What you would do with a blank comic book!

We asked you, and you were full of good ideas.

• Bring it to a comic book convention to have all the writers and artists sign or do sketches in.
• Pass it around for comics jams, exquisite corpse, and other forms of shared storytelling.
• Cut up a regular comic book story and then have kids try to repaste them in the blank comic book in the right order.
• Read and reread the blank pages until you enter a deep meditative state and become one with the universe.
• Keep one copy slabbed as a testament to the Eternal Blank Page, and use that as a goad to inspire you to write more.
• Paste in all those Marvel Value Stamps you cut out of your comics when you were a kid.
• Do community sociological research by getting 24 members of a community to each fill out one page on a topic of interest to the community.
• Scrapbook the Letters of Comment you have had published.
• Take all the pieces of comics too far loved to restore and use them to make your own art book/fumetti comic.
• Get it professionally graded and slabbed. Finally, a comic that no one will complain about being sealed away!
• Place it on the counter of a comic shop for a community creative project.
• Make character guidebooks and histories for a comic book-based role playing games.
• Give them to kids to use as a very portable sketchbook.

The Grand Prize Entry

"I just turned 30 this week and I've been reflecting on my life and all of the ups and downs. So with a blank comic, I would want to create a keepsake that highlighted my life's big moments and the comics that I was reading at the time.

"I want my children to pick this book up one day and feel they knew their dad from the panels I attach to each page and stories that I wrote alongside explaining why that issue was mentioned there. My first issue, the first issue that made me cry, the issue I read on my wedding day, or the Daredevil comic I read when my dad had a heart attack. I'll probably use more than one book as I continue to get older. On the last few pages of the last book, I want to write a list of comics that would go to friends and family when I pass and why I selected that comic for that person."

--Jonathan Soweidy of Denver, Colorado

For his entry, Jonathan will receive his choice of one of three prize packs:

• Comics Creation Celebration Pack: Panel One: Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers, Panel Two: More Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers, 24 Hour Comics, 24 Hour Comics All-Stars, 24 Hour Comics Day Highlights 2004, and 24 Hour Comics Day Highlights 2006
• Comics Fun Pack: Charles M. Schulz's It's Only a Game and Schulz's Youth, Kurt Busiek's The Liberty Project, Lela Dowling's Alice, Evanier & Spiegle's Crossfire volume 1, Evanier & Meugniot's DNAgents volume 1, The Licensable BearTM Big Book of Officially Licensed Fun, and Comics Jam War
• Blank Comics Pack: 50 copies (10 five-packs) of The Blank Comic Book.

Runners up were Chris Leake, for wanting to put it on the counter of the comic shop he owns, Ninja Pirate in Pflugerville, Texas; Doug Burke of Utah, for wanting to use them as role playing guides; David Oakes of Chandler, Arizona, for wanting to archive letters of comment and value stamps; and John Baird of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a variety community collaborative concepts. Each will receive their choice of one book from the above-listed packs.

The Blank Comic Book is listed under the publisher About Comics in the December Previews. Shipping in February 2009, each five-pack carries a suggested retail price of $9.95 US.

About Comics is offering a pack of five of these standard comics-sized (6 5/8" by 10 3/16") 24 page blank booklets for a suggested retail price of $9.95 US. They are being offered via Diamond Comics Distributors December 2008 Previews catalog, and will reach comic book stores in February, 2009. ISBN: 0-9790750-7-6, ISBN-13: 978-0-97907507-0

The Blank Comic Book

Final cover art.