Spawns of Insomnia 2003
Spawns of Insomnia was Cartoonists Northwest’s answer to the Scott McCloud 24 hour comic book challenge.
The Cartoonists Northwest’s event took place on June 28th 2003 and was a huge success. H-U-G-E! Spawns received plenty of publicity. Two articles in the Seattle Post Intelligencer covered Spawns as well as an article in the neighborhood Seattle Sun. Also a 10 minute movie was produced which aired on Bellevue Community College’s channel 28.
Lots of people (who weren’t our relatives) showed up to see cartoonists in the wild. About a dozen people joined CNW because of Spawns; and best of all, most of the participating artists had a great time! How great? Many of the cartoonists at Spawns, dripping with the heat, punch drunk and on the verge of complete exhaustion as the end of the marathon drew near, were already talking about wanting to do it again next year. Even allowing for a certain amount of hallucinating, that’s still pretty remarkable.
In 1990 as a creative exercise Scott McCloud (author of UNDERSTANDING COMICS) asked comic creators to single-handedly write and draw a comic in 24 hours. McCloud and Steve Bissette created their own 24 comics in a one 24 hour period in August of 1990. Since then over 300 links to 24 hour comics have been posted online at McCloud’s site.
We are in awe of the people who actually completed all 24 pages in 24 (or less!) hours at the Spawns event: John Aquino, Bill Barnes, Donna Barr, Phil Foglio, Lillian Ripley, Dan McConnell, Mark Monlux, Bill Morse, and Scott Alan. If you’re counting, that is nine people out of the 26 participants who crossed the finish line.
Other brave souls who participated were: Anne Catharine Blake, Mark Campos, Brett Cantrell, Te-Jui Darren Chiu, Jonathan Cotton, Ellen Exacto, Ray Feighery, Jonah Gilbert, James Greer, Roberta Gregory, Mike Kloepfer, Larry Lewis, John McColloch, John Shirkey, Rich Werner, Edi Zaniduche and Cartoonists Northwest President John Lustig.
Sample from Unshelved creator Bill Barnes' story about mainstream newspaper comics syndication.
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