Over 800 cartoonists worldwide celebrated 24 Hour Comics Day this year, when cartoonists are challenged to try to create 24 pages of comics in 24 straight hours. Nat Gertler, founder of the day, sifted through the hundreds of submitted stories to find 24 gems, in a range of genres including humor, horror, western and autobiography. Some come from well-established comics creators like Zander Cannon (Top Ten, Replacement God) and Ben Avery (Imaginaries, The Hedge Knight), others come from people who have never created a comics story before. And for those who have not noticed the rise of the female cartoonists, half of the stories chosen for the book are from women, whether pros like Lea Hernandez (Hardy Boys, Cathedral Child) and Svetlana Chmakova (creator of Tokyopop's Dramacon) or brand new voices on the comics scene.