My Arm: the Comic

Patrick Yurick in San Diego California is creating My Arm: the Comic He explained that it was, "conceived after buying a $50 Groupon for a tattoo and agonizing over commitment until the idea of creating a blank comic template came to mind. 5 months later, and a lot of teasing from artistic friends, the template was done and on July 1st "My Arm: the Comic" was launched with the goal of embracing daily creativity without the hustle and bustle that a graphically demanding comic project would entail."

Why did you decide to do this project? I am working on a 2 year long project called "American BOOM!" and it is really time intensive and requires a lot of patience. I sometimes work on a page 20 hours with my business partner, Alonso Nunez, and it is exhausting to do. While, at the same time, I am running a business: Little Fish Comic Book Studio Because of these two projects I found myself not drawing as much as I would like to.



When I got the groupon and brainstormed for the tattoo - it came up as a natural idea to get a blank comic section on my arm to fill in, and then it was a natural movement to make a goal of doing daily work with it. This is my relaxation project. I am encouraging my friends and fans to write me strips to do every day. It already is becoming a really fun conversation starter and I have really enjoyed the positive praise since beginning.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I have been only doing this a week. I think the biggest ways it has affected my life is that people love to talk to me about it. It is so easy to understand as a concept that people just love to come up to me and discuss the comic in a way that they never really did with my more serious projects "Hipster Picnic" & "American BOOOM!". So that is fun.

Follow Patrick's arm HERE.

SuperZero

Anthony Gifford in Cheltenham, England is drawing the daily comic strip SuperZero (Snippets of my un-heroic life)...

Why did you decide to do this project? It started quite randomly (as most great things do!), my girlfriend at the time was about to start college and wanted to try and do something, so I came up with a brief to do a comic strip, much like James Kochalka (as she's a big fan) of our trip up Leckhampton hill the day before. I did it too and really enjoyed it. I decided that maybe I could do one a week and see how long I could keep it up for. But at the time I had a week off work, so I did one every day and have been doing it every day since!

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? well my evenings are taken up drawing, scanning and colouring the things! and my days are spent hoping for something short and funny to happen. My friends always look at me when something goes wrong and I quite often get "don't you dare put THAT in your comic!" Sometimes you are sitting, staring at a blank piece of paper going "nothing happened today!! my life is soooo dull!" but you eventually think of something.

See all of Anthony's comics HERE.

Minimal Comics

Graeme McNee in Kobe, Japan is making Minimal Comics daily, which he describes as "A three panel minimal comic every day, drawn with a cheap pen on paper stolen from work."...

Why did you decide to do this project? I wanted to capture little moments and ideas of daily life and present them in the most minimal and simple way possible. People might not realise at first, but the comics are all inspired by an event that happened on that day. Sometimes I draw something I saw, sometimes it's a commentary on a concept, sometimes I just capture the ideas in my head. When I look back at each comic I can remember at least some of the events of that day.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I have started to take more notice of the world around me, because I am now looking for moments to capture each day. I have also started to simplify my drawing. Before my drawings were sometimes overly detailed, now I'm trying to draw with the least amount of lines possible. I've also started a new morning routine: wake up, have breakfast and think about the content for the comic, then draw it and post it. I used to hate getting up early but now I find myself waking up before my alarm eager to make the next comic! Posting on tumblr and google+ has expanded my creative network too, and through people linking to me I've found all kinds of interesting new projects and art, including your site!

See all of Graeme's comics HERE.

Caffeinated Toothpaste

Josh Bauman in Berlin, Germany is creating a daily diary comic strip called Caffeinated Toothpaste...

Why did you decide to do this project? I started this project as part of Ivan Brunetti's self-study cartooning course (Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice). One of the earlier assignments was to draw a week of four-panel diary strips. That was in March of 2010 and I've been going ever since. My initial drive for continuing the diary strips was to try and draw comics as much as possible and also try and improve my drawing and art skills. 

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? After a few months of drawing strips I compiled them online and began publishing them as a web comic. I've since self published a printed compilation from the first year and have been turning my project into a business that I take very seriously. On the other hand, my friends and family have had to put up with my near-obsessive schedule of getting a comic up at the same time every day, even on vacation.

See all of Josh's comics HERE.

Homeboy Comics Daily Blog

Bill Alger in Brooklyn, New York created Homeboy Comics Daily Blog. He explains, "This daily blog is designed to help in the development of a graphic novel featuring the character Homeboy. There will be posts of character designs, backgrounds, panels and other story descriptions. Homeboy is a kid who runs away from home, then wakes up the next morning to discover that a tiny version of his family's home has become part of his head- with a little, noisy, annoying version of his family inside, still yelling at him."

Why did you decide to do this project? I decided to do this project because I saw the blog my friend Kurt Marquart (of 365 Squarey Monsters) had set up and was impressed by the amount of work he was turning out for the site. I've been planning on developing a Homeboy graphic novel for quite a while and this seemed like a great way to inspire myself to get it done.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? This daily blog has gotten me motivated to keep working on a personal project, instead of putting it aside when I get too busy with paying jobs. And it's great getting feedback from people when I post my daily links to Facebook. So far, I've gotten a hell of a lot accomplished and I'd like to thank you for cultivating the 365 blog idea.

See what Homeboy is up to daily HERE.

iRobot365

And a bonus post today!

Sean Smith, whose skull3sixfive project I just posted, started another project the day after he finished that one! This time it's a daily comic strip "based on the exploits of a little alien robot that gets mistakenly abandoned on earth." called iRobot365...

Why did you decide to do this project? About ¾ through my last 365 project I started to think about what to for 2011. I wanted to pick a theme but in a style that would challenge me. Creating a comic strip daily will certainly stretch my creativity both with story and art!

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? Well the first one went up today – felt good to be doing something different! We will see where it goes to!

Follow Sean's Robot hi-jinks on Flickr HERE.