Introducing: Zero Draft July
Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’ve got a comics project you love, whatever size, and your ideas are GREAT, but you’re struggling to start. Maybe you’ve got a script, sketches, even some pages that are looking okay, but the project somehow never moves forward. Too much of it is in your head, and it’s overwhelming to get it all out imperfectly.
…Is that ringing any bells?
That’s where a zero draft comes in.
A zero draft is a loose and wild and possibly even BAD draft of your project — the WHOLE project. The idea is to make it the fastest way possible, devil may care, from start to finish.
Why? Once you have a zero draft, you’ve got something to work with. You can sit back a little and observe your first ideas. You can start playing right away, re-imagining the obviously terrible parts before you get to refining the almost good ones. It takes the pressure off of getting something DONE.
This is a zero draft from Sam Sharpe’s sketchbook. Note the incredible loose drawings and all the crossed out bits.
FOR EVEN MORE EXAMPLES OF ZERO DRAFT STYLES FROM DIFFERENT CARTOONISTS, CHECK OUT THIS INSTAGRAM POST (AND FOLLOW THOSE RADICAL FOLKS)!
This is a zero draft for the first section of Georgia’s new comic. She uses more a thumbnail style to get all her ideas out, beginning to end.
For accountability, structure, and fun, Sam Sharpe and I are launching a new open challenge:
Zero Draft July
For the month of July, we’re encouraging and supporting comics artists to make a FULL zero draft of whatever project they want.
There will be a weekly zoom call on Sundays for 2 hours, where we can gather and support one another, either by talking through the challenge or by sitting and drawing together in silence. We are all aiming to have one COMPLETE zero draft by the end of the month!
WE’RE SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS! CREATION AND COMMUNITY IN THE SAME PLACE? WHAT A DREAM.
Looking forward to zero drafting alongside you all,
Georgia & Sam