Back in 2006, I got a call from some good friends of mine asking me to be part of a contest called the Comics Jam War. The concept behind the contest was similar to many of the “24 Hour” Comics challenges- in this case, teams of writers & artists got together at Comic shops around the country and tried to put together a finished 12 page Comic based on a concept that everyone received the moment the contest began.  It was a fun night which had that “cramming for an exam” feel to it as time went on. In the end, our team walked away with the 3^rd place “Bronze metal,” but looking back on it, the resulting Comic was more a document of that night than an example of something worthy of publication…

Today’s Lesson in Failure is: Finishing Well Is Everything.

Different people get involved in making Comics for different reasons but I think everyone eventually falls into one of two groups- people who are mostly interested in the final product and people who are mostly interested in the community aspect of Comics.

Those who focus on making comics over the community aspects are looking to either tell a story that they “own,” or they want to take their artistic skills and become a “Pro” working for hire. On the other hand, people who are primarily into making Comics for the community aspects are looking to connect with others who have a similar interest, and on some level doing Comics is no different than bowling with a team or having any other shared interest among friends.

Now, none of that is to say that people have to be all one or the other- it’s to point out that deep down, some people are more interested in the process than the end result… and that’s 100% fine. To be honest, I personally started making Comics for community reasons because I knew a bunch of people who all were into doing Comics. It’s not that writing Comics didn’t interest me- hell, I started reading because of Comics my dad gave me, so Comics & I go waaaaay back. At the time I seriously started making Comics, however, I was less interested in the final product as I was in all the social aspects of doing Comics.

That motivation carried me quite a long way- I did a lot of Comic Shows, wrote (and did the art for) quite a few Comics and I had an amazing time. Doing things like the Comics Jam War and 24 Hour Comic Day taught me something, however, and that is people who are serious about the end product either don’t do such things or they do them as total recreation.

Why do I say that?

Ask yourself this question- if a 24 page Comic CAN be completed in 24 hours, then why don’t Professionals work 1 day a month?

Sounds like a stupid question, right? Just because something CAN be done, doesn’t mean it should be. And just because, on a technical level, you can get something you’d call a “Comic” done in 24 hours doesn’t mean the end result will be any good, either.

As an example, here’s what happened during the Comics Jam War: The artists decided to do their normal, best quality work from moment 1, so Page 1 was amazing. Page 2 was great as well… but as the pages (and the night) went on, people got tired and silly and by the final panel it was looking like something I could have done with a pen between my toes. Writing wise, we also scaled things back and started throwing in stupid lines of dialogue and took the whole thing less and less seriously as we became exhausted. So while we all had a great time,  the resulting Comic wasn’t anywhere NEAR what it would have been if we had done taken a few weeks to do the same 12 pages instead of a matter of hours.

Now that’s not to say that there is NO value in doing events like 24 Hour Comic day or writing a Novel in a month- simply that the end result is not going to be as good as if you worked on the same material over time and spent the effort in revising and perfecting it.

The value of such things, as I see it, is partially social and partially to prove to yourself that you can finish a Comic… so again, if you goal isn’t really the social aspect and you finish your Comics anyway, then I am very sorry to say that you waste your time with such things.

If, on the other hand, the social aspects of doing Comics are equal or greater than the value of the actual finished work, then by all means have at it! As I mentioned before- I have done such things and had a lot of fun doing them. Just go into the situation knowing that your 24 Hour Comic may end up more as a document of a fun night than a fantastic piece of work.

Of course, there are times when a 24 Hour Comic comes out amazing, and there are also some Comics fans who like a less mainstream look to their Comics… But again, there is a difference between what you can expect and what you should expect.

In the end, the reader of your Comic isn’t there in the room with you making it. They aren’t part of that social situation, they don’t see things through your eyes and they don’t have to value the idea that something was finished in 24 Hours. All they have is the finished work to judge. Yes, the finished Comic can suck if it took 24 hours or 24 months to complete, but the finished Comic always tells the tale on it’s own. Your challenge as a Comics creator is to know what is as good as you can make it and what needs more revision. Do that, and people won’t care how you did it. Fail, and you might as well work 1 day a month on Comics and limit your Failures to 24 Hours of FAIL…

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