by Jeff Ellis
This is my first ever attempt at a 24-hour comic. It was my hope to create one more book to sell in San Francisco at APE 2008. I was already launching Cloudscape’s brand new anthology, Historyonics, which I edited, and contributed to, and was eager to have a more personal book to offer. I began in earnest at my house on Saturday Oct 18th at 10:05am alongside my good friend Jonathon Dalton and Jack Hume, who also made an attempt at their own 24-hour comic.
We worked diligently throughout the day and I was averaging about one penciled page an hour. We had visits during the day from my friends Michelle, Marie-Helene and Scott, some stayed to draw others merely offered well wishes.
I will always remember Scott’s warning: “24-hour comics teach you things about yourself, dark things, things you can’t unlearn!” Fortunately all of us were to survive the evening unscathed.
On Oct 19th at 6:30am, I finished penciling my last page and began to apply inks. I kept going until 9:35 before finally admitting defeat, seeing as I’d only inked up to page 4. Still, when the dust settled and I’d had a full nights rest I looked at what I had created and saw potential in it. Perhaps not my best work, certainly not my best work as an illustrator, but it was a story I’d been trying to tell properly for some time and now finally had been realized on the page.
