One of the great things about RIT is that there has been a con­certed effort to bring in train­ing resources for teach­ers. Over the last two months I’ve attended a number of won­der­ful ses­sions that have really gotten me to think about teach­ing methodologies.

The, well, prob­lem is that once that door is opened, it’s not too easy to close. And right now I’m now I’m taking a hard look at my classes and trying to course cor­rect for the final weeks. And I’m not always sure where to start. But I know that I really do need to make some changes — both in this quar­ter and in future ones. It’s excit­ing and scary at the same time.

Things are slow­ing here. Some of our cre­ators have given in to sleep (I think our col­lec­tion is going to have a number of East­man Vari­a­tions). We attribute it to this hunk of kryp­tonite we dis­cov­ered in Vicky’s soda.

BTW, make sure to check out the off­i­cal blog/archive of 24 Hour Comic Day located here.

So, as usual, I’ve been blitzed. This is part of the reason: 24 Hour Comics Day. This was a idea dreamed up by Scott McCloud — create a 24 page comic in 24 hours. Octo­ber 7th is the offi­cial 24 Hour Comic Day. RIT’s the only site in New York state and I’m one of the orga­niz­ers. So that means I’ll be here at our library for 24 hours. That said, I’m not doing a comic :(. Instead I’m opting to doc­u­ment the event. The fol­low­ing is an entry I just uploaded to the 24 Hour Comic Blog.

We’re almost 10 hours in and going strong. The group has decreased to 14 artists, but the work is amaz­ing! And the fun every­one is having is even better!

Here’s a break­down of the work that’s going on:

The newly formed "Team Awesome" is crank­ing on the following:

• Michael – Applesauce.
• James – The chron­i­cle of how drum major Dan became the drum major for Satan’s march­ing band.
• Lind­sey – Whether true love exists and the things that draw people together.
• Alfie – BANG (the end of KILL)

Our other team, Vicky & Laela, are work­ing on "A story that has noth­ing to do with any­thing but is really funny — Four char­ac­ters meet their cre­ators."

As for every­one else, we have:

• Dan – Night­claw: the beginning
• Ben­jamin – Man on a Mis­sion: One man’s quest to repair to the ozone layer aka hold on you 2 your layers aka deeper still, Ben’s not crazy.
• Eric – A fan­tasy action story in search of a title.
• Kurt – Deaf Buddha: the mean­ing of life.
• Dorothy – An auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal comic.
• Chuan­shi – X-painters

Here are some random shots from the event. You can see the Flickr page for the event here.:

Pizza, soda (pop), and draw­ing sup­plies — all we need for a 24hr Comic Day!

Team Awsome hard at work! Last heard around those parts:
Lind­sey: This page, that is only one draw­ing, is taking a whole long amount of time.
Alfie: Can you be any more emo?
James: Please keep your amaz­ing art over there for a few moments while the rest of us weep.

Some of Lindsey’s work.

Dorothy’s auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal work that starts out in Marrakesh.

Dan and a page from Nightclaw

Benjamin’s work on one man’s quest to save the ozone layer.

Kurt hard at work on Deaf Buddha.

Not only are Vikki and Laela a cre­ative team, but they also serve as each other’s models. Laela uses Vikki as a model for a panel.