Psst - Hey you...

Hey, you.

No, don't look over at me. Just keep doing what you were doing.

Pretend I'm not here.

Just nod if you can hear me.

Uh-huh.

International Literature Conspiracy Week is coming. Yes, you heard
me. And no, don't try googling it: it has no web presence. It
exists. It just is. And now, you are part of it.

What to do? Don't despair. What to do is this:

Become part of it. Become part of it via 'Target 144'.

Because you make comics, you will make comics as part of 'Target 144'.

Yes you will.

There are 144 hours between 12 midday on Monday 9 February and 12
midday on Saturday 14 February. In those 144 hours, those six days,
those 6 x 24 hours, you will make a comic.

Yes you will. And that comic will concern itself precisely with that
time, those 144 hours, what's happenin, what's runnin through your
noggin, what's up and what's down in the big glad world. IN those six
days. And to prove that your comic IS made in those days, is done on
them, you need to include a paste-up from a newspaper or some other
date-bearing piece of officialdom, from those days.

Now, not that Sticky has ANYthing to do with Project 144, at all, but
you should come to the first 6 of the 144 hours which will be held
there, in that little underground grotto underneath Degraves Street,
on the way to Flinders Street Station, under Flinders Street itself.
I will shower you in coffee and chocolate as long as my modest stipend
allows. So that's on Monday 9 February from 12 midday until 6pm: come
along and get your... story, your book on its way.

And then, once the 144 have ended, from 12 midday until 4pm or so on
Saturday 14 February (smootchy smootchy, Saint Valentino...) there'll
be something of an utterly unadvertised, non-publicised, uber-secret
gathering of the 'Target 144' comickers (that's you) and the 'Target
144' zinesters (that's others), with copies of your book which you've
printed up and can sell/swap. (If you can't get in on the Saturday,
you can drop copies of your book off earlier in the week in a box at
Sticky (which, again, is unequivocally not affiliated with said
Festival).

So that's one way your work will get 'out there' as the hip and 'with
it' folks say. The other way is, I (don't look around, or you might
recognise me, and then the whole thing will be ruined), I'm gonna
print me up an A5 booklet of all the 'Target 144' comics I can get me
greasy mitts on. It's gonna be low-fi fotocopied. So after you've
swapped and sold to your heart's form and content on that Saturday,
you gets your files to me and I spends me some time at Kinkos. And
THOSE books go to...actually, I can't tell you. You understand.

Now this is a golden chance to belt something out over less than a
week, and dream up your own rules: 6 pages, 10 pages, 144 panels, left
hand drawing, no pencils, all in biro, brush straight to the page, do
what you will, as old Al Crowley says. Whatever it is that stops you
making comics, dash it to one side. It's like making a 24 hour comic,
but with more sleeping.

But not much more.

Target 144.

International Literature Conspiracy Week.

Don't talk.

Just draw.

Shhh.

Bernard Caleo
Proprietor
Cardigan Comics
www.cardigancomics.com
www.anislandart.blogspot.com