various and sundry genre entertainment products, some of which can be called comics. That’ll begin in about 14 hours or so, I think. Give or take. We’ll do it again in about 36 hours. And again in about 60. And one more time—
Just over 11 years ago, I did two 24-hour comics. Not in a row. Between the first 24-hour comic and the second 24-hour comic, we sat huddled in a room around a black-and-white TV for hours and hours and watched news reporters duck and wince at loud noises against a fiery Middle Eastern night and talk about Scuds and American air strikes. We scribbled things on a couple of pages of a sketchbook, interlocking and interacting comics that were making black jokes about what was going on in front of us because what else could you do?
Scott McCloud invented 24-hour comics about 12 years ago. In about 14 or maybe 15 hours, Winter McCloud is going to kick my ass in Pokémon.
Barry is the only person who actually “owns” a piece of Kip Manley original art. It was a page from my first 24-hour comic. It hung on the wall of the room we shared in the apartment we were living in 11 years ago or so. It was an odd metafictional piece starring the first cartoon character I ever created. (The next time you’re around when Amy’s around, she’ll ask me to draw him for you. I guarantee that.) And I kind of liked it, even if I stole the whole “Bigby” thing shamelessly from Sarah, who has no home on the internet just yet. (Go read some of her chapters in Herschberg. They don’t suck.) And I did do a third 24-hour comic. It was my first attempt to come to grips with autobiography and love and sex and magic and not and pretty much the whole big snarling mass of What Happened at Oberlin. But since I didn’t finish the 24 pages in 24 hours, it doesn’t really count. (Barry and Paul and Jenn and I all did 24-hour comics at the same time in pretty much the same room, that time. And we were all on our third 24-hour comic. But Paul didn’t finish his in 24 hours, either. Barry and Jenn, who’d never finished within the time limit before, did.) This third round was maybe eight years ago? Nine? Whatever. Not too many people have done three 24-hour comics. There’s reasons.
But it’s the second one I did that I like the best. Barry kept telling me I should put it up on the web, why not. And Jenn, too. So thank them if you like, but blame me if you don’t. You will probably like it a little better if your monitor is set to 1025×760 or bigger. Mine’s set to 800×600, and I have to scroll up and down, and I didn’t mind so much myself, but it’s my comic. You might not be so patient.
I should have been asleep two hours ago. I probably won’t be asleep for another two hours, at least. We’re both waking up in about five and a half hours, give or take.
But here and now, ladies and gentlemen, what the hell: 24 pages drawn in 24 hours straight; my second ever 24-hour comic; an 11-year-old story that remains near and dear to my heart—
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