Art & Story Supreme 03 – Supreme Mini-Comics
September 20, 2010 by Jerzy
Filed under Art & Story Supreme, Monthly Supreme Shows
This time it’s all about how supreme mini-comics are as a format for comics storytelling! We discuss the immediacy of telling a story through mini-comics, why beginning cartoonists should explore this format before jumping into that graphic novel, and some of the methods we’ve used to make “boutique” minis.
Some links mentioned in this episode:
- Speedball Screen Printing Starter Kit
- Gocco Printers
- Kevin’s The World’s Worst Assassin mini
- Mark’s Echoes From Asteroid X mini
- Sara Turner’s The Cherished Collection of Emily Van Wart mini
- Jerzy’s The Black Hole Equation minis
- Demophon’s excellent video tutorial on making a mini-zine
Follow Mark, Jerzy, and Kevin on Twitter!
Discuss this in the Forum!
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Hello! A4 is 21cm x 29.7cm – almost US letter-sized, but slightly cleverer, in that if you fold it in half, it’s exactly proportional to the full-sized sheet – the aspect ratio is identical. Which is great for mini-comics; you can draw at A4 size, reduce to A5 or A6, and the aspect ratio is the same. Very handy!
History: Mini-comics are generally held to have started in the late ’70s/early ’80s with guys like Bruce Chrislip and Matt Feazell — unless you count Tijuana Bibles in the ’20s, which were conventionally printed, but very small and totally underground (and illegal in copyright terms) in content. But the modern, xeroxed mini comes from that ’70s-’80s period. They’re generally considered to have grown out of the underground comix movement, like you said.
Ashcans go back to at least the 1930s, probably earlier. Whiz Comics #1 (first Captain Marvel comic) was famously only ever printed as an ashcan, which is why the first issue to hit newsstands was confusingly called #2.
I’m like this at parties.
- Retrospective Roger