Walking in Providence: A 24 Hour Special Edition!

The first 24 Hour Comics Day took place on August 31st, 1990, when cartoonists Scott McCloud and Steve Bisette dared each other to create a full-length, 24-page comic in the span of a single day. The challenge quickly gained traction among comic artists both pro and amateur, eventually growing to become a loosely officiated, international event in 2004. An estimated 2,000-plus artists square up to the drawing board the first Saturday of October every year, hoping to successfully complete 24-hour comics of their own.

Included in that two-thousand-something is local cartoonist Vickie Smalls. Smalls – the creator of monthly Motif feature Walking In Providence and one half of two-man comics collective Nowhere Comix – has been an annual participant in 24 Hour Comics Day since 2018.

“24HCD is a combination of several things I love: insane attention-seeking stunts, artistic masochism, and staying up all night for questionable reasons,” says Smalls. “The question isn’t so much ‘Why do this?’ as ‘Why wouldn’t you?’”

Smalls’ contribution to 24 Hour Comics Day 2021 was a 24-page, 24-hour edition of Walking In Providence, presented here in full.

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Vickie Smalls is a comics artist, writer, and illustrator currently based in Providence, Rhode Island. Smalls’ work has been published in Maximumrocknroll, the Boston Compass, and too many zines to list here. Smalls currently co-operates Nowhere Comix, a DIY small press/two-person comics collective with longtime collaborator Angus Gillett. Their latest book, “Hello Creeper,” is on sale locally at Armageddon Shop and Rah-Coco’s Collectibles (both in Providence).

Vickie Smalls can be found online at @nowherecomix on Instagram, or in real life at the back patio at the Scurvy Dog