Created by cartoonist John Campbell in 2006 Hourly Comic Day is an annual event that takes place every February 1st. On that date cartoonists, illustrators, comic book artists and enthusiastic doodlers all over the world document their every waking hour in comic form and share via the #HourlyComicsDay hashtag.
Club member and Hourly Comic Day veteran Hugh Raine tells us a bit more about it:
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I can’t remember how or when I first learned about Hourly Comic Day but I’ve participated since 2009, this being my seventh year. I’d attempted the 24 Hour Comic challenge previously (a page an hour for 24 hours) but didn’t like the way the art suffered under the time restraint, so Hourly Comic Day seemed like a much more relaxed prospect, with slightly fewer boundaries.
The first thing I noticed was that just about every single comic took place in the artist’s home, so to make mine a little different, I decided I would journey somewhere I’d never been before and document my travels as I went. This leads to some very rough and ready comics, drawn on the sides of snowy hills, along windy riverbanks and in farty pubs, all the time having to make comic-worthy observations and calculate when to stop and draw. And of course, I have much less time to draw as I’m usually covering a lot of ground!
So far I’ve climbed the Cow & Calf in Ilkley, walked the Huddersfield to Dewsbury canal, attempted a walk to Emley Moor Mast, hunted down a heritage pub in Halifax, walked to Castle Hill in Huddersfield, explored the Dewsbury to Ossett Greenway and enjoyed a lovely lunch in Holmfirth – Last of The Summer Wine land!
My hourlies are always left in their pencilled state, with just a bit of contrast tweaking. I’m often horrified at the poor standard of artwork my adventures impose on the page. This is also the only time of the year I draw in this quick, cartoony style. So each year that style is put back into hibernation, evolving in tiny amounts, one day a year.
There’s a real buzz around the event on the day and using the hashtag #HourlyComicsDay sees your posts getting far more attention than usual. The dedicated TenCentTicker Forum sadly seems to be just about finished though, with very little activity on it this year.
Hourly Comic Day is my absolute favourite day of the year. I always discover something new and often beautiful each year, and by six o’clock, I’m usually drawn on my couch, lamenting a lack of further adventure.”
See Hugh’s full 2015 Hourly Comic Day here or read his adventures from past years.
This year Hugh was joined by Hourly Comic first timer Royston Robertson. Here’s how he got on…
It’s just for fun and is certainly an interesting (and quite tiring!) exercise. I was fairly pleased with the result though there is lots I would change. But that’s the nature of it, it’s drawn and published quickly. It’s probably a bit wordy and doesn’t really have a narrative flow, but then I was making it up as I went along.
I did kind of hit a wall with mine in the late afternoon and was considering finishing it with the 4-5pm panel. But encouraging comments on Twitter, not least from the CCGB‘s own Hugh Raine and Chris Williams, led me to seeing it though to the end. I did end up inking the final three panels the following day though!
Doing something outside my normal cartoon work, and definitely outside my comfort zone, was fun. If do it again next year, I might try a different approach.
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