Monday, October 7, 2013

24 Hour Comic Day: The Aftermath

If you've been following me on any of the CKS social outlets, you know we participated in 24 Hour Comic Day at Wyatt's Comics and Cards in Hammond La. Here's how it went!

We stopped in at Wyatt's earlier on the 4th to bring in supplies and such. As usually, the shop was busy and Wyatt was on the move juggling the shop phone, his phone, the register, customer service, and I'm sure forgetting his lunch...again lol. Brain, Wyatt's version of Commander Riker, took the day off so he could man the shop overnight.

After dropping off drinks, snacks, and a case of coffee, I headed back to the studio. Sherri crashed out for a bit while Alex and I packed everything up. I then grabbed a few hours of sleep myself. We got up around 10PM and headed out for some food followed by a quick stop at the cafe, then off to Wyatt's


We arrived about 45mins before midnight. The Friday night Magic tournament was still going on. As I started in on my Super Sonic with cheese, my former sous chef, Rudy, from Worlds End Cafe made a cameo appearance. Not to join the team, but drop off his key to the cafe and run off to do some midnight fishing. Thanks Rudy! He would stop in much later on Saturday after sleeping to make sure I knew how behind I was on the comic... Thanks again, man!


At midnight, we hopped to it. We decided on a horror comic. The idea come from an old test play session of the CK Game Studios "wyrd RPG" that took place at Mobicon in Alabama years ago. Between me, Sherri, Derrick, and a little help from Alex, we started in on the characters and translating a 7 hour game session into a 24 page comic (mistake). I took the time to record a brief episode of CK Radio on location. We posted it on the CKS tumblr page. You can listen to it here.


                                                             "CK Radio Podcast  Logo"


Sherri, Derrick, and Alex. And yep. There's Mark Rhodes in the foreground grinding away at his comic.

Once our story was plotted out, I began on the pencils. I was still grossly underestimating the challenge of 24 Hour Comic Day.
                                                     "I had no idea what I was in for!"

After sketching out a few pages, I decided to stretch my legs and visit (Spy *cough*) on Mark and Brian.

                               "Fellow comic creator and Webcomic Underdog ,Mark Rhodes."


       "Brain, when asked how he was holding up and if he was enjoying working all night long."


"Brain, when asked how he REALLY felt... nah, Brain and Wyatt are great guys. I don't think you could ask for a more friendly and knowledgeable staff for a comic and game shop." 

With play time over, it was time to get serious. 


Hours went by and the scope of this project started to come to realization. I've never actually sat down and drew for 24 hours straight. I was quite shocked when it came time to start inking and I looked out of the window and saw sunlight creeping in. I was also starting to feel the physical effects: dry eyes, sore back, cramping legs, fuzzy perception, etc. 


Page one inked. It's a bit hard to make out at the angle, but I'll post it again on the Charisma Kills Studios face book later. For those that have read my web comic "Sweet Dreams are Made of Worms", you may recognize Ms. Tamyra Christmas, Dr. Klein's assistant.


Here's a look at some of Mark's stuff. He was a machine! Unfortunately, the stress of working his day job and coming to participate got to him and he had to bail out early. But Bravo to you Mark for coming and giving your all! Good stuff. I think he will be posting it on his webcomic site.

As for me... I lasted until around 8:30PM with about 12 pages to go. I had nothing left. My vision was blurry, slurred speech, fire in my lower back, and my hand went numb. I literally could not hold the pens anymore. But! I gave it all I had. While I didn't finish, I regret nothing and will be the first in line for next year! I looked back on the event and see several things I could have done and many things I should not have done. I'll discuss this and more on the next episode of Charisma Kills Radio.

I want to thank Wyatt and Brian for hosting the event and I hope we can do it again at the shop next year!

It's currently 4:11AM and I need to get to bed. I leave you with this image of the studio, sans me, and the video below. Goodnight!

Video: Me partially delusional and Mark so tired that the words come out of his mouth before his lips move! Or maybe it's just a bad recording on my part lol.