Nat Gertler Interview: Follow Up

I am always surprised by any evidence that people are actually reading and paying attention to what I post on this little blog; evidence such as the comment on my reposting of my 2005 interview with Nat Gertler from Nat himself.  He was succinct, asking simply "Got any follow-up questions?"

Well, after giving it a couple of minutes of thought, it turns out I did, and, since I still had Nat's e-mail address from that earlier interview, I sent them off to him.  Below are my questions and Nat Gertler's responses:

When did 24 Hour Comics Day move to the first weekend in October? And why?

The event moved to the early fall in 2006 at the request of the event hosts - there were several reasons, but the most predominant was that they felt they could better get students involved if it was toward the beginning of the school year.

Any plans to publish any more 24 Hour Comics anthologies?

After the first one, the books were a very popular thing to try to get into, not nearly as popular to purchase, alas. I did five of them all told to shrinking returns. I've had some thoughts about doing another 24 Hour Comics Day Highlights one under a different financial and editorial set-up, but I'm cautious -- in the past, people started seeing the Day as a contest to get into the anthology, and I don't think that's the healthiest way to view the event. The contest is between you and the clock.
What else has About Comics published recently?  

We're actually just coming to the end of a very quiet period in About Comics history, due to a combination of factors - the birth of my son a year ago, creative delays on a couple in-the-works projects, and my taking on projects for other publishers - most notably The Peanuts Collection, which is coming out from Little Brown toward the end of the month. But the second non-printing of The Blank Comic Book just got produced and will soon be publicly announced, our collection of Paul Chadwick and Steve Perry's jungle girl comic Salimba heads to the printer this month. And even bigger things are in the works! 

And I've been wondering what the record is for the most 24 Hour Comics completed by one person.

The person I know of who claims the most is Dave Chelsea, who I believe is at a round dozen at the moment. Me, I've only done three; tomorrow I'm going for my fourth. That's part of the joy of no longer running the event myself (I passed it off to ComicsPRO); I now get to participate!
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A DOZEN!  Ok, well that pretty much scotches any illusions I may have held about going for the record myself.  I will, however, be attempting to create my third 24 hour comic beginning in about three hours.

Once more, I'd like to thank Nat for graciously subjecting himself to my inane inquiries, and to wish him luck with his latest attempt at a 24 hour comic.