Hourly Comic Day 2025!
Happy (belated) Hourly Comic Day! If you’re unfamiliar, February 1 is Hourly Comic Day, an informal holiday where people draw a short comic for every hour they’re awake.
It started in 2006, and was the brainchild of the artist of Pictures for Sad Children, one of my very favorite webcomics ever. (Sidenote: wherever Simone Veil is right now, I hope she’s very happy and knows how many people her artwork touched deeply)
The rules are loose, but many of us try to a panel or two for every hour, and try to draw them in real time. This makes for some very rough, sloppy, but delightfully spontaneous artwork.
I am not great at this!! For other projects, my final art goes through several sketch phases. I’m never happy with my initial drawings.
I’m jealous of artists who draw speedier and tidier lines than I do for these. But I’ve always felt like Hourly Comic Day is a good exercise for me. It gets me out of my head and my routine, and forces me to be ok with much-less-than-perfect.
I also love how it drives everyone to make art out of the ephemeral and the quotidian, all the tiny quiet moments that make up a life.
HOURLY COMICS PARTY PEOPLE: Keiler Roberts! Jessi Zabarsky! Sara Varon! Catherine Archer! Lucy Knisley! Ben Becker! Tony Breed! Go follow all of them!
I love making my own hourlies, but I really love reading everyone else’s. I love getting little peeks into how other artists spend the minutes of their days.
And that’s it! I have definitely made better Hourly Comics in past years. Looking back on these, my lines are sloppy, rushed, even lazy. These aren’t super insightful or interesting. But I often have to remind myself: perfect is the enemy of good. Hourly Comics Day is a great practice for driving home that idea. You have to work quickly in order to draw something every single hour. Perfect is neither the goal nor the point.
Things I am into lately:
• Listening to the audiobook of Tell me an Ending by Jo Harkin
• Playing Tokyo Mirage Sessions, a rerelease of a beautiful sweet idiot himbo of a JRPG, on the switch
What Toki is into lately: being held like a human baby while I’m trying to draw
1.) love the little pops of color! 2.) i see there a couple new food places for me to check out on my next trip up. 3.) never enough cheese, honestly 4.) meow meow meow
NY Bagel + Bialy is 100% the best bagels in Chicagoland! It's a bit of a hike north for me so I don't often get up there, but it's worth the trip! (also: meow meow meow meow :D )