A 24-hour comic is a 24 page comic book 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. Only one person may be directly involved in its creation, and it must span 24 pages, or (if an infinite canvas format webcomic is being made) 100 panels.

The creator may think about it beforehand and gather research materials and drawing tools, but cannot put anything on paper until he is ready for the 24 hours to begin. Any breaks (for food, sleep, or any other purpose) are counted as part of the 24 hours.

If the cartoonist fails to finish the comic in 24 hours, there are two courses of action suggested: stop the comic at the 24-hour mark, or continue working until all 24 pages are 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 of these to be "noble failures", and he'll still list them on his site as long as he believes that the creator intended to finish the project within the specified amount of time.

Event

Nat Gertler organized 24-Hour Comics Day on April 24, 2004. On this day, comics creators around the world were invited to spend the day making a 24-hour comic. All participants were requested to send their completed comic to McCloud, who keeps an archive of all completed 24-hour comics on his webpage. Many comic book stores supported this event by setting up space for participating artists to work on their comic. It attracted many writers and artists, working both in print and web media. In 2005, the second annual 24-Hour Comics Day will begin on Saturday April 23, such that the 24 hours end on the 24th.

Books

Three books of 24-hour comics have been published:

• 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) presents comics by several professional cartoonists.

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 (which may not reach the official minimum of 100 panels). 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.

In a similar spirit, November has been declared National Novel Writing Month by an organization of writing enthusiasts. The objective is to produce a novel of 50,000 words, beginning on the 1st and finishing before midnight on the 30th.

External links

• The 24-hour Comics - Original homepage.
• 24-hour Comics Index - List of all recognised 24-hour comics.
• 24HourComics.com - Information about the annual event.
• 24-hour Plays
• 48-hour Film Project