Oh Brother Update 2022

Back in 2016, I started work on a project I thought would take me a year (hah!). This project was to be my first graphic novel: a memoir about growing up with my brother (who is autistic and has an intellectual disability). My goal was to create a book for 12-year-old me, a book that reflected my experiences and feelings and would’ve (hopefully) helped me feel less alone in those feelings and experiences.

From a technical comics-making point of view, I thought it would be pretty straightforward. I’d made lot of mini-comics by that point (but nothing longer than about 40 pages) and I’d made lots of autobio comics before, even some about growing up with my brother. I already had in my mind a lot of the experiences I wanted to share, as a lot of them I already openly talked about with my parents and friends (they had become family fables such as the “Vegemite Parrot story” or the “Pad-peeing incident”. And I’m a pretty quick drawer, so I thought once I got the story down, the rest would be a breeze!

Spoiler alert: It was not a breeze.

I found that not only was there a steep learning curve in making a 300 page graphic novel vs a 30 page mini-comic (let alone watching my drawing style evolve and refine over that first year of working on the book), but there was also a steep emotional learning curve. Working on these stories meant that I relived a lot of my childhood experiences, and some, particularly stories about times when my brother would attack me, were a lot harder to relive than I expected.

Where I’m at right now

After years of working on the book in my spare time, or when I got the support of a residency or fellowship or grant for a more concentrated period of work, I was lucky enough to be approached by my now agent, Annabel Barker. With Annabel’s help (and that of another agent, Dan Lazar), I was able to talk to several publishers that were interested in working with me on the book. And in early 2021, Penguin Random House (PRH) picked up the book in a deal that means it will now be published (ETA 2024) in four territories (Australia, Canada, UK and US).

Although it is super exciting to be working with such a well-known publisher, it’s also been quite nerve-wracking to think that this book that I originally assumed I would be self-publishing is now to be published by one of the major book publishers in the world.

There have been a lot of changes that I’ve had to make while working with PRH (more on that in a future blog post). Last year (2021) and this year (2022) I have been working with my four editors (one in each territory) to re-write the script and thumbnails (the rough comic drawings). It’s definitely been a challenge re-writing something that is so personal to me (and so complex). I would be lying if I said I’ve enjoyed having to make big-ish cuts to a project that has lived with me for multiple years. But saying that, although the book is quite different now, I think I’m starting to feel proud of the type of book it has become.

So far this project has taken: 6 years, 1 scholarship, 1 fellowship, 1 grant, 2 mentors, 2 residencies, 3 peer feedback sessions, 37 blacking pearl pencils, 2 agents, 3 publisher rejections, 3 publisher bids, 1 publisher, 4 editors, 4 territories, 3 versions, 24 therapy sessions, 1 brother, 2 parents, 1 million cups of tea and 1 ongoing case of imposter syndrome.

I’ll be doing more posts soon about the re-writing process and how my art has evolved. But if you’re keen to read more about my early process with the book, check out the Oh Brother tag in my Blog Posts Archive. There are quite a few posts there (although these are from 5 or 6 years ago and I haven’t recently re-read them, so I’m not sure how similarly I feel now — I’m not ready to re-read them yet).

Also, for those who are curious about all the steps I’ve taken with Oh Brother over the years, here’s a timeline:

Timeline of making Oh Brother GN

2015

  • The idea for the GN starts forming

  • Created short comic stories about Rob and me that were published in Voiceworks and the comic anthology Australia

  • Took part in Comic Art Workshop residency on Maria Island (but workshopping a different memoir comic)

2016

  • Put aside other memoir comic to focus on Oh Brother

  • Received the Colin Thiele Scholarship for Creative Writing through Carclew

  • Worked with Mandy Ord & Pat Grant as mentors

  • Kept a weekly blog about the process of working on the book

  • Finished pencil draft of part 1 (approx. 100 pages)

  • Created a comic about growing up with Rob that was published on The Nib

  • Printed an Oh Brother mini-comic sampler

2017

  • Received the Ian Wilson Memorial Fellowship from the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust

  • Finished pencil draft of part 2 (approx. 150 pages)

  • Quit my day job at the ABC

  • Took part in Comic Art Workshop residency on Jogjakarta (received feedback on the pencil drafts of two-thirds of the book & the script of the final third)

2018

  • Dead year. Kept trying to tackle editing the final section of the script but struggled to get anywhere

  • Cried a lot

  • Did some other things. Probably

  • Spent 6 weeks in Melbourne working with 100 Story Building

  • Spent 9 weeks travelling overseas

2019

  • Started therapy for the first time, turns out most people don’t cry all the time

  • Co-organised the first Papercuts Comic Festival

  • Took part in Comic Art Workshop residency on Dangar Island

2020

  • Contacted by Annabel Barker (literary agent) through website

  • Signed on with Annabel & developed a pitch for publishers

  • Annabel brought in Dan Lazar (New York agent) to help with the American side of things

  • Sent out book pitch to publishers and waited to hear back

  • Had phone conversations with various interested editors from different publishers in US and Australia

  • Received Independent Artists and Groups grant from Arts SA

2021

  • Three publishers put in offers for the book

  • Accepted PRH offer!

  • PRH took forever to send through a contract (four territories even within the same publisher don’t often talk to each other)

  • Started work on re-writing the book, creating a new story outline (making the story more narrative) and taking away the adult perspective of the story

  • Received PRH feedback on the outline, which was as long as the outline itself :/

  • Wrote a new script

  • Co-organised the second Papercuts Comics Festival (and was totally burnt out)

2022

  • Received script feedback from PRH in January (four months after submitting script)

  • Feedback was extensive, with the major notes being that the page count needed to be reduced (and some elements needed to be adjusted for the American audience)

  • Started tackling thumbnails

  • Had to renegotiate the thumbnail deadline several times because taking on the feedback turned out to be harder than expected

  • Completed the thumbnails!

  • Will take part in Comic Art Workshop residency at Yarrangobilly Caves

  • Received Professional Development grant from Arts SA to attend Comic Art Workshop

  • Currently awaiting feedback from editors about thumbnails

Experimenting with Watercolour

New BFFs Tina and Tori sit in their pyjamas, eating lollipops and reading comics on Tina’s bedroom floor.

I know that my last post was all about how I’ve been slowly moving towards working entirely digitally (which is really useful when working with clients and editors and I’m having to make lots of tweaks and changes on a project), but I think working so much on my iPad for work-based illustration and comics has pushed me into wanting to try out different mediums when making fun illustrations for myself. In particular, I’ve really been keen to get into watercolour.

Tina is wearing her favourite clothes that make her happy, showing off her multicoloured scarf and green tile skirt.

I’ve tried delving into watercolour a few times: I’ve tried plein air painting, I’ve asked friends for tips, I’ve watched YouTube videos. I aways thought that if I just found the “right” set of watercolours that it would all make sense and I’d be able to paint the images like I could see them in my head. But what has really stopped me in my tracks every time I’ve tried my hand at watercolours is the fact that I’m just not that good at using them straight away (not that there is any reason why I should be naturally adept at watercolours). So I kinda give up before I give myself a chance to really learn how to handle them.

My watercolour tribute to Mr Tod (the kind-of-a-jerk fox gentleman character from Beatrix Potter’s book).

With some (possibly unfounded) optimism that this time would be different, for my birthday this year I treated myself to the Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour set. I’d seen a few mates use them online and they looked quite different to other watercolours I’d tried before. And they are pretty lovely to use, almost more like a gouache so the colours are more opaque (less see-through) than other watercolours. As I’m so used to working in smooth flat digital colour, I find that that the washy-ness of watercolours makes my attempts look not like my own art. (Although I love this look in other people’s work, I’ve found I don’t love it for my work.) However, when I started playing around with the Gansai Tambi’s more opaque pigments, I found them really pleasing to use and like I had more sense of how to handle them. Plus, the colours are delightful and warm my soul.

Kuretake Gansai Tambi 48 colour watercolour set (includes a really great pink and lilac as well as boss metallic colours).

Although I’m enjoying watercolours a lot more this time, it does feel like I'm back to basics and having to learn how to make art yet again. But I’m really excited about learning new art skills and how to control and use watercolours so they can help me create more interesting works. This time that I’ve delved into watercolours, it feels like a puzzle to solve instead of me just failing at something I “should” be good at. My brain feel like it clicks into gear and wants to make the images in my head appear on the page in front me.

A fancy-looking anthropomorphic dog with a moustache wearing a red dressing gown stands in front of an old and full bookcase. They are holding a bone in one hand and an old-fashioned smoking pipe in the other.

After chatting to another friend, they mentioned I should try using coloured pencil on top of the watercolour for more detailed things, which I loved when I tried it out with this fancy dog in a smoking jacket picture (see above). I haven’t really tried all the possibilities with pencils & watercolour yet but I’m keen to see where that could go too. Sensory-wise, it feels really nice to draw with pencil over the watercolours.

Scully, junior “repawtor” for the The Fire Hydrant, sits, bored, at their desk waiting for an exciting story to break.

I love the flexibility of working digitally but nothing draws me into a work more than if it’s traditionally watercoloured or coloured by pencil (particularly if you can see the mistakes or wobbles the artist has made). There is something about the hand-made nature of it and the textures of the paint on paper that speaks to my soul. Maybe one day I’ll be able to make a watercolored picture book. I do not think that I will ever watercolour a whole comic though. That way madness lies.

My transition to working digitally

Bundle (a mushroom person) and Bugg (Bundle’s pet bug) stand out the front of their home in an old tree.

Over the past few years, I’ve really transitioned to working digitally over traditionally. The switch happened slowly at first: I would still pencil and ink everything traditionally but scan it and then colour in Photoshop. But when the response of the Apple Pencil on the iPad started to feel almost exactly like using a regular pencil and I discovered the app Procreate (plus factoring in the ease of being able to create work on the go, anywhere, with just one tablet and one pen), I couldn’t resist the lure of digital.

A character with one prosthetic leg, wearing a tank top and shorts, standing in a welcoming position.

One of the things I've discovered when drawing digitally is that I've been able to experiment more with my art, without freaking out that I’m going to ruin everything. When working traditionally, the permanentness of using pens, textas, or paints can sometimes almost make me freeze (particularly when my perfectionism comes into play). But the flexibility of working digitally (sure, being able to undo is nice, but also to be able to copy, stretch and rearrange things easily) has really opened up a lot of options for the work I create. I can practice pushing my characters’ poses or getting that emotion exactly right on their face or try different colour combinations without worrying that if I commit to one and it doesn’t turn out okay, I’ll have to re-draw the whole image to practice it.

A character in full shadow wearing a woollen jumper and patched jeans holds their hand up to their eyes and is looking at something far away.

Working with light and shadow is something in particular that I’ve really gotten into playing around with when drawing on my iPad. Usually my drawings use simple clean lines with flat colours, but I’ve really enjoyed starting using coloured lines for textures ( e.g. in clothes, hair) as well as adding shadows to create a bit more depth to the flat images. More recently I’ve started playing around with adding highlights too - I’m still a while away from feeling like I’ve got a handle on those but it’s coming along.

A wizard in a purple robe covered in yellow stars and moons is holding a glowing orb and has a magical aura around them.

Full colour illustration of 5 roller derby players in roller skates and safety gear posing together looking tough and confident.

One of my favourite things about working digitally are the accidents that turn out to be really interesting and get me thinking about how I could colour in a different way. For example, I drew a collection of fictional roller derby players and coloured them as I normally would - natural, flat colours, add some shading for depth and then highlights to help create a sense of roundness in the characters. At one point I’d switched to the wrong layer and when I went to drop some colour into one of the characters I accidentally just blocked out all of the characters in this salmon pink colour. Initially I was all “Gah! Silly me!” Wrong layer!” but looking at the result I really loved how it turned out. It opened up my brain to thinking about how I could be using colour differently when making comics. I’m keen to see what a full comic of block colours might look like.

Pink & purple illustration of 5 roller derby players in roller skates and safety gear posing together looking tough and confident.

I still love working traditionally (I don't think anything will ever quite beat the scratch of pen on paper) but I think that working digitally has really helped me grow as an artist and refine my skills, so whenever I jump back to working traditionally (or try out mediums I’ve never used much, like watercolours or colour pencil or stamp carving), I feel more confident about giving things a go (and not worrying about whether they turn out exactly right).

Poppy & Gina's post-it note challenge

When I’m not reading comics, talking about comics with my friends or making my own comics, I teach comics. I predominantly run one-off workshops in schools and libraries, mostly to excellent children and young people. But I also have a few students that I teach privately, one-to-one. One of these students is the lovely Poppy.

I’ve worked with Poppy for a little while now - in lessons we generally talk about drawing techniques, try out different art mediums or materials, and chip away at putting together original comics (Poppy will be selling her very first comic at the upcoming Zina Warrior Print Fest). One of the drawing activities we did recently was a daily character challenge. During one lesson, Poppy and I came up with a list of 30 characters (e.g. a fortune-telling mermaid or a goth unicorn), one for each day in June (each of us taking turns to come up with a character). The aim was to draw a character a day, with the only restriction being that they had to be drawn on post-it notes.

I absolutely love these kind of challenges, although I have to admit that I can also find them very hard. I really struggle to put time aside for myself just to draw (when it’s for no reason other than fun). Also sometimes my perfectionism can sneak in and stop me enjoying the thing I love most - telling stories with pictures.

But having the restriction of the post-it note was really helpful for me to finish this challenge. It gave me a boundary to work within and meant that I felt more inclined to push that boundary (like trying to fit in full scenes onto my small little post-its and not just characters). And I was really happy with how a lot of them turned out and even prouder of myself for pushing through the days where I wasn’t so happy with the work and still sitting down and doing the next day’s challenge. Perfectionism in my work is something that I struggle with A LOT (although you wouldn’t necessarily know it from looking at my wonky imperfect art) and I have to keep catching myself when I get stuck In a perfectionism spiral and remind myself to just put pen to paper, and it can’t be perfect but it can exist.

In the end I had a lot of fun designing these characters (there are definitely a few that I wouldn’t mind maybe turning into full-comics ideas) and it was particularly fun to do the challenge with a friend and see how different or similar our characters turned out to be. Here are some of Poppy’s favourite designs:

Looking to take on a fun drawing challenge? Why not try out our post-it note drawing challenge for yourself (and a friend)!

All you need:

  • Pen

  • Post-it notes (your choice of colours)

  • A month with 30 days (so you can draw one a day)

  • Our character list below!

If you do decide to take on the Poppy & Gina post-it note drawing challenge, let me know! I’d love to see your versions of our characters.

Poppy and I will be selling physical zine versions of this list and some of our favourite characters at Zina Warrior Print Fest. If you’re on Kaurna land (Adelaide) on the 8th October, come along and say hi!

I’m getting the blog back together!

Portrait of the artist in the middle of graphic novel creation mayhem.

Hello dear reader,

I know it’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted in the blog and I’m just letting you know that I’ve decided to dust off the website crank and rev up my ol’ blog again.

A lot’s happened during the time the blog has been on hiatus (officially on hiatus since 2017). During this time I’ve gone from juggling working many different part-time jobs (retail, teaching, illustration, comics) to working full time as an artist (which still involves most of those things — but fortunately no more retail). I’ve co-founded and run an award-winning comics festival, assisted in running a zine fair, printed multiple mini-comics, run (what feels like) a million comics art workshops in schools and libraries, and attended two Comic Art Workshops (one in Indonesia and one on Dangar Island — which I mention specifically because of its cool name). I continued to play roller derby (I’ve been playing for more than 10 years now!) and eat pizza. There was a pandemic. I tried to learn skateboarding (still working on that one). I got an amazing agent who is helping rep me and my work. I moved out of the city and bought a house in the burbs with my partner (we have a huge backyard now, filled with plants and birds AND we have a room each for our studios). I have read a LOT of comics. And most excitingly (for me), my graphic-novel-in-progress, Oh Brother, was picked up by the publisher Penguin Random House!

(Ahhhhh!)<————— (combo excited and terrified scream.)

Since moving to full-time freelance last year and having the book picked up, I’ve been thinking about bringing back my blog, as I first started writing it when I began working on the Oh Brother project back in 2016. Originally it was to keep track of my progress on the book for a grant acquittal but it quickly became a nice way to reflect on what I was learning, celebrate the successes and help me to make sense of the quirks of long-form comics making.

At this stage I’m not sure exactly what form the new blog will take — there will definitely be posts about working on Oh Brother and making comics. But I also think I’ll post about what I’m reading/enjoying, ideas I have and other projects I’m working on. Some posts will be long and some will be short, there might be several posts in a week or none for a few weeks. I worry that if I set up a strict posting schedule that I will inevitably get busy and not be able to live up to my self-imposed perfectionist pressure and then not do anything at all (and feel terrible about it).

One thing I do know is that I want to slowly replace my social media presence (I really struggle with balancing social media & mental health) with my website. But at the moment social media is still a pretty necessary tool for me as a working artist. My current plan is post everything/most things to my blog and then cross post to instagram with a short caption and a prompt to check out the full thing on my website.


As I mentioned above, I’ve been wanting to start the blog up again for a while, but, you know, perfectionism. So instead of overthinking it (any more) and planning it to the nth degree, I’m just going to jump in, start her up and see how things go and let them develop naturally.

I hope you’re looking forward to coming along on this ride with me!

Gx

In the Studio blog Hiatus

Digital Thank you colour_edit_small.jpg

Howdy there!

You've reached my blog about writing a graphic novel about growing up with a brother with autism. Unfortunately I'm on a temporary hiatus from posting to the blog while I work really hard to finish the last part of the book. I'll be checking back in in a couple of months, and until then you can keep in touch with what I'm up to on my social medias:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlrexdoor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/georgerexcomics
Tumblr: http://girlrexdoor.tumblr.com
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/GeorgeRexComics

If you are yet to read any of my blog posts, please feel free to scroll through the back catalogue; there are lots to pick from! Here are some of my favourites:

George Rex Comics Doco

Curiosity Care

For the Love of Editing

Sick Day

I'm All Thumbs

Just Quit Your Day Job

A Day in the Studio

And you can always start at the beginning: 

Rex's very first blog post.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Catch you around the interspace soon. 
Gxx

My blog is brought to you by the help of my Patreon Pals. If you want to become a George Rex Patreon Pal, then just jump to my Patreon page here. 

Online presents

Hello wonderful pals!

For the past couple of months or so I've been stressing myself out with trying to keep up to date with social medias, online groups, blog posts, emails and admin in general. Then foolishly on top of that I decided to run my first Kickstarter. 

Don't get me wrong: Kickstarter was great, I'm super glad I did it (although I couldn't have done it without a lot help from my proofreading/professional writing hero Owen Heitmann)! My heart cockles were warmed by the response from family and friends and strangers who wanted to back the project. I was overwhelmed with the amount of support that the project generated. But that's the thing, I was overwhelmed. 

 

With all the time I had to spend on the computer with up-keep of the Kickstarter and then also just my general online presence stuff over all the other groups I help to organise, I was running pretty thin and I really just wanted to be writing and drawing my own work. The work that I'd quit my day job for. 

All the social media stuff had become a bigger part of my freelancing job than the actual creation of art. And creating art was what I wanted to spend my unpaid time doing. I wanted to spend every free second (i.e. every second I wasn't doing a job for someone else) on my book or experimenting with stories and ideas. But then of course once I was on the social media sites, I would get sucked in to looking at everyone else's beautiful pictures, making me feel worse for not creating and about my abilities to create. There has been many a time that I've gotten sucked into the continuing scroll. I'm sure you know the feeling of spending too much time looking at other people's work and worrying about not doing enough work yourself. But instead of getting off the internet and doing work, you keep scrolling. 

I've often been surprised when people compliment me on my online presence because I don't really see myself as a tech savvy person. I link most things to my Instagram (my platform of choice because it's mostly images) so I don't have to really use Tumblr (while I don't mind it, I don't really get it) and only have to do extra updates on Facebook when I have events and things. I have no idea how to Twitter, and I do not care to learn.

Then in the past few weeks I realised how much pressure I'd been putting on myself to keep my online presence going even though I've been working pretty much every day with teaching and workshops and mentorships and new jobs and grant application deadlines and prep for interstate travel. 

The most pressure I'd been putting on myself was around my blog posts. I constantly worry that they aren't long enough or aren't interesting enough. Sometimes I'd have lots of ideas for blog posts and sometimes none at all. I wanted to spend more time on them but there are only so many hours in the day and what I need (and I mean this as in an urgent, super strong, gut feeling) is to work on the book. And I guess sleeping and eating and maybe seeing my friends occasionally should get a look in. 

Then these thoughts popped into my head, "If I'm not posting, I'm not creating work - and if I'm not creating work, do I deserve to be a freelancer? I'm very lucky to be in the position to quit my day job to work on what I love. I should not be squandering my time. I need to work harder. And show people what I'm working on." These thoughts are super hard and complicated and I think I might unpack them a little bit later, when I'm ready, in another blog post. 

So guys, I'm making a call. I'm going to focus on making this book happen. I want to get it to the stage that I can send it out to agents or publishers by the end of the year and to do that I need to take a break from online. 

Have no fear, citizen! I'll still be around. I'm going to try to keep writing blog posts but I'm not going to necessarily do them once a week. I'll be posting a little less on the socials and I'll be taking on fewer commissions. 

Right now, all I'm going to do is make myself a cuppa, sit down with a sketchbook and let my brain relax and create. 

Thank you to everyone for all your continuing support, I appreciate every kind word. You can of course still contact me via email, I might just take a little time to reply. 

Gxx

My blog is brought to you by the help of my Patreon Pals. If you want to become a George Rex Patreon Pal, then just jump to my Patreon page here. 

A Dog's Life

Hello fellow humans!

I'm busy working away at my book and haven't had time to make a new exciting post for you guys, so I thought I'd share my most recent 24-hour challenge comic for you to read. It's the first piece of fiction I've done in a while, so I hope it's okay. Although I love fiction, I don't think my writing is as strong when I create it. 

This the B&W version of the comic; you can get yourself your very own colour copy of the comic from my Etsy store here. Or if you're an Adelaide local, you can grab a copy at Greenlight Comics.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy... A Dog's Life. 

Thanks for reading my comics guys. I hope you liked it!

Catch you next week! 

xx

My blog is brought to you by the help of my Patreon Pals. If you want to become a George Rex Patreon Pal, then just jump to my Patreon page here. 

Oh Brother, it's a book update!

Oh brother update_Colour.jpg

Howdy pals,

So I've been thinking for a while that I should start giving you guys more updates on the progress of the book. I'm sorry it's mostly words, time at the moment is sparse and I have to really get down and focused on this book. So please forgive the lack of photos/pictures/visual reading aids. Anyway, here goes update numero uno:

Since I finished part two, I've had my edit session with my comics pals (which you can read all about here) and collected, taken note of and thought about all the feedback, and then put it aside for now. I've decided I wanted to focus on getting the script done for part three (the final part) so I can start thumbnailing and then penciling the draft comic pages. 

At the moment I've outlined all the stories that I think I should cover in this part. I'm now going through and fleshing out the stories that I haven't written in full yet and editing the already-written stories so they fit better into the book as it stands now (it evolves with every scene I write). 

The stories for part three come from interviews with my parents and events that I remember happening to me growing up. The theme for this chapter will be Fears (the theme for part one was Communication and part two was Obsessions).

I've been chipping away, trying to get one story or section finished every day, but I've been really struggling to keep motivated. This section (although still heavily talking about stories of my childhood) has a lot more emphasis on the emotions and feelings behind growing up with Rob and the fears that I hold around what happens when my parents die and I become Rob's guardian. 

I originally wanted to have the script all done by June so I could start thumbs and pencils in July, finishing everything up in August. However, it is now July and and I am yet to get this script finished. Admittedly, the written word is not my forte and I find the problem-solving of panel layouts and the inking of pencils the best bit about comic making. But to get there I have to get this script done. 

Although I knew this part of the book would be hardest to write, I didn't realise just how hard or just how it would make me feel going back over some of the more emotionally draining stories about growing up with Rob. 

And I thought I knew my feelings about what the future holds for me and Rob, but in writing the script I have found that they are not as clear cut as I thought, which makes writing a little harder and takes a little longer than I would like. 

I know it doesn't really matter how long it takes me to get this part written but I I feel like I really need to get this book done soon: I need to get this book out of me. I'm a little bit sick of writing stories about myself (I'm definitely sick of drawing myself). So I'm really looking forward to finishing this project and getting into writing some fiction again. 

So I'm going to give myself a soft deadline of August to have the script done by and now I've told you guys I'll check back in a month with an update. Fingers crossed I'll be deep into thumbnailing. 

Catch you soon!

G xx

 

My blog is brought to you by the help of my Patreon Pals. If you want to become a George Rex Patreon Pal, then just jump to my Patreon page here. 

The 24-Hour Comic Challenge

A couple of weekends ago I took on the 24-hour comic challenge. This is an annual challenge where, basically, you have to write and draw a 24-page comic in 24 hours (a page an hour). It's the third time I've taken and completed the challenge (although last year I did finish 24 pages in the allotted time, but the story I wrote ended up being longer than that, so I penciled all 32 pages during the challenge and inked the remaining 8 the next day once my hands had had a little rest). You can read all of last year's 24-hour challenge comic about my Harry Potter fandom online here or if you prefer a physical copy you can grab one from my Etsy store here. 

Over the three years I've undertaken the challenge, I've refined my 24 hour technique, including making sure I have my paper all ready to go (I use 200 gsm card cut into single sheets of A5. I've found this size means you don't feel like you need to add too much detail and the single sheets are good because you can easily look back at what you have already drawn without constantly flipping through a sketchbook).

Having delved into the the 24-hour comics experience a few times now, I've noticed a few patterns in my emotions when affected by the lack of sleep and constant comic creation. So I give you my 7 stages of the 24-hour comic challenge:

HOUR ONE:

HOUR FIVE:

HOUR TEN:

HOUR THIRTEEN: 

HOUR EIGHTEEN:

HOUR TWENTY:

HOUR TWENTY-THREE:

I was so impressed with everyone who I took the challenge with this year (and in previous years too, of course). The comics all looked great and we all finished the challenge (and some people even managed to get shading and colour in their comics, somehow). I can't wait to see everyone's comics in print. 

And if you are thinking about taking the challenge you totally should give it a go! It's hard, no doubt, but it's super rewarding and you have a 24-page comic at the end of it. I recommend you do it with at least one other friend but the more the merrier. I'm sure I would've given up had I not had a lovely group of people encouraging me to keep going. 

That's if for this week, chat to you soon!

Gx

My blog is brought to you by the help of my Patreon Pals. If you want to become a George Rex Patreon Pal, then just jump to my Patreon page here.