24HCD 2014: MAX AT HOTEL MAX Intro: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About 24-Hour Comics * But Were Afraid to Ask

Just like sex, 24-hour comics are intense and personal. If you have a personal style hidden deep within you, it will emerge, it will explode, during a 24-hour comics session.

A 24-hour comic is sort of like a quickie in the world of comics. This initial activity is not something you’ve carefully plotted and refined over months, maybe years. No, in this special case, it all happens in a relatively short span of time. You go at it for 24-hours and the end result will be you, a spent hulk of your former self, and a new baby.

What happens to the new baby? Well, this comic will still be a little raw but, depending on many factors, it could be good to go as is or it may need to go through the hopper a few times until it gets to where it needs to be.

A 24-hour comic is not some silly stunt. Oh, Lord, no, it’s a sacred activity. It’s a fun activity. It’s an essential activity! It will toss out the old cobwebs and force a cartoonist to stand naked before the world and show it what he or she has got.

And so begins my 24-hour comic for 2014. It is timed to be aligned with the annual international observance that takes place the first weekend of October. Officially, it runs from October 4-5. Mine is still in the ballpark clocking in at October 5-6. The fact is, you can have a 24-hour comic session at any time of the year. Well, I’ve already fired the starting gun in my mind. I’m going from 11am to 11am. I will roughly split this up into four parts. The first part will be, should be, complete before I check in at Hotel Max. With any luck, I can get that posted BEFORE I check in and the rest will be posted as I go and will likely spill over a few days.

The good news, and there’s plenty, is that this comic is part of a bigger comic. Plans are to take this further. We’ll see a webcomic develop in the course of these next months. Well, gotta go for now…