So the other day, in the comments section of The Future of Human Transportation, Spyder challenged me (and others) to a ‘comic-off’ — a comics festival of sorts. We’d each do five comics over five days. I accepted of course, but work — o wonderfully banal, low paying work! — reared its head and I couldn’t jump right into it. I figure this is a blessing in disguise for us as well as you, dear reader(s).
Being the delusional brandsmith that I am, I figured an august venture such as this should have its own silly name and stupid logo, so I rechristened it Comic Konga!… um, that’s the second name I though of (Comic Orgy is something I’m reserving for another time, hehe). Read on for more astounding details!
The Basics
Comic Konga! is a little event where you and me and everyone we know posts five short comics over the course of five days. Think of it like a film festival or a jam session, only with people showing off their comics on their blogs or other online spaces. We’ll start on Monday, the 29th of October and so it will end on Friday, 02 November 2007.
There aren’t many rules — this isn’t one of those ultrahardcore endurance races where you have to finish every comic in twenty-seven seconds with one hand tied behind you — but I think a few guidelines should be stated here to keep things clear and running smoothly:
– There’s no easy definition for comic strips (just like pornography, we know it when we see it), but single-panel, multi-panel and even multi-page entries are fine (and good luck to you strong sir/madam/robot if you attempt the last type.
– Comics can be presented in the medium of the artist’s choice. This means everything from hand-drawn doodles to 3D models, photographs, origami, sculpture, collage etc. etc. can be used to create your comic.
– You may collaborate with others in the creation of your comics. Just make sure you do covers before somebody’s wife breaks you two up, ‘hear?
– Please don’t use anyone else’s copyrighted material unless you have permission or they’re free to use. This means photos and artwork and characters and anything else. It’s stupid and you can get into trouble. It’s only a comic, man.
– The comics you present may be worked on or even be completed before the 29th. I only ask that you post them — one per day — between next Monday and Friday. So you have a little under a week’s head start: get cracking!
– The comics should be self-contained. This means that if you’re doing, say, five strips that lead into one another, I’d appreciate it if the story concluded in #5. It doesn’t matter if you’re using characters from your existing strip or whatever, I just want some closure. Ooh, closure…
– And yes, you can do five completely unrelated comics. I plan to.
– We don’t have any fancy-schmancy registration forms, forums or mailing lists this time, so if you wish to participate in Comic Konga! please leave a comment in this post with your details, especially the address of the blog (or DeviantART or Flickr site or what have you) where you will be posting your work. I won’t be hosting any comics on this site except my own, but if you don’t have a blog it’s very easy to set one up.
– You are responsible for your own content and any kooky repurcussions. Don’t blame me if some kid sues you for telling people Santa isn’t real in your comic… oops.
Fees & Prizes
There are NO FEES and NO PRIZES, except my undying gratitude and eternal love.
*mwah*
Misc. Stuff
Let me just say that I’d love to see people who don’t or haven’t ever made comics participate in Comic Konga! It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to draw, go to YotoPhoto, get some royalty-free pictures and put word balloons on them. Or take pictures of yourself and miscellaneous friends and loved ones (I am not responsible for your friends and loved ones hating your guts as a result, mind you). Hey, it works for comics like A Softer World.
(btw, Wikipedia has an excellent list of public domain image resources)
Even if you want to doodle stuff on post-its or MSPaint, that’s okay too.
I’d love to see people try out new stuff. If you’ve had a funky comic idea sitting in your brain for a while but haven’t got around to it, do one for Comic Konga!. If you only use Photoshop or the GIMP but really like that clean vector look lately, try to make a comic in Inkscape — it’s FREE!
Entertain me. Entertain us.
Go on, then.
(If you have any more questions — or just want someone weird to bombard you with prolix 2,000 word emails about crap when you send a simple “What’s up?” message — drop me a line at allvishal (at) gmail (dot) com. I can’t wait til next monday!)
V
