A 24-hour comic is a 24 page comic book conceived, written, drawn, and completed in 24 hours. Scott McCloud originally came up with the challenge for himself and Steve Bissette as a creative exercise. McCloud drew the first 24-hour comic to prove it could be done on August 31, 1990, Bissette did his on September 5.

Word of the challenge slowly spread, especially as Dave Sim started publishing his own 24-hour comics in the back of his popular Cerebus the Aardvark. Eventually Scott McCloud had collected six 24-hour comics on his website from different, well-known comic-creators.

Rules

As originator of the challenge, Scott McCloud has established rules for a comic to qualify: It must be begun and completed within 24 consecutive hours. The creator can think about it beforehand and gather research materials and drawing tools, but cannot put anything on paper until he is ready to begin the 24 hours. Breaks for food or sleep are counted as part of the 24 hours.

If the cartoonist fails to finish the comic in 24 hours, there are two course of action suggested: stop the comic at that point, or continue working until it's done. The former is known as the Gaiman variation, after Neil Gaiman's unsuccessful attempt, and the latter is called the Eastman variation, after Kevin Eastman's unsuccessful attempt. Scott McCloud considers both type of failures to be "noble failures", and he'll still list them on his site as long as he believes that the creator intended to finish on time.

Event

Nat Gertler organized an annual event on April 24, 2004. During this 24-Hour Comics Day, comics creators around the world are invited to spend the day making a 24-hour comic. All participants are requested to send their completed comic to McCloud, who keeps an archive of all completed 24-hour comics on his webpage. In 2004, many comic book stores supported this event by having special areas for the artists to work on their comic. In 2005 the event will begin on Saturday the 23rd, so that it ends on Sunday the 24th. The first event attracted many writers and artists, and even quite a few webcomics creators.

Books

Two books of 24-hour comics have been published, with a third planned:

• 24 Hour Comics (ISBN 0971633843) presents nine comics selected by Scott McCloud.
• 24 Hour Comics Day Highlights 2004 (ISBN 0-9753958-0-7) presents selections from the 2004 event.
• 24 Hour Comics All-Stars (ISBN 097539584X) will be released leading up to the 2005 event.

Similar challenges

The original 24-hour comics idea has spawned imitators. Various web comics have participated in the 24-hour comic challenge, but instead of pages they do 24 strips. There is also the 24-hour play, in which a group of playwright/actors script and perform a full play by the end of 24 hours. This, in turn, gave birth to the 48-hour Film Project.

On a slightly larger scale, November has been declared National Novel Writing Month. A "novel" is a document of 50000 words. Similar to 24-hour comics, this timeframe provides most people with only enough time to write, and none to re-read or edit.

External links

• The 24-hour Comics (http://www.scottmccloud.com/inventions/24hr/24hr.html) - Original homepage.
• 24-hour Comics Index (http://www.scottmccloud.com/inventions/24hr/index/index.html) - List of all recognised 24-hour comics.
• 24HourComics.com (http://24hourcomics.com/) - Information about the annual event.
• 24-hour Plays (http://www.24hourplays.com/)
• 48-hour Film Project (http://www.48hourfilm.com/)