(with thanks to Stephen Downey): Creator Owned Day returns Wednesday 5th March 2014, this year’s event following two previous annual challenges that saw comic creators writing and drawing up new characters, readers celebrating their favourite creator-owned series and a trending topic on Twitter (#CreatorOwnedDay).
Creators from across the globe involved in previous events include Deirdre De Barra, Brett Booth, Stephen Byrne, Ruairí Coleman, Stephen Downey, Francisco Francavilla, Paul Grist, Jamal Igle, Tom Raney, Dave Stokes, Geoffrey D. Wessel and Christian Wildegoose.
Here’s a quick recap of the challenge details:
Create a sketch of an original character or concept and and post it on your Blog, Twitter etc on Wednesday 5th March. It should be a concept completely owned by the artist (or co-owned with the writer/collaborators permission to post).
Why? A number of reasons:
1. A lot of reader and creator focus is on characters owned by larger corporations. Let’s bring a little spotlight on creating brand new, creator owned concepts.
2. Bringing a little awareness to the business side of co-creating original content. Take a look at Jeff Parker’s article and follow up comments on the subject. Co-creators can take this opportunity as a little trial run, just make sure to have a mutual agreement in advance.
3. Fun! A few creators discussed the idea on Twitter and thought it was a great opportunity to create something entirely new, while bringing attention to these sketches.
The details:
1. Create a sketch of a new character/character you own. The creators involved are doing this primarily to get our imaginations running, so a concept specifically created for Creator Owned Day is probably ideal. It should not be a character owned by either a company – for example, Marvel’s Wolverine – or owned by other creators – such as Todd McFarlane’s Spawn. It also shouldn’t take distinct features from characters owned by others – for example, Wolverspawn. You must own the character.
2. Post the art on your blog, or Facebook, Twitter etc.
3. Share your post using the Twitter hashtag #CreatorOwnedDay
4. Help spread the word by retweeting your favourite new characters
I’m looking forward to seeing what crators come up with!
• You can search #CreatorOwnedDay on Twitter for highlights over the last two years, but I’ve attached a few out of the many here as well
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
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