Follow the process of a new little comic book in the making, working title: “Spectacles”. It’s about a special pair of glasses. Scroll down to go into the future.

Start: December 2023

My kids were reading some very cool comics books by Dav Pilkey and Marc Barnett & Shawn Harris. I was suddenly so tired of not being a comic artist, or maybe I should say: of being an inactive comic artist – a sleeping vulcano. So I challenged myself to draw 1 page a day.

The page didn’t have to be perfect, as long as I made one.

I started on the 11th of December 2023 with a page commenting on my current state as an “older” teacher banking on the successful book he made ten years ago. I wrote about the challenge and posted the first page on Instagram to keep myself accountable.

I drew myself with a manbun and Birckenstocks Bostons (and woolen socks!). Which was true life. Representing the (anti-)style I was (and am still partly) rocking. The post page got nice responses (digital as well as in real life) from colleagues and students, which was encouraging.

December 2023 – March 2024

The page a day challenge is very successful. For a couple of months a lot of new comic-pages are made, and not only by me. Collaborating with my daughters leads to weird new ideas and characters – jellyfish from outer space, Carrot-man – and the mixing up of different realities.

Everything is possible in comics.

You can see some more images of what I made during the challenge on my Instagram page: @dandyraffe.

In February I start a page in the middle of a story about a guy (who looks a lot like me) who has (somehow got his hands on) sunglasses which allow him to see reality in a different way. It’s inspired by John Carpenter’s film They Live from 1988.

Somewhere in March I feel sick for a few days. I think I have the flu. I lie on the couch mostly. I rewatch They Live and sketch a lot of ideas for the story about the special glasses.

I finish some pages for the story about the sunglasses in the weeks after this.

After that the comic author in me lies dormant for a while. Not sure why.

October 2024: Fever dreams & alternative realities.

A couple of things happened. My website had been down for a while and I decided to get it back online. That’s always a moment to reflect on all the things you have made and, in my case, have not made.

I looked back at all the 24 Hour Comics Day stories I drew in the past. Also I caught some kind of virus and had weird dreams for a couple of nights.

This was the moment I decided to pick up the story about the sunglasses and make it into a small publication, maybe one like the 24HCD-books I made: 24 pages, black and white, self published. In English this time, so all the art school students can read it (my target audience!).

I made an inventory and found I had around 8 pages. I printed them and hanged them above my desk (see photo above). The moment I started to work on the comic again, ideas started flowing. I would get ideas just before falling asleep, that would be gone the next day. Ideas on the bike to work.

I was drawing in the evenings, while watching weird Lovecraftian scifi or horror films (such as Underwater, 2020 or Lovecraft Country, 2020) or religiously themed action thrillers (such as Boondock Saints, 1999 and Constantine, 2005) that might inspire my story about seeing something other people can’t…

Working on a story sometimes feels like existing in multiple realities. Especially when I am working in the evenings and I am already or sleep deprived (like during 24HCD) or when I have a fever. One could say my work is a way of creating alternative realities, or parallel universes. I take myself as starting point for my protagonist, but I change things in his circumstances or past and I let the story unfold from there.

Peter Moerenhout once wrote a review about one of my books (Syrena) and he analysed how my regular comics are typically philosophical musings that are firmly rooted in reality, but my 24 HCD stories are usually more dreamlike… I guess you could say: surreal.

I have been thinking about this lately. I have always had an interest in science fiction, time travel, the fantastical and the supernatural. This interest seems to have manifested itself in the comics I made during the 24 hour challenges. Maybe it’s the circumstances. Apparently Scott McCloud once said that 24HCD-comics have a tendency to be quite dark.

23 October: Two new pages

Today we were talking about Dada and Surrealism in class. The presentation had some slides with one of my favourite artists: Max Ernst. I realised I should start to keep track of my references and actively gather new ones.

I finished the drawings for two new pages this evening.

24 & 25 October

Did some more research. Looked up some material from Max Ernst graphc novel. I could not find a high res image of the woman with the spider head unofrtunately. I did come across the notebooks of one of my favourite philosophers Ernst Jünger in a book. (Fabienne Collignon, The Insectile and the Deconstruction of the Non/Human, 2023.)

Some more quality content for my target audience… Start of the autumn break.(Which means more time for making more stuff like this.)

References

Books & Articles

• Ernst Jünger, Coleopteren IX, (year unknown, probably 19-sixties).
• Fabienne Collignon, The Insectile and the Deconstruction of the Non/Human, 2023.

Graphic Novels

• Max Ernst, Une semaine de Bonté, 1934.

Films & Series

• John Carpenter, They Live, 1988.

Visual artworks

• Max Ernst, Triumph of Surrealism (Der Hausengel), 1937.
• Max Ernst, Der Hausengel (erste Fassung), 1937.
• Leonora Carrington, Feast of Samhain, 1951.
• Leonora Carrington, And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur. 1953.
• John Heartfield, Zum Krisen-Parteitag der SPD, 1931.
• John Heartfield, Krieg und Leichen – die letzte Hoffnung der Reichen, 1932.