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HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Local Hero Kevin Cannon on 288-Hour Comics at Powell’s Blog : April 15th, 2009

April 15th, 2009 | Category: HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:

Local hero, Kevin Cannon has posted a hilarious account of his attempt at the 288-Hour comic that resulted in his soon-to-be-bestseller from Top Shelf Far Arden (shipping next month!). I have a guest-starring role in the strip… and if you were ever at a Minneapolis 24-Hour Comics Day event, you may be in there too… Go read it here!

Note:

Far Arden is still here online… reading a few pages of it will make you ache for next month when you can buy the Top Shelf book.

If you want to read my introduction to the self-published first edition of Far Arden, you can read it here.

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Introduction to Far Arden

March 20th, 2008 | Category: COMICS

My friend Kevin Cannon recently finished his huge and beautiful graphic novel Far Arden, and did me the honor of having me write the introduction to it. You can read the whole thing online, but if you’re smart, you’ll pre-order one of the limited edition copies he is printing up as he looks for the right publisher for it. Here is my introduction for the book.

INTRODUCTION

Kevin Cannon is likely to be the best cartoonist living today that you’ve never heard of. Welcome to his first solo graphic novel, Far Arden.*

Our story features Shanks, a hero who comes off as some strange bastardization of a classic hero archetype that got lost and forgotten, left for dead somewhere out in the tundra. A modern arctic pirate, an outlaw living alone in a shack in the arctic wilderness… perpetually on the lam from the law, but hiding from the world for reasons much more complicated than that. Shanks is part James Bond, part Charles Bukowski, part Dan McGrew, and wholly original.

Although this is Kevin’s first graphic novel, Kevin has featured Shanks in some other comics previous to this… one of his first adventures was in a 24-hour comic Kevin made. 24-hour comics are 24 page comics drawn by one cartoonist in 24 hours.

Most cartoonists keep their drawings and stories simple when presented with this daunting task. Kevin was drawing clipper ships. Not just one. Lots of clipper ships. You try and draw a goddamned clipper ship!

Beyond that, though, the story, storytelling and pacing was not only coherent, but top notch. Kevin made comics in 24 hours that were more entertaining, engaging and visually stunning than many comics talented people had labored over for months.

Drawing a 24-hour comic gets you thinking about the possibilities of what can be accomplished in a limited period of time.

It got me thinking “what if I did a 24-hour comic every month for a year, towards a larger project?” Then my sense of self-preservation kicked into gear, and I started thinking, “what if Kevin Cannon did a 24-hour comic every month for a year towards a larger project,” and that got me really excited. “A 288-hour comic, Kevin!” Somehow, I talked the poor fool into it, thank goodness.

I have never been better rewarded for shooting my mouth off. From that challenge grew the book you hold in your hands. Somewhere along the line the 288 pages in 288 hours thing got abandoned. Kevin decided 350 pages made more sense. Who am I to argue?

I was somewhat reluctant to mention the origins of this project, as I was thinking it could make some people dismiss it. It is remarkable that such a piece of work was produced under such initial constraints… but ultimately these conditions are irrelevant. Far Arden is a remarkable piece of work in and of itself.

Kevin weaves his story masterfully… background characters or subtle plot threads that may seem insignificant or irrelevant you will find all there for a reason. The artwork is rich and gorgeous, simultaneously beautifully detailed and ingeniously streamlined. The compositions are stunning, the storytelling flows beautifully, and the sound effects are hilarious. It’s like nothing else you’ve ever read. Lord only knows why you are still reading this introduction instead of jumping into this glorious thing.

Kevin serialized the graphic novel on his website, publishing a chapter every month or so, over a year and change. The monthly chapters read like a cliffhanger serial, and I definitely recommend reading it that way. Read a chapter, set the book down, and agonize for a bit over what will happen next. I had to wait a month for a chapter, so you should wait too, you lucky bastards!

Kevin, I owe you a scotch.

Steven Stwalley
March 3rd, 2008
stwallskull.com

*Note that this is not entirely true… Kevin had his college comic strip, Johnny Cavalier collected in a book… but this is the first book Kevin has made that was intended from the get-go as a graphic novel. Additionally, Kevin has collaborated on two graphic novels written by other people with his partners at Big Time Attic (Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards (with Zander Cannon and Shad Petosky, written by Jim Ottaviani) and The Stuff of Life (coming soon, with Zander Cannon, written by Mark Schultz)).

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Far Arden Chapter 12!

October 15th, 2007 | Category: COMICS, Cartooning Projects

The latest chapter of Kevin Cannon’s epic story of arctic hero Armitage Shanks, Far Arden, is online… he has now passed the 288 pages in a year challenge I gave him late last year, and he is still going to do another chapter. Good thing I didn’t say I would eat my shoe or something. Kevin has vastly exceeded all expectations for what could be done with this project… it is one of my favorite comics of the last year, easily. Kevin hasn’t shopped this around to publishers yet, so if you are in the publishing game and looking for a future award winner, you may want to consider getting in line now.

Click here to start reading at chapter twelve.

Click here to start at the beginning.

Click here to read the 12-page bonus chapter, Eglinton Island.

Click here to read more about Kevin Cannon’s mad, mad project.

Click here to cheer Kevin on in his comments.

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Cartoonist Parlour Games

February 22nd, 2007 | Category: Cartooning Lessons, Tips and Tricks, Cartooning Projects, Cartoonist Parlour Games, USEFUL INFORMATION

In recent years the number of Cartoonist Parlour Games (i.e. drawing projects & challenges with guidelines) has been exploding. And I’m not even counting Pictionary.

I thought I’d provide an overview of the ones I’ve heard of or participated in (I’m the webmaster and one of the founding members of The International Cartoonist Conspiracy). Some of these games, particularly the extended jam and the 24 hour comic I feel I’ve learned a whole lot from as a cartoonist… I highly recommend trying some of these games out if you have any desire at all to draw comics. It will make you a better cartoonist.

Jam Comics

Started in the late 60’s by the Zap cartoonists. One cartoonist draws a panel or space on a page, another cartoonist continues, and then another until it’s done. Note that you can see a lot more examples of jams and many of the other parlour games (many very NSFW) here. Conspirator Zander Cannon of Big Time Attic recently wrote an excellent summary of how to have a successful comics jam here, and there is good general summary of comic jamming by The Monthly Montreal Comix Jam here.

Here is a jam comic example from the Minneapolis cell of the Cartoonist Conspiracy.

Extended Jam Comics

A variation of the traditional jam comic that we’ve been pioneering in the Minneapolis Cell of the Cartoonist Conspiracy. Rather than doing one page of randomness, we usually do 16 in an evening (a nice convenient number for reprinting as a mini-comic). We number all the pages at the outset. Everyone takes a random page. When you get to the end of a page, you look at the first panel of the next page and try to thematically tie your panel into the previous panel and the next panel. To help make things slightly cohesive, we choose 2 or 3 themes at the outset… for a while we were picking from a bag full of suggested themes, but lately we’ve just been choosing themes from a random page of a magazine or just having people suggest what they want to draw. One other thing we have tried (which I want to try more) is having a character or two designed at the outset that can run through the comic (some structure to jam comics seems to make them a lot more fun to read later). Zander Cannon also discusses how to make a successful extended jam in his previously mentioned post.

Here’s an extended jam example from the Minneapolis cell of the Cartoonist Conspiracy.

Endless Jam Comics

This was created by the Iowa City Phooey cartoonist collective in the 1980’s, which I went to some meetings of when I was a kid. They had a roll of paper like register tape attached to a wooden device where you would draw a panel and then roll it forward for the next cartoonist to continue. At the end you could just attach another strip, if you were inclined. I don’t have an example of this one, unfortunately.

The Narrative Corpse

The Narrative Corpse is another variation on the jam comic. This one was popularized by Art Spiegelman, who did a widely distributed narrative corpse with 69 other artists. The concept is based on the “exquisite corpse” game of the surrealists. A cartoonist draws a panel based only on knowledge of what occurred in the previous panel… and then passes their panel on to the next cartoonist.

I have no examples of this, but there was one recently organized by Aeron Alfrey on this site, which I believe is going to be published sometime soon.

Jam War

Jam War is a project pioneered by Nat Gertler (who also founded 24 Hour Comics Day). It was a collaborative comics competition where groups of creators were given a theme, and 12 hours to draw 8 pages. Basically, this is not different than a conventional comics jam, except it is competitive… the resulting work is judged for which one is best, so there is a winner.

The Minneapolis and Rice, MN Cartoonist Conspiracy cells participated in this, but the results have thus far only been published as a minicomic called “Mission Accomplished” which is not online, so I have no example of a Jam War to share, unfortunately.

The Comic Blitz Tournament

This one was introduced to our cell by conspirator Andrey Feldysteyn, and he wrote up a summary of it here. He had done it previously with his cartoonist friends in Russia, where he hails from. Someone chooses a random topic, and the participating cartoonists draw as many gag cartoons on that topic as they can in 10 minutes. At the end of the 10 minutes, the cartoonists pass the cartoons around for voting… judges (which can include participants) mark on the back of the drawings. They write nothing if they don’t think it works, 1 cross if they like it, 2 crosses if they love it. The cartoonist with the most points wins. Gambling and drinking should be involved.

24 Hour Comics

Each cartoonist draws 24 pages in 24 hours… extreme sports for cartoonists. This wonderful exercise was conceived by Scott McCloud (author of Understanding Comics and Making Comics among other things). You can find the rules aka The Dare here. Nat Gertler took the challenge and made it into a national holiday for cartoonists… 24 Hour Comics Day. As far as I know Nat hasn’t announced the date for this year’s 24 Hour Comics Day, but you can subscribe to the 24 Hour Comics Day blog to stay posted on it.

Here is an example of a 24 hour comic I made.

288 hour comics and Gross Comics

This is a new project being pioneered by the Cartoonist Conspiracy. These are both variations on McCloud’s 24 Hour Comic. In the 288 hour comic, you draw 24 pages in 24 hours once every month for a year, and end up with a 288 page graphic novel at the end of the year. In a Gross comic, you draw 12 pages in 12 hours once every month for a year, and end up with a 144 page graphic novel at the end of the year (144 makes a gross… corny, I know, but catchy!).

Beyond that, though, the goals of these projects are completely different. These are intended as motivational tools for producing good comics, rather than just an exercise in making comics quickly (as with the 24 hour comic). To that end, “cheating” is encouraged. You may work ALL YOU WANT on any part of the project outside of the defined time… however, at the end of the defined 12 or 24 hours every month you should have your 12 or 24 pages done, or you should work like heck to get them finished up as quickly as possible after that. If you reach the next month and have not finished your pages from the previous month, you have failed. We started the Gross Comics Project last weekend, and we’re looking for hearty cartoonists from around the globe to join us in this project… we’ll post links to all participants on the cartoonist conspiracy blog.

You can see examples of Gross Projects in progress here.

You can see the only example of the 288 Hour Comic in progress here… Kevin Cannon is a cartooning madman.

5-Card Nancy

Another Scott McCloud invention. Cut out some Ernie Bushmiller Nancy comic strip panels to make a deck of cards, and then get a group of people together to play. Deal out the panels and take turns placing them next to each other to continue the story. Read the rules here to learn how to play here.

You can play a solitaire version of 5-Card Nancy online here.

9-Panel Shuffle

This is a game I invented where you create nine panels that can be randomly shuffled and read in any order for different effects. It was originally intended to be viewed in an open source flash movie that I built, although you could just do it on cards and rearrange them by hand… you can see it in action here. Clicking the shuffle button rearranges the panels. You can download the source here if you want to make a online version. Please let me know if you do so I can link to it.

Shuffleupagus

We haven’t tried this one in Minneapolis but our comrades in the San Francisco cell of the Cartoonist Conspiracy really enjoyed it. Shuffleupagus is a jam technique invented by Jesse Reklaw. It involves having participating artists draw a character and a setting on blank index cards… and, well, the rules are a little convoluted to explain after that (although they look like fun)… read more about it here.

22 Panels That Always Work Project

I just heard about this the other day, and I think I’ll probably give it a try at some point soon. The 22 Panels That Always Work Project is pretty simple… just look at the famous Wally Wood 22 Panels That Always Work comic, and draw your own version of it. After that you may want to draw your own version of Ivan Brunetti’s 22 Panels That Always Work too!

I’m going to start introducing a new cartoonist parlour game every month or so on this blog, so check back to participate and/or enjoy the results!

Have you heard about other Cartoonist Parlour Games? If so, please let us hear about them in the comments!

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Ezekiel Fishman Versus The Martians Part One: A Gross Comics Project

February 20th, 2007 | Category: Cartooning Projects, Cartoonist Conspiracy, STWALLSKULL's Comics

 EZEKIEL FISHMAN VERSUS THE MARTIANS

Inspired by my friend Kevin Cannon’s work on his 288 hour graphic novel, Far Arden (read more about that project here), I’ve embarked with some of my comrades in the Minneapolis cell of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy in THE GROSS COMIC PROJECT. 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 that 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.

That said, I ran late a few hours on mine… thankfully, this project is self-policed. I repeat… the point is to make the pages, not be a ninny about how much time it takes… just get it done, already, dammit!

Here are the first 12 pages of my new Gross Comic, Ezekiel Fishman Versus the Martians.

Here are the first 12 pages of Kevin Cannon’s Oceanis, and the first 12 pages of Zander Cannon’s Heck.

We have 6 other cartoonists joining us in this undertaking next month… Dank!, Shad Petosky, Tim Sievert, Maxeem, Curtis Square-Briggs and Eric Lappegard.

Some will be playing catch up and doing 12 pages this month, some will be starting next month. Other cartoonists around the world are encouraged to join in as well, and we’ll post links to all the comics on the Cartoonist Conspiracy blog.

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