A comic jam is a creative process where one or more comics artists collaborates on drawing or painting one single

comic a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

. Often the process is that one artist creates the first page, and then another artist creates the second, and a third does the next, and so on. There is no script that the artists work from, and the content of the comics is improvised. Any given artist working on a comic jam makes a page based solely on what happened on the previous page. Variations include each artist contributing a single panel, or set of two or three panels, and then passing it on to the next participant. The cartoonists of the seminal underground anthology ''

Zap Comix ''Zap Comix'' is an underground comix series which was originally part of the youth counterculture of the late 1960s. While a few small-circulation self-published satirical comic books had been printed prior to this, ''Zap'' became the model for ...

'' were known for contributing a jam comic to each issue of ''Zap'' from around issue #3 onward.

Notable examples

* ''Jam-Jar!'' (San Francisco Comic Book Company, 1972) — Larry Bigman,

Scott Shaw Scott Shaw (born 23 September 1958 in Los Angeles, California) is an American author, martial artist, and filmmaker. Career Scott Shaw is an advanced martial artist. He has written a number of books on the martial arts. Shaw has written a numb ...

, David Gibson, John Pound, Roger Freedman, Phil Yeh * ''Zam'' (''Zap Jam'') (Print Mint, 1974) — a whole comic featuring the seven-member ''

'' collective:

Gilbert Shelton Gilbert Shelton (born May 31, 1940) is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the iconic underground characters ''The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers'', ''Fat Freddy's Cat'', and '' Wonder W ...

Robert Crumb Robert Dennis Crumb (; born August 30, 1943) is an American cartoonist and musician who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contem ...

Spain Rodriguez Manuel Rodriguez (March 2, 1940 – November 28, 2012), better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, was an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman. His experiences on the road with the motorcycle club, the Road Vultures M ...

S. Clay Wilson Steve Clay Wilson (July 25, 1941 – February 7, 2021) was an American underground cartoonist and central figure in the underground comix movement. Wilson attracted attention from readers with aggressively violent and sexually explicit panoramas ...

Victor Moscoso Victor Moscoso (born July 28, 1936) is a Spanish–American artist best known for producing psychedelic rock posters, advertisements, and underground comix in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s. He was the first of the rock poster artists of ...

Rick Griffin Richard Alden "Rick" Griffin (June 18, 1944 – August 18, 1991) was an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. As a contributor to the underground comix movement, his work appeared regularly in ...

, &

Robert Williams Robert, Rob, Robbie, Bob or Bobby Williams may refer to: Entertainment Film * Robert Williams (actor, born 1894) (1894–1931), American stage and film actor * Robert B. Williams (actor) (1904–1978), American film actor * R. J. Williams (born ...

* ''

The Spirit The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter created by cartoonist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940, as the main feature of a 16-page, tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book insert distributed in the Sunday edition of Register and Tri ...

'' #30 (Kitchen Sink, July 1981) — script and a few penciled pages by

Will Eisner William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series ''The Spirit'' (1940–1952) was no ...

, with contributions from 50 artists, including

Fred Hembeck Fred Hembeck (born January 30, 1953) is an American cartoonist best known for his parodies of characters from major American comic book publishers. His work has frequently been published by the firms whose characters he spoofs. His characters are ...

Trina Robbins Trina Robbins (born Trina Perlson; August 17, 1938, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American cartoonist. She was an early participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the first female artists in that movement. In the 1980s, Robbins bec ...

Steve Leialoha Steve Leialoha (born January 27, 1952) is an American comics artist whose work first came to prominence in the 1970s. He has worked primarily as an inker, though occasionally as a penciller, for several publishers, including Marvel Comics and lat ...

Frank Miller Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957) is an American comic book writer, penciller and inker, novelist, screenwriter, film director, and producer known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on ''Daredevil'' and subsequen ...

Harvey Kurtzman Harvey Kurtzman (; October 3, 1924 – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and editor. His best-known work includes writing and editing the parodic comic book '' Mad'' from 1952 until 1956, and writing the '' Little An ...

Howard Cruse Howard Cruse (May 2, 1944 – November 26, 2019) was an American alternative cartoonist known for the exploration of gay themes in his comics. First coming to attention in the 1970s during the underground comix movement with ''Barefootz'', he w ...

Brian Bolland Brian Bolland (; born 26 March 1951)Salisbury, Mark, ''Artists on Comic Art'' ( Titan Books, 2000) , p. 11 is a British comics artist. Best known in the United Kingdom as one of the definitive Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology ' ...

Bill Sienkiewicz Boleslav William Felix Robert Sienkiewicz ( ; born May 3, 1958) is an American artist known for his work in comic books—particularly for Marvel Comics' ''New Mutants'', ''Moon Knight,'' and ''Elektra: Assassin''. Sienkiewicz's work in the 1980s ...

, John Byrne, and

Richard Corben Richard Corben (October 1, 1940December 2, 2020) was an American illustrator and comic book artist best known for his comics featured in '' Heavy Metal'' magazine, especially the '' Den'' series which was featured in the magazine's first film a ...

* ''

Heroes for Hope ''Heroes for Hope: Starring the X-Men'' is a 1985 Marvel comic book designed to raise awareness about hunger in Africa. Proceeds from the comic went to the American Friends Service Committee, to assist in their work on behalf of African famine r ...

'' (Marvel Comics, 1985) * ''

Heroes Against Hunger ''Heroes Against Hunger'' is a 1986 all-star benefit comic book for African famine relief and recovery. Published by DC Comics in the form of a "comic jam" or exquisite corpse, the book starred Superman and Batman. Spearheaded by Jim Starlin and ...

'' (DC Comics, 1986) * ''

Sisterson ''Sisterson!'' was a short-run comic book which ran for three or four issues around 1990 and was circulated among London comic shops. "Sisterson!" was a "Comic jam, jam comic", i.e., a collection of comic strips each of which was an unplanned co ...

'' (London, c. 1990) * ''

The Narrative Corpse ''The Narrative Corpse'' is a chain story, or comic jam, by 69 all-star cartoonists based on ''Le Cadavre Exquis'' (see Exquisite corpse), a popular game played by André Breton and his surrealist friends to break free from the constraints of ...

'' (Gates of Heck, 1995)

External links

"Comicjams.net"
the oldest and largest website for online comic jams Comics terminology Collaborative fiction {{comics-stub

Notable examples

See also

External links