Well that was a tough one. I'd done this for the past three years, and it's always tough keeping up with drawing while you're doing the thing you're drawing, every hour.

So this time I thought I'd make it really easy on myself, by just doing one panel representing each hour, instead of a little story each time. Not a good plan. There's just not enough interest or continuity, at least not the way I was doing it; I still suspect with more thought it could've worked. 

And, of course, I had a funeral to go to. I had intended to show that hour, somehow. But I didn't know that the reception would take such a large part of the day (I'm glad, as it was a very very necessary and good thing) and in the end it just felt wrong to put any of this in a comic. 

But I'd started with the morning, and decided I had to carry on even with this massive hole in the middle and even with my dissatisfaction with the whole thing. My heart just wasn't in it, though, and the drawings are more terrible than usual. Why did I feel so compelled to finish?

Might just give it a miss next year! 

So there was this thing called Hourly Comic Day on 1st February.  In February last year, I had yet to have drawn even one single comic, but this time I heard about it somehow and thought I'd have a go.  The idea, as far as I understand, is simple: one draws something about one's real life for every hour of being awake on the day.  Lots of people post these hourlies on twitter throughout the day.  I didn't as I was mostly playing catch-up, for obvious reasons, but I'm not even sure if this is "allowed" or should we be completing each hour within the actual hour...?

Anyway, given that the Day in question was a Sunday, and therefore included a non-negotiable long run (six weeks from the end of marathon training), three of the hours were all about running, and the ones before that were about getting ready for the run, and a few after that were about recovering from said run.  So not the most interesting of days, and not the most drawable on the spot, either!  

And I'm afraid I simply ran out of time and/or out of energy in the evening.... still inking earlier hours, trying to catch up... so it all ends abruptly after 8pm.  But what a fun idea!  It seems to take place on 1 Feb every year, so could be any day of the week; next year that date falls on a Monday which should be a day with more variety in it!

It's easier to see the whole lot over on tumblr  

Note: 17-year-old son wishes to make it clear that the brussels sprouts at 7pm were in fact peeled and cut by him, not by me as he thinks this implies.