Sig created this comic on 24 Hour Comics Day 2006. The story involves four characters in an empty universe talking about nonsense and encountering randomness.

The process in creating Swan Dive as told by the artist:

"I decided to do a practice run a few weekends before the actual day. I failed with falling colors (or the lack thereof). What attributed to my failure on my first attempt at a 24 hour comic was: no sleep the night before from anticipation (I lost 4 hours due to a necessary long nap.), too many breaks, an inadequate work area and too much attention to penciling. I had to learn from my mistakes to conquer the next time.

I went by the example of Scott McCloud, inventor of the 24 hour comic. He used six blocks per page on A Day's Work, allowing ten minutes per block. I restricted myself to that outline with my inexperience illustrating comics and the desire for a challenge.

With Swan Dive, I took an unorthodox approach in its creation. I started with a shortcut on drawing the boxes. Making them with a ruler and a pencil on my first attempt took me longer than I wanted which definitely made a factor in my demise. I created the boxes in Photoshop and printed copies out and a few extra just in case. I quickly sketched out the four characters I was going to use: a cyclops, a robot, a fly and a ninja.

Then, I grabbed eight pennies with different years and assigned two years to each character. I put the pennies in a cup, shook it up, drew them six at time and wrote each year in the corner of each box starting with the last box on each page. After that, I tossed the pages around to mix them up some more. I brought the pages back together and numbered them by the order and position they stacked up. Some pages did end up 'upside-down.' You might be able to find a stray number or two in corners of boxes from my neglect and sleep deficit while I erased in the end.

I proceeded to pencil each character in a different way each time they were up unless two boxes next to or near each other happen to be assigned to the same character. I started on the last page and worked my way to the first page. I haven't written any dialogue or a story nor have I even started devising any of that.

Once the characters were set in their places and it was word-placing time, I looked at each page starting with the first and attempted to find a correlation with what the characters were doing or their expressions and made them ad-lib. A plot or story doesn't exist, the dialogue is very off-the-wall, and the comic overall doesn't make much sense. The conversations are mediocre, but they still needed to speak especially with my underdeveloped, amateur drawing style.

I randomly inked the pages but left the bubbles and text for the very end. Lettering what's already been lettered is unfun and painful. I have a place on my middle finger when I held the pen that really hurt from constant pressure along with my neck. I was really delirious toward the end, and my eyes were playing tricks in some instances. My nerves were getting shot. You might be able to find evidence of that in some of the blocks where the outlines look a bit shaky.

I got a decent amount of sleep the night before. I ate when I was hungry. My breaks were short but fulfilling. I maintained persistence and determination. Surprisingly enough, I drank no coffee the entire time which is a beverage I enjoy almost daily. I did drink tea throughout, so that made up for it.

I did not have adequate time for backgrounds or shading 'cause of my lack of skill, but hey, I finished my first 24 hour comic... actually... my first 24-page comic ever.

Enjoy the comic as much as you can, but please pardon the simplicity and dullness. Time was against me."

—Sig

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Swan Dive was created within 24 hours on October 7th & 8th 2006 10am to 10am at The Summit, Austin Texas. This was Sig's first time to participate in 24 Hour Comics Day.

His tools were:
· 8.5" × 11" 65lb white cardstock paper
· a General's® Kimberly® 4H graphite pencil
· a pencil sharpener
· a Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine Rolling Ball Pen
· a Sharpie Fine Point Permanent Marker
· a comfy chair
· a decent table
· good lighting

He used Adobe Photoshop 7.0 on his notebook to make the boxes and a Dell A920 All-In-One inkjet printer to print them onto the cardstock.

He drank silver needle white tea and water. He ate a breaded chicken tender sandwich, Brick Oven pizza and chicken mushroom ramen.

His first attempt at a 24 hour comic was titled Incineration Without Trial that involved a guy going on with his usual day and having delusions about a dream he had the night before. The story was planned out and only 20 pages were penciled.

Special thanks: Mare, NeiL, Kent & Danny Show more