Comic Completion Month

[Mercury Hat]

I think this is the main point. People that plan on publishing their NaNoWriMo project don't expect a finished product at the end of the month; they expect to spend the next year editing the book they have layed out.

There's a NaNoEdMo, National Novel Editing Month, in February .

The purpose of any "do X number of Y in Z time" is for people who have been procrastinating and making up excuses to get up off their asses and actually do something. A lot of the time it's writing/drawing/whatever for the sake of it, but it can also be a big motivator for things you've been putting off.

That having been said, I don't know how feasible 60 totally finished pages is for me. I'd like to try something of the sort, though, I'd just need to set aside the time.

My other problem is that I'm not too good at writing short stories and planning things to end after X number of pages .

[Faub]

*shakes Buster's hand*

Go for it, dude. I wish I was at the point in my artwork that I could do the things you spent painstakingly large amounts of time on. Wow and stuff.

Simplicity is hard. It means you have to convey as much information as possible in as little detail as possible. When it's down, it looks great. When it's halfway down you have to fight the urge to "improve" it, ie. add details.

Still, the 15 pages of storyboarded text Smight mentioned sounds more like Nanowrimo to me. It involves the creative process from nothing. You have characters. You have a basic plot in mind. Make something with it. Edit and improve it later.

Good luck.

[Bustertheclown]

I think this is the main point. People that plan on publishing their NaNoWriMo project don't expect a finished product at the end of the month; they expect to spend the next year editing the book they have layed out.

There's a NaNoEdMo, National Novel Editing Month, in February .

The purpose of any "do X number of Y in Z time" is for people who have been procrastinating and making up excuses to get up off their asses and actually do something. A lot of the time it's writing/drawing/whatever for the sake of it, but it can also be a big motivator for things you've been putting off.

That having been said, I don't know how feasible 60 totally finished pages is for me. I'd like to try something of the sort, though, I'd just need to set aside the time.

My other problem is that I'm not too good at writing short stories and planning things to end after X number of pages .

Well, maybe that's the solution to the scariness factor. Two months? One to come up with unedited material, and one month to get the material polished? I guess that since I'm surrounded by a whole bunch of rough stuff anyway, I went with the editing route first.

However, it would be pretty interesting to have a "roughing" month, and a "finishing" month. Maybe it should be two goals in the same month? A goal for people who have lots of rough material to go through would be the 60 pages. A goal for people who want to have a lot of rough material to work with over the course of the next year could be 150 scripted storyboards, a la Smight's suggestion? Five storyboards a day has proven to be a pretty vigorous pace for me, especially when extended over many days in a row. Ten storyboards a day could be a massive undertaking, and I've already scared the crap outta people with the whole 60 finished pages thing.

I like it. So, now it's not Comic Completion Month (and Knitting Every Year) anymore. Not exclusively, anyway.

Now we've got two goals to shoot for, both of which are just as important to creators. I now dub this movement Comic March. Here's a new LJ Community for anyone who's interested. A Yahoo! Group will be forthcoming.

Here's my advice to anyone who decides the goals of either challenge are just too rough. Think of it as a benchmark. Think of it as that impossible goal to strive for. Reaching it means achieving a possible superhuman feat. Not reaching it, even if it means you only got three or four extra pages out of participating, that STILL means you've upped your productivity, right? That's ultimately the intent of this, after all, to do more comics, and have fun.

[Smight]

I like it. I might even do both of them. I could see doing 2 pages a day if all the story boards are made. I think just the task of writing a story creating character designs finalizing text and page layout for 60 pages and then creating pencil and then ink copies of them in finished form at the rate of two a day just seemed to blow me away.

I think if I go at a nice easy rate of 2 storyboards a day in january, and then in february I'll play with the storyboards to make them all flow properly to end right at 60 pages, then I can join you in March and shoot for the big six oh.

Count me in!

[Mr.Bob]

I've been especially intrigued by this mad scheme because my star bored comic only has around 90 pages left before ultimate completion, and although I still think the 60 completed pages a month a mad target madly construed by a mad madman reeling with madness, an alternative target of 60 just pencilled pages is a lot more realistic. And a lot less mad.
So perhaps I'm just being mad but here's a maybe on me doing my interpretation.

[BERSERKERCREW]

this is a great idea, and if i can get around to it, i will defenitely do it.

[McDuffies]

The suggestion to adjust Cocomonkey (because with Cocomo, Beach Boys would sue our a$$) to your own needs sounds good. Perhaps, at the beginning of the month, everyone should state their plan, so that they have some resonable goal to strive and to know, at the end of the month, whether they fulfilled it. For me, for instance, a reasonable deal would be from finished script to inked, b/w comic, though I wouldn't expect high quality. And I definitely wouldn't expect people with colour comics to do the same in the same amount of time.

[Bustertheclown]

Having a set goal is probably the most important aspect to this challenge, so it can not be dropped. It gives everyone involved a common cause, and something to work towards. I mean, honestly, what if I were to say, "Okay everyone! Let's all get together in March and do whatever we want!" What kind of challenge would that be?

Think about it. Challenges like this all have goals to reach. The 24-hour comics explicitly states 24 pages, 24 hours. NaNoWriMo explicitly states 50k words, 30 days. Comic Grind explicitly states 3 strips a week. You don't reach those goals? Sorry, and better luck next year.

Let me put this in terms of a footrace. Even fun runs have goals to reach, because it wouldn't work if organizers just decided that people could pick their own distances to reach. That's not an event, that's just a people running around. So, everyone lines up for a 5k or a marathon, not a however far you want to run. But once the course is drawn up, it's up to individual racers to decide whether to run it, walk it, or quit halfway through and duck into a bar for a beer.

And let me remind everyone again that this is just a GOAL. It's just something to shoot for. It's just a mark on the map to tell you which direction to move. I'm not telling you how to get there. I'm not telling you what you need to do in order to reach the goal. That's perfectly well up to you. You judge the level of quality that will get you there and still make you feel accomplished, just as I said I'd be doing pencilled and inked work, and just as Bob decided his best route would merely be pencilled. By the way, I might also remind you, you lose nothing if you don't reach the goal. If you put forth a real effort, you'll still have pages to show for it, right?

So, the goal stands for everyone.

[Escushion]

So, the goal stands for everyone.

See, it's really only a rule if everyone abides by it. So, you saying it's 60, and then everyone else agreeing to participate states their own individual goal, it stands as whatever it's been made into. In your head you might consider yourself the only one "really" participating, but that's really not going to mean anything to anyone else.

Again, you're imposing your own standard set. It's things like the above post that are why this "event" reeks of selfish glory-seeking; because you ignore everyone but yourself. You got to set the standard for everyone, no input involved? Yeah, that's gonna' fly.

So I see no reason people can't just ignore your specific standard, follow McDuffies's perfectly reasonable suggestion, and still call it an event. It's not like you're handing out prizes; it's not like there's a reason or ethic to stick to your personal self-involved number. There's no reason anyone wanting to do this can't just set their own personal goal and ignore yours. It's still setting a goal; it's just not your goal. It's still a month-long grind, it's just not the same number set at the end as yours. If a person knows, knows for a fact that it'll be impossible to set up quality, up to their standards of writing and art, then it's nothing but selfish glory-seeking to still say "60 or fail." They set up a goal that's unreasonable, probably impossible, but at least not definitely impossible for them. Some people might have that number at 30. Some might have it at 80. Some might have it at 54. Yours is 60. Good for you. But that's not everyone.

[Yeahduff]

Mm. It's a challenge. Busta has challenged you. If you want to try to meet this challenge, do so. If not, don't. This is self-glorifying as much as 100,000 words (or whatever) is.

[Escushion]

If one person challenges another to a race, and the challengee has a 100-pound rock tethered around the waist, while the challenger carries a 50-pound stone in their hands, I don't consider it a challenge. Sure, the challenger has it rough, but there's no way that challengee is winning that race dragging a 100-pound rock around, even if they're strong enough to move it inch by inch.

EDIT: I should note that I won't be participating even under McDuffies's improvement. While I think that improvement should be implimented (or people should treat this CoCoMo as such), the end result, if any, of the argument at hand won't affect that. 40 would probably be my magic number--probably impossible, but not definitely impossible--however March is simply a bad month for me, one of the two worst (the other being October), so there's no way around it. I'll most likely get my usual 12-15 done that month and hopefully fair better on 24-hour comic day. I may still do something in December as the idea is intruiging. At best it'll probably be rough draft ideas for another potential project; nothing concrete.

But I still think McDuffies has the right idea.

[Yeahduff]

If one person challenges another to a race, and the challengee has a 100-pound rock tethered around the waist, while the challenger carries a 50-pound stone in their hands, I don't consider it a challenge. Sure, the challenger has it rough, but there's no way that challengee is winning that race dragging a 100-pound rock around, even if they're strong enough to move it inch by inch.

That would be unfair. But it doesn't resemble what we're discussing at all. This isn't a race, and no one's being handicapped. Your perceived inability to do this doesn't make you a bad person, and Busta ain't saying it does. It's likely no one will be able to do it. But whatever. If you don't like the idea, don't do it. But enough with the accusations.

[Escushion]

If one person challenges another to a race, and the challengee has a 100-pound rock tethered around the waist, while the challenger carries a 50-pound stone in their hands, I don't consider it a challenge. Sure, the challenger has it rough, but there's no way that challengee is winning that race dragging a 100-pound rock around, even if they're strong enough to move it inch by inch.

That would be unfair. But it doesn't resemble what we're discussing at all. This isn't a race, and no one's being handicapped. Your perceived inability to do this doesn't make you a bad person, and Busta ain't saying it does. It's likely no one will be able to do it. But whatever. If you don't like the idea, don't do it. But enough with the accusations.

But I still think McDuffies has the right idea.

[Bustertheclown]

I've done as much as I can to explain the motives behind why I'm making the decisions I've made. That you're taking this so personally as to use terms like "selfish" and "glory-seeking" on me repeatedly tells me that you just don't get what I'm trying to do with this.

You think I'm being self-serving? Fine. You think I'm being unreasonable? Fine. If, after 4,000+ words, you still believe that this is about ego and subterfuge, then I can do nothing to change your mind. If, after all of the explaining that I've given for my thought processes behind this, you still think it's a terrible idea, then I can state nothing else to convince you otherwise. If you think this is such a poorly conceived and unreasonable challenge, then by all means, make your own event.

All I wanted to do was try to organize something simple and challenging that would get people together to be creative and have fun. I guess I was expecting too much here.

[Escushion]

Alright, I'll make this the last thing I say on this. With your last line of the post I realized that rather than working to improve any of this, you're simply going to be fixed on exactly that, and since I won't be participating there's no sense in ruining it for everyone else.

If you think this is such a poorly conceived and unreasonable challenge, then by all means, make your own event.

To be clearer, I didn't mean that you were being selfish/glory-seeking and I realized after I went to bed that that wasn't clear. What I wanted to do was point out to you why that impression keeps coming up out of your posts even though I know better.

The above quote is another example of that. This has nothing to do with me as an event; I don't want to start something I can't participate it as that'd seem hypocritical to me. McDuffies had a good idea, and I think it was cast aside unnecessarily; an idea which I support even though I can't participate in it. But if it's all the same to those involved, then there's really no point in me advocating it.

[Faub]

Relax people.

If, after 4,000+ words, you still believe that this is about ego and subterfuge, then I can do nothing to change your mind.

Ego, yes. Subterfuge, no. You stated exactly what you wanted to happen in your first post. There's nothing obfuscated about that at all. Your reasoning has been clear from the start. Ego? You're planning an undertaking that has freaked everyone reading this thread. That's all about ego. If you succeed, you'll have plenty to show off. Whether you do or not is a different story. I for one want to see what you come up with. If you do succeed, you have bragging rights.

[Mr.Bob]

I like the word subterfuge.

It looks a lot like subtle fudge, but that's a deception.

[War]

I could finish Digital War...it'd be hard but I think I could manage the 6 or so comics.

[Bustertheclown]

Ego? You're planning an undertaking that has freaked everyone reading this thread. That's all about ego. If you succeed, you'll have plenty to show off. Whether you do or not is a different story. I for one want to see what you come up with. If you do succeed, you have bragging rights.

Sure, making the attempt is an act of pure ego, since being able to say "look what I did!" is really the only payoff beyond the physical product of the effort. That same is true for any of these types of challenges. Extending others an invitation to join in, however was not an act of self-aggrandizement. If it were just about me bragging, the conversation would have been a lot simpler:

Me: "Hey everyone, I'm gonna draw 60 pages in one month!"

Everyone Else: "You're effing nuts!"

Me: "Heh heh. We'll see about that! "

THE END

I do wish others would throw their egos in the ring, though. I still think that it would be a fun thing to try, despite the fact that I'm worn out now, merely from trying to convince people that it would be fun to try.

[Sincerely]

Then you should stop. I'm with everyone else. I think your idea is a crazy one. I do 20+ strips most months and I know I could do sixty if I abandoned my mental health to do it. If you think you can do it, or even if you think you can't and just want to get as close as you can, you should go for it.

Let your actions speak for you. You've said all you can already, there's no point in beating the dead horse and making yourself miserable. Come back here in April and show us what you've done and I can guarantee you that you'll be applauded for the effort and whatever form your success takes.