Mini Comics

Having recovered from Chicago, I wander the aisles of MoCCA Fest, discovering four-color (or one-color) wonderments!

Tom Neely's HENRY AND GLENN FOREVER comic is a classic mini that envisions two punk icons -- Black Flag's Henry Rollins (once of Black Flag) and Glenn Danzig (once in the Misfits) -- as a gay couple with sitcom problems -- dealing with jealousy, having Hall and Oates over for dinner. Imagine a punk METALOCALYPSE you can put in your pocket. Danzig -- a notoriously feisty scrapper who's been known to pop people in the snoot and once was a credible choice to play Wolverine -- is no stranger to comics. He once ran his own Verotik line and was a pioneer of the comics Nerdlebrity. However, his reaction to the comic has been crabby ranting. Now Rollins, who is also a published poet and photographer, has gone on the record with his own response, in a video interview with Narduwar the Serviette. The bit begins at about 6:18.

Some people just talk about the dream -- Dean Haspiel is living it. Not only is he a cartoonist with a following, the fashion-forward originator of a whole shirtless artist look and an Emmy-winner: now he's managed to get rid of all his old junk donate his "massive hoard" of minicomics to the Library of Congress. A few months ago it was announced that the Library of Congress is now starting an SPX collection which will assemble comics from SPX exhibitors but also items they donate. The LoC is wary of having tons of other people's weird old crap dumped on them; however, the minicomics collection is just the kind of essential folk art that the LoC was created to preserve. We were totally joking about this collection being a lot of junk above, BTW. Dean is a fanatical collector (like a lot of us) but he keeps his stuff NEAT. Ignatz coordinator Eden Miller writes more about the collection:

An anthology of Box Brown's much lauded EVERYTHING DIES mini-comic and webcomic is now available. Winner of two Ignatz Awards, EVERYTHING DIES deals with various historical and religious takes on the end of the world, second comings, death, and other eschatological matters. This Lulu-produced collection includes selections from both versions of the strip. Brown's THE SURVIVALIST is also available for pre-order and will be at BCGF this Saturday.

The Maisie Kukoc Award, presented to a mini-comic of merit as part of the Stumptown Festival, was given to Damian Jay for The Natural World #3-4

Better late than never, new stuff by Austin English, Chuck Forsman, Rina Piccolo, and dozens more!!!!

by Brady Russell

S.P.A.C.E. is the Midwest's answer to the Small Press Expo,  founded twelve years ago by Bob Corby, as a show that comics creators without a huge following could afford to go to. I've known about it for a long time and always wanted to go. After attending SPX myself for the first time in 1999, I came home and started Googling creators I had met, and I think it was searching for Suzanne Baumann that I found out about S.P.A.C.E. for the first time. The photos made the show look much smaller, much simpler than SPX, which even ten years ago, at the original location, was a pretty crowded scene.

The SPACE Prize, given to the best publications presented at the SPACE indie comics show held yearly in Columbus, OH., have just been announced, and they are:

As SPX '10 thoughts still swirl in the indie community, Frank Santoro looks back and swirls about why mini-comics no longer feel fresh to him:

An epic of the Aughts.

Jim Rugg writes to tell us he'll be debuting a new mini comic at SPACE tomorrow, and -- as befits one of our most POPULAR categories here on The Beat -- gave us an exclusive peek:

Dylan Williams is the founder of Sparkplug Comic Books, art film/used bookstore owner , and guy behind the scenes in many of Portland's comic and independent press events. A few months back, I sent Dylan some questions for an article on Diamond for PW Comics, expecting a few short answers, and when I got his responses, I wanted to print them all.