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Shannon Smith On Shawn Hoke And Mini-Comics Right Now
posted August 21, 2009
 

1) I join you thanking Shawn.

2) This was not really the point of your post and I could be misreading but you refer to mini-comics as a "worthy and maybe even fading element of comics expression." If you had asked me in 2006 or 2007 I might have said that mini-comics were fading. A lot of the best players in the game were moving on to other formats and it seemed like a lot of the talent that might fill that void was either jumping ship to webcomics or just jumping straight into larger works. But looking at the past year and a half I feel that mini-comics are growing and getting better at a promising rate. At least that is what the huge unread box of mini-comics in my basement tells me when it mocks me and my busy life. It's also what the huge duffel bag of already-read yet un-reviewed minicomics tells me when it mocks the pained look it causes my face to make when I lug it everywhere I go. What is the difference between a couple of years ago and now? I doubt it is any one specific thing but I personally am seeing stacks and stacks of quality mini-comics from students of the various colleges that now feature comics and cartooning curriculum. I'm also seeing more writers use the format as a way to work with artists and get ideas on paper. And of course there are a lot of webcomics guys putting minis together to have something to pass around at shows. Will these trends continue? I hope so. Even if my unread box and un-reviewed bag get heavier. Of course my perspective on this could be totally skewed. Most of the shows I got to are close enough to GA for a lot of SCAD students to attend and if I’m doing any sort of decent job with file under other then I should suspect that the submissions would increase rather than decrease. Mini-comics are such an odd and regional thing that it is hard to gauge.