Today (saturday, 3. may 2008) two classmates of mine and me had an event.

CONCEPT:
Every year the day called "free comicbook day" is celebrated in america by the big publishers giving out free releases. This event is international and some people in Trondheim decided to have an event on this day. They did things like sitting in storewindows, drawing comics and things like these. This event has been adopted by the group we started (pretty much a comic artist club). So this year we decided to have an event on a local mall. We also decided to cooperate and co run the event with people from another town (in a completely different part of the country).

The event was as such. Each town start a first page on a comic, then send it over to the next town, wich continues the story. In the end we would be left with so and so many series with so and so many pages. All this was to be broadcasted live on screens in the mall for the audience to see. Also the audience should come with ideas and participate in the story.

Originaly we were supposed to be 3 towns participating, but one town pulled out at the last moment, telling us it was too big and too much an effort, pretty much telling us it couldnt be done.

Today we did the event. we rigged up at the mall from 9am to 11am. The event started at 11:45, where we introduced the concept of the event, going trough the program and getting the audience familiar with the first artist, getting ideas. 12:00 sharp the first artist started drawing. During this time we had a discussion on stage (interview style) telling people about the comic community and such in Norway. at 1pm the first page was done, then traded with the other town and we kept this up every hour till 4 pages was drawn by each town. 3 interviews, a contest and 4,5 hours later we ended the event... it was stamped as a grand success. All in all troughout the event there passed something between 1000 - 3000 people.

I am fully aware that all these people passing doesnt mean everyone is genuinely interested, but all those people noticed, a lot of people stoped and watched, some people participated.. and in the end it was all so worth it. Little kids running around with a grand smile, random people stopping up infront of the display screens (artists drawing being broadcasted live) all in awe, standing for a while.

I also broke a barrier called extreme stagefright. I was put on stage as the host. This is the single most scary thing I have done ever, but I grit my teeth together and got trough it. It was horrible at the beginning, but I got warm.. it turned out great.

So what happens now?
The pages from the event is gonna be auctioned off on QXL for a few days from now, meaning they will be gone in 9 days. The money will be given to a charitable organisation, more precisely UNICEF.

So this is the reason I have been absent from everything lately, hoping I get more time for things from now on. I am exhausted in every way possible, but I dont care one little bit. This has been one of the greatest events in my life.

Grand thanks to HiNT(school) for the lending of gear and competence, Globus(the mall) for stagespace and help with different matters, QXL(auction site) for free auction and advertising on their front page. Also thanks to the voluntares and participants for making the event what it became in the end.

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