24 hr comics day this Saturday (Oct 8)

Most of them were last weekend, but here's one at MIT that I am helping to organize:

Podcast review with my minicomics

"Tales from the Parents Basement" did a review of independent comics from Boston, which includes some of my comics:

http://parentsbasement.libsyn.com/for-boston-tpb-podcast-indie-500-5

My comics are mostly mentioned from 16:00 to 21:20.

24 hour comics, party this Friday at Atomic Bean, DC rally, icy puddles

Quick update on what I have been up to:

* A 24 hour comics event.

* Traveling to Washington DC for the Sanity Rally. You can see Alice and I in the background of this Getty image [link]. Arianna Huffington gave us pistachios and told us to try the free yogurts. I held a sign at the rally reminding people to vote.

* Oh -- Promotion stuff! This Friday, Nov 5th! Join me at a party at Atomic Bean Cafe from 7-9pm to celebrate Inbound 5's release, a comics anthology about food. I have a story about eating Durian when I was a freshman. (If you know what to look for in the background, you can tell the incident specifically took place in Warren Towers floor 5C at Boston University....)

Atomic Bean Cafe: 904 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA

Update: link to the book

* The leaves outside have suddenly changed color, and I think I saw ice on lakes and puddles.

24 Hour Comics Day: relatively peaceful, actually

I went to 24 Hour Comics at MIT this year, hosted by the Student Art Association and MIT Anime club. The crowd was a mix of MIT students and local artists.

A 24 hour comic (for those who have not heard of it) is where one draws a 24 page comic in 24 hours. There is also a webcomic equivalent. All conception, planning and drawing must take place during the 24 hours. And since a couple of years ago, there has been an official 24 Hour Comic day. People can gather and draw comics together; it's a bit like pulling an all-nighter with friends during school, but it involves comics instead.

Unlike last year, this year was relatively peaceful and quiet. I spent the first part wandering around and brainstorming, and eventually settled down later. In the evening, we ate some really delicious and somewhat healthy pizza. It was interesting to watch people draw different stories and in different styles. For instance, near the end of the event, some people started drawing manga on slices of bread using a felt tip pen.

(I didn't take much notice at the time, as I was busy coloring my comic. But now I find myself wondering about this.)

Below: some shots of the event. No photos of the bread manga, sorry.




The title page of my comic, below. (Color was added this afternoon, after the event.)


In-progress shot...


I finished lettering and added washes of color to the main characters, before the Sunday 11 AM deadline.

I considered inking the dessen of my comic, like last year, but have decided to experiment with color instead. So I will be adding more color and fixing up some of the text. The layout and internal structures of the story will remain as created during the 24 hr event.



PS: Thank you for condolances from the last blog post. I am happy to report some good news -- I got my backpack back! It was found and delivered to the police station. Although things of actual monetary value (and one tin can of chocolate) were missing, everything else was left in the bag.

Portland Maine comics festival

Back from Portland Maine Comics Arts Festival! I sold and traded books, met a lot of people and had a lot of fun. The festival hall was one of the nicest indoor places to meet, with a huge glass wall facing the ocean.

Portland is an interesting misty place, from what I could see coming in. Also very cute place to walk around.

Below, photos of the festival.

(An entire row and some more of Boston comics people...)

Below: convention goer with an amusing bag.



I meant to sell some silver figurines at the festival. Mostly, I ended up showing people how to torch-fire and burnish silver-clay sculptures (it's really fun).

I may have inspired a little girl to try creating bronze sculptures. Bronze or copper clay is a much less expense material, and allows for more experimenting. She mentioned she has a kiln at her school, so she should be able to fire her sculptures. She still needs to get the special containers and materials to fire bronze or copper clay, though.



Also at the festival, I debuted a new comic:




This might look familiar.... (link)

Color has been added and a few dialogue and details tweaked -- but here is the 24 Hour Comic from last October, finally in print. I added the "Being kicked out by the police for drawing comics at 3 AM" story on the back page. (see blog entry for details.)

(That's what I was planning to put as a title on the inside back page -- "Creating KATTAN: Being Kicked Out by the Fuzz at 3 AM for Drawing Comics". But I figured it was a little too jarring of a title to read, after finishing the story.)

I'm looking for a slightly more economical way to print this color comic, since it's still expensive right now.

Minor update: Among the many people I traded books with was Marek Bennet... Here's his blog post. There's a picture which shows all the kinds of books at the festival. (And in the right hand side is "Outbound" and "Kattan"!)



Woops, I forgot to mention I was going to the Portland festival in earlier blog posts. Well, I guess I should mention: next week I'm at Anime Boston. I might have a few things for sale at a table or two, but mostly I'll be wandering around.



Also, the weather turned cold again. Kate will probably ask why I'm still suprised at this random New England weather.

24 Hour Comics Day: Kicked out by the Fuzz at 3 AM

So last weekend was 24 Hour Comics Day. All over the world, people challenged themselves to draw a 24 page comic in 24 hours.


In Boston, a bunch of comics-loving people got together at Hub Comics, where we scribbled comics, ate chocolate, drank tea, watched sci-fi movies, argued about Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Nutri-grain bars and other topics, and generally had a merry time.

Around 3 AM, we were starting to mellow out, and quietly work on comics.

Then someone knocked on the door.

It was the police.

To make a long story short, they told us to leave the store. The store had people in it at 3 AM, but no such hours were publicly posted on the outside of the store. So we had to leave the premise. A store associate (not owner, corrected) of Hub Comics, who answered the door, explained that he had called city officials the day before to make sure he was set for hosting the event. The police told the owner that he and everyone had to leave.

"Out-of-control troublemaking punks" does not really describe the atmosphere of a 24 hour comic-making marathon. Our dangerous, edgy activities included to drinking Mountain Dew, trading bad jokes, and drawing comics. (As you can tell, I'm still not sure what the fuzz busted us at 3 AM for.) But either way, we reluctantly began packing up. Actually, first we started taking one last group photo. Then the police knocked again, to tell us we seriously needed to get out. So we abandoned the group photo and quickly packed up. We left the store under the watchful eye of the police.

So there we were at 3 AM, huddled on the street corner and trying to keep warm. (Being Boston, the temperature had unexpectedly dropped 15 degrees in the last hour.) Some people had rode the T from MassArt or Allston, and -- since the T stops running by 3 AM -- they had no means of getting home.

However! Luckily, one Mr. Little from the group lived nearby, and graciously invited everyone to crash at his house. So a few people parted ways with the event, and the rest (8 or so?) got ourselves to the house and spend the rest of the event watching animations, eating apples and drawing comics.

All in all, though, I had a fun time! And despite the unexpected 3 AM relocation due to police, I'm happy to say I got 24 pages of comics drawn.

Here are a slew of photos, chronicling the event. (No photos of the police, sorry.)





(Around 9 pm, I finished penciling 24 pages.)





At 3AM, we relocate.



I continue to ink my comic....

(Below: Spot the differences!)


11 Am Sunday. After staying awake for the whole event, some people suddenly crash.

I continue to work on my comic.



Some of the survivors of 24 Hour Comic Day, 2008!

Below -- cover and first page of the comic I drew.