The 700 projects have greatly expanded since my last post… the 700 Things group was started to create 700 lists of 700 things to name and draw. Here is the current list of 700 projects you can participate in:
700 Things
700 Hoboes
700 Zombies
700 Pirates
700 Underwear Clad Vigilante Mutants
700 Bunnies
700 Unicorns
700 Robots
We’ve previously mentioned the 700 Hobos Project on a few occasions. ApeLad, by far the most prolific drawer of hobos (and also one of the best) recently completed his interpretations of all 700 of John Hodgman’s 700 hobos (plus change). Without missing a beat, he announced the new 700 Underwear Clad Vigilante Mutants project. I’ll definitely be participating. This time the names are all user submitted… they have 640 at the time of this post. Then the drawing begins!
In addition, a 700 Bunnies Project just popped up. I’ll probably start a 700 Gangsters project when the Vigilante Mutants comes to an end, unless someone beats me to it.
We recently completed work on the first volume of the Cartoonist Conspiracy L’il Library (to be used at this weekend’s Mouth Off event at The Center For Book Arts)… How to Make Mini-Comics. Click on the image below to download the pdf… then print it out, cut it up, fold it, staple it and learn. Please note that this is a pretty big (4MB) file, so please help conserve our bandwidth and only download it if you intend to use it.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. It may be printed and distributed freely. It is intended to be an educational tool, and it is our hope that it will be widely used as a “textbook” for teaching how to make a mini-comic.
Thanks to Adam Wirtzfeld, Bob Lipski, Maxeem, Bud Burgy, Zander Cannon, Kevin Cannon, Dank!, and Eric Lappegard for helping me (Steven Stwalley) put this together.
Note that any cartoonist who is interested can contribute a volume to the new Cartoonist Conspiracy Li’l Library. This is intended to become a downloadable pdf library of cartooning tips and techniques in mini-comics format, all using the above creative commons license. Let us know if you’re interested.
This month, some members of the Minneapolis Cartoonist Conspiracy cell embarked on the Gross Comic Project at our monthly Saturday Open Studio. It isn’t what it sounds like.
Like 24 hour comic day, the goal of the Gross Comic Project is to produce a certain number of pages in a certain amount of time… in this case 144 pages in 144 hours… a gross of pages, get it? 12 hours a month for a year.
Unlike 24 hour comic day, however, the goal of these comics is quality more than speed… if we are going to invest this much time in it, we want to produce something fun, readable and well-drawn, rather than just quickly produced. To that end, we allow all the planning, drawing, and even working on actual pages outside of the monthly 12 hour sessions that a cartoonist chooses to do. However, the 12 pages should be completed by the end of the 12 hours.
If you go over, that’s fine, just get it done as quickly as possible after that… if it takes you until the next month, though, I’d say that would be a definite failure.
Here are the completed first month’s 12 pages from this weekend:
Here are the first 12 pages of Kevin Cannon’s Oceanis.
Here are the first 12 pages of Zander Cannon’s Heck.
Here are the first 12 pages of Steven Stwalley’s Ezekiel Fishman Versus the Martians.
Note that this project was inspired by the stellar work Kevin Cannon is doing on his 288 Hour Graphic novel Far Arden. Since he is doing a Gross Comic this year as well, I think he will probably hold some sort world’s record for this sort of thing (he probably already does). That’s right, Kevin will be doing (at least) 432 pages in an hour this year… more pages than there are days in the year!
We have at least 6 other cartoonists joining us in this undertaking next month… Dank!, Shad Petosky, Tim Sievert, Maxeem, Curtis Square-Briggs and Eric Lappegard.
You can join us too!
We’ll link to all participants from this blog… just send the link to us, or put it in the comments.
Our next 12 hour session in Minneapolis will be at the next Minneapolis Saturday Open Studio (where it will be every month). The Saturday Open Studios happen on a different day every month, so you’ll have to check the site for the dates. The next two are March 17th and April 21st at:
Minnesota Center for Book Arts
(Just down the street from Big Brain Comics)
1011 Washington Ave S, Suite 100
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Phone: 612-215-2520
Those of you participating other places may want to consider doing it on the same day, because it will be more fun to have all this stuff hit at once, but it isn’t a requirement.
Judging from the pages so far, I think this is going to be a pretty amazing project to look back on in a year.
Cartoonists Jessica Abel (La Perdita) and Matt Madden (A Fine Mess) are looking for some cartoonists or aspiring cartoonists to help test out their textbook on making comics that they are working on.
Note that the talented Miss Abel has a section of her artbabe.com site where she has provided some very cool tutorials on making, selling and getting comics that you can check out and see where she’s coming from.
Do You Want to learn to draw comics?
We are looking to form a group of volunteers in your area to help us “beta test” our textbook “Drawing Words and Writing Pictures”.We are in need of motivated volunteers to create a comics group that would meet regularly to learn how to make comics using the teaching materials from our new comics textbook. we will be in frequent contact with the group and will offer any support that may be needed. We estimate the course will take about EIGHT MONTHS to a YEAR.
I’ve talked to a lot of Bay Area cartoonists about volunteering at 826 Valencia as a field trip artist and a lot of people have asked me what to expect. I posted the most recent book that I helped create and a little breakdown of what the process is like on my blog, so if you’ve wondered what to expect if you volunteer for a field trip read this entry. It’s super fun and at the end of each session all the kids and volunteers get a bound copy of the book the story they just created.
There are always volunteering spots open for field trips, so if you are interested let Jory at 826 know. I’ve posted his most recent list of field trip dates in our San Francisco Cartoonist Conspiracy forum.
Our first 24 hr. comic from Conspiritor Jeff Plotkin in now online. Jeff has posted a journal about his experience as well as the pages of his comic.
It was held at my old school, the California College of Art. So I went down. There were just five of us there: me, Meredith, Mike, Jeffrey M. and Carmen. I knew everyone except Carmen. The turnout was small, probably because there were no SF Bay Area locations listed for the nationwide event. Some of my buddies in the Cartoonist Conspiracy had their own, unofficial 24-Hour Comics Day, and Scott McCloud was probably miffed about it.
To read the whole report on Deviant Art — LINK
And to read Jeff’s comic visit HERE! The comic features a cameo from Cartoonist Doc Popular! CLICK the link under each page to see the read the next one.
We will link to more 24 hr comics when they become avalible.
Join the Cartoonist Conspiracy cell of San Francisco for 24 Hour Comic Book Day at the California College of Arts (and Crafts) on October 7th.
Details:
San Francisco Cartoonist Conspiracy 24 Hour Comic Jam
October 7th @ Noon until October 8th @ Noon.
At CCA 1111 Eighth ST, San Francisco CA 94107
More details on the CartoonistConspiracy.com message board.
or email Meredith: satiredun@gmail.com to sign up.
Good luck to everyone, and don’t forget to post your work or a link to your work on the comments here or the message board link above.
The Minneapolis >23 and <25 Hour Sequential Art Event this weekend was a blast... Thanks much to Minneapolis Conspiracy Events Monkey Danno for all his efforts in making this a huge success. Thanks also to our sponsors The Minnesota Center For Book Arts, Wet Paint Art, Big Time Attic, Pizza Luce, Grumpy’s, Sip Coffee Bar, Big Brain Comics.
I believe we had 34 cartoonists participating… not sure how many completed 24 pages, but I’m pretty sure it was a majority. I can’t wait to read them. What will certainly be one of the best, Kevin Cannon’s comic, is already online:
http://www.bigtimeattic.com/blog/2006/09/24-hour-comics-day.html
Kevin has done it for the past two years as well, and now has produced three of the best 24 Hour comics I’ve ever read… they don’t read or look at all like they were produced in 24 hours. Kevin was born to do this stuff… I keep hassling him to do it once every month and he could have a 288 page best-selling graphic novel in a year. If you agree with me, you should hassle him too… I desperately want to read “The Ballad of Armatage Shanks.”
Any of the rest of y’all who get your comics from the event online, send me the links and I’ll post the links to them in the blog and the gallery.
We will be collecting all of the >23 and <25 hour comics from folks who want to collect theirs in boxes at the October Jam meeting at Diamond's on October 5th. To do this, simply print 100 of them into mini-comics and we'll collate them into a box with a groovy Bob Lipski cover. Boxes will be for sale (in limited quantities) to the artists for 50 cents each, after which you can sell them for whatever you want (ten bucks will most likely be the suggested retail) and hopefully recoup the costs of printing your minis.
The Minneapolis Conspiracy’s 3rd Annual <25 But >23 Hour Sequential Art Event is tomorrow! We currently have 32 participants. Get some sleep tonight, fellas. Click on the below poster to read all about it.
Note that 24 Hour Comics Day is on October 7th… we’re doing this tomorrow because October 7th and 8th is the same time as the notoriously creator friendly Twin Cities comics convention Fallcon.
