'Creator Owned Day' Challenge Returns Next Week

The Troll of Tower Bridge, Stephen Downey's 2012 entry for 'Creator Owned Day Challenge' © Stephen Downey. More info on the Troll here

You might remember that last March, artist Stephen Downey and others came up with the 'Creator Owned Day' Challenge, where comic creators would create a wholly new, creator owned concept and post it on their blogs, Twitter etc.

The Challenge ended up a trending topic on Twitter (and indeed, has its own Twitter account), with lots of artists and writers taking part, readers celebrating their favourite creator owned books and, people like Steve Niles and Jimmy Palmiotti using the event to announce their Creator Owned Heroes book.

The challenge is running again next Tuesday, 5th March and we're more than happy to help spread the word about it and circulate the Challenge details, which are as follows...

Create a sketch of an original character or concept and and post it on your Blog, Twitter etc on Tuesday 5th March. It should be a concept completely owned by the artist (or co-owned with the writer/collaborators permission to post).

Why? A number of reasons:

1. A lot of reader and creator focus is on characters owned by larger corporations. Let's bring a little spotlight on creating brand new, creator owned concepts.
2. Bringing a little awareness to the business side of co-creating original content. Take a look at Jeff Parker's 2012 article on co-creation and follow up comments on the subject. Co-creators can take this opportunity as a little trial run, just make sure to have a mutual agreement in advance.
3. Fun! A few creators discussed the idea on Twitter and thought it was a great opportunity to create something entirely new, while bringing attention to these sketches. 

The details:

1. Create an sketch of a new character/character you own. The creators who set this up are doing this primarily to get their imaginations - and all other creators running, so a concept specifically created for Creator Owned Day is probably ideal.
2. It should NOT be a character owned by either a company eg. Marvel's Wolverine, OR owned by other creators e.g. Todd McFarlane's Spawn. It also shouldn't take distinct features from characters owned by others e.g. Wolverspawn You must own the character.
3. Post it on your blog, or Facebook, Twitter etc.
4. Share your post using the Twitter hashtag #CreatorOwnedDay.
5. Help spread the word by retweeting your favourite new characters.

• You can follow Creator Owned Day on Twitter or Stephen Downey's own account on Twitter to see retweets of the best from the day. Here's more info on Stephen's creation from last year, the Troll of Tower Bridge, if you need a little inspiration.
• More details are on Stephen's blog: www.stephendowneygallery.com/2013/02/creator-owned-day-2013.html