I'm generally willing for whatever theme folks decide on.
For me, I think, the main challenge of the "Every Picture Tells a Story" theme is that I usually find coming up with subject-matter to be the most difficult thing. Most other themes suggest a topic that helps to narrow down ideas, and then if you are deciding for yourself which characters you'd like to do, that often helps narrow it down even more. But for this one, the topic is really wide open, and that's when I find it harder to come up with something.
Still, I think it would be a really interesting challenge!
Folks who are worried about the amount of work represented by a multi-panel piece can take heart from a few things. One: if the only requirement is that it be multi-panel, then don't forget that "multiple" can also mean "two". If you're trying to tell a story via sequential art, you can do that in just two panels. (Technically, you can of course show a story in ONE panel, but that isn't "sequential art".) So start thinking about it like that -- "I only really have to draw two pictures that go together". Obviously, you can get more ambitious than that (although I really like the idea that this theme would put an upper limit on it, too), but if you're trying to assure yourself that you really can do it, start out thinking of it that way. If you've got months and months to do it in, you can surely do two panels, right?
Two: there are plenty of mechanical tricks you can use to cut down on the amount of sheer work that multiple panels can be, so that's another way of reassuring yourself that multiple panels isn't such a daunting task.
Windrider kindly pointed at a multi-panel piece I did as an example,
and one of the key things about that piece is that I totally did NOT redraw each panel from scratch each time. So I didn't need to do four complete drawings. I drew various elements and re-used them from panel to panel (like the sleeping wolves, the sheep skull, and the postures of the sitting elves). Yes, I inked and colored each separately, which helps keep them from looking completely the same. But in cases where I needed to change something from the previous panel only slightly, I used a lightbox so that the previous drawing became a foundation for the next one. So again, the finished product is less ACTUAL work than it looks like.
If we end up going with this theme, maybe it will be a good idea to start up a thread in the forum for people to share tips and tricks, and to ask for advice on how to tackle certain kinds of projects?
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