Every year, on the Queen’s Birthday weekend, there is an event known as the Comikaze 24hr Challenge.

It’s basically an endurance challenge for cartoonists. As a breed, we tend not to exercise, or go outside much, so we have a different kind of endurance challenge.

We attempt to make an entire monthly publication’s worth of comic in a single period of 24 consecutive hours. This is hard enough. To make it harder, it should be noted that Queen’s Birthday weekend is the same weekend as my birthday. So I am basically guaranteed to start this event with a positive BAC reading. But just to make sure that I stay evenly juiced up with the “creative process”, there is generally about 6 liters of energy drinks, and a bottle of vodka, to keep me going.

The idea was originally floated by comic artist luminary Scott McCloud, but the American challenge (which produces a book of the winners each year) falls on a really suck date, so we started our own down under a number of years ago.

OzTAKU and Pulp Faction are the two largest groups that enter, alongside numerous individuals who have no affiliation with either, with Pulp Faction hosting most of the content.

My submission effort this year has probably been my best yet, although I really didn’t push myself, having only done 14 hours of work on my entry, and getting 11 pages done (as one seems to have gone missing, and all things considered, I’m far too tired to simply redo it as I already had the handicap of my birthday hangover). The story came to me while I was having a conversation with a friend on MSN the other day, and has been playing on my mind ever since. The idea that we are going to reach a saturation point with these devices, and the wireless network accessibility to allow people to be permanently Wired is a little frightening in some ways, honestly.

Already our generation has a preference to communicate via text instead of face to face, or even voice to voice. That I am telling you this via a blog, and you are reading it, and we might have a discussion about it in person, but far more likely to over MSN or Facebook is rather telling of that already. Now think about what it will be like when you can access the net quickly, and for free, while you’re on the go. You’re probably going to be so busy typing to 3-4 people at once, tweeting, updating statuses on various social networks, that a phone call is seriously going to throw you off your game. Better to just text the person to MSN you. Likewise, how much original content do you have to talk about when you see people in person, that you haven’t already said on one of your many social sites? And did you a raise an eyebrow when I just said “content” instead of something more “natual” like “fresh conversation”? Because if you didn’t, you’re already thinking about your social interactions with other people in terms of computer mediated encounters, or even just exchanges of information, instead of an actual honest-to-man conversation.

Anyway, enough blabbering on about my perfect future where personal space is broken down to the point that groping a tit is more acceptable than a handshake, and everyone shuts the fuck up. Enjoy Say Hello.[imagebrowser id=3]

If you’ve got a few hours to while away, I recommend you go and check out some of the other entries.

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1 Comment »

1. 

   Good story I think we can arrange all our future once-verbal communications to be via texting if you’re really keen.

   Comment by jaz — June 8, 2009 @ 7:26 pm

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