Alex Heberling

My first 24 Hour Comic, Pariah, was finished this morning with 15 minutes to spare.

I’ve got many many ideas on how to make my next attempt more successful.  Mainly, my right hand and my back and neck got very VERY sore from being slumped over the tabletop, so I’ll probably get a hand brace before the 18th.  Chris was very very helpful and supportive, and stayed up with me through the entire 24 hours making me food and helping me wake up from the naps I took throughout the day.  The naps at regular intervals, in retrospect, were extremely helpful, and I’m glad I thought to do so.  I took a 30 minute nap every three hours or so, though one nap turned into an hour, and another into 45 minutes, but they did help me get refreshed, and gave my hands and back some much-needed rest.

I literally made up the story as I drew it, which I think you can tell if you pay close attention to the unfolding of the plot.  The beginning has a much different feel than the ending.  Scott McCloud recommends improvising for the 24HC, but I think this particular story would’ve benefited from a little more planning before I put pencil to paper.  Specifically, there were several points near the end of the 24 pages that would’ve been good places to end, but since I needed more pages… I just had to figure out ways to add to it.  It was painfully frustrating around 4 AM this morning when I was up to 22 pages and had no idea how to expand the ending to fill two additional pages.

The concept of the Marked is something I may build upon for another comic idea I’ve had in the back of my mind.

I logged my progress with a video camera throughout the endeavor, so next week at school I’ll be capturing the video and putting together a short little movie about this project!  I got some nice shots of my actual drawing work, too, so it wont just be me talking into the camera about how tired I was.

I slept most of the day away, but I’m definitely still feeling some fatigue.  I probably wont have any trouble getting to sleep tonight.