#shortbox digital comics fair

[bennizone]

FINAL DAY.

I'm at a loss for words - releasing this comic has been so amazing. The reception has touched me so deeply, your support means so much to me. THANK YOU, and to anybody picking up the comic today; I hope you enjoy it!!

CLICK HERE TO READ STAGNATION SEED

[plaest2k]

as an apology for not posting enough here on tumblr, please have some early character concepts for Expiry Date (available now at the ShortBox Comics Fair) <3

[laweyd]

All the compiled illustrations I drew for my horror comic «It all Ends with Me»

Only 3 DAYS LEFT to grab a digital copy at the ShortBox Comics Fair !!

[sajanrai]

A Grey, a Gnome and a Shakespeare escape from jail. You can grab my 2024 shortbox fair comic 'Alas' here. 20 pages of idiocy

[aluhnim]

My comic, The Things We Carve, is available on ShortBox Comics Fair for FREE!

It's available for the month as a PDF, and I hope you all enjoy it!

[cartoonistcoop]

ShortBox Comics Member Interview: Sloane Hong

Throughout the month of October, the Cartoonist Cooperative will be sharing interviews with members of the Co-op who have a new comic available at the ShortBox Comics Fair 2024! 

NOTE: The Cartoonist Cooperative is not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way formally connected with ShortBox.  

Today’s spotlight is Sloane Hong ( @plaest2k ) and their new comic for ShortBox, Expiry Date.

We’d love it if you could introduce yourself and tell us about your background in comics.

Sloane Hong: Kia ora, my name is Sloane Hong (she/her), I’m a Korean-tauiwi illustrator, comic artist and tattooer based in Aotearoa, New Zealand. I only started making comics professionally about five years ago but they’ve always been a significant part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Tell us more about your new comic?

SH: Expiry Date is an erotic, body horror, sci-fi short story about coming home from a long day at your shitty, minimum-wage job, crashing on your couch and fantasizing about how fucking good it would feel to just die.

I mean, it’s also about transness, labour rights, our relationship with our bodies and death under capitalism, etc but it’s mostly about shitty jobs.

My friend described it as “what if David Cronenberg was a transsexual dyke who grew up reading ero-guro”.

What are some early experiences as a cartoonist that shaped you or your process?

SH: My brother’s also an artist, probably better than I could ever be, and I basically owe any good taste I might have to him. Growing up, I always got home from school first so I’d sneak into his room to admire his drawings and read his comics. He had most of the usual stuff you’d find on any Korean kid’s shelf in the 90’s: Akira Toriyama, Masamune Shirow, Yoshito Usui, etc, and a couple of Korean manhwa that are all now damn-near impossible to find. As he got older, he started getting into American comics and brought home stuff like R. Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Fletcher Hanks, etc from the library.

But it’s not just that I had someone to introduce me to all this stuff, it’s the fact I’m six years younger than him and he was already reading this stuff earlier than most. So I think I started looking at all those misanthropic underground comics by horny white men when I was, like, what… about 10 years old?

Besides my brother, the trauma of working shitty jobs for years on end, The Terrible Boredom of Paradise, and this weird and fucked up miracle we call life are probably the wellsprings of both my inspiration and ceaseless burnout. 

Tell us about your creative process; how did you develop this comic and what are the steps you took to bring it to the final stage?

SH: I did something really stupid for the 2023 ShortBox Comics Fair. I have ADHD and one of the many ways it manifests is that I have a debilitating habit of overthinking my stories. “Are the themes too obvious? Is it too heavy handed? Are the motivations for this character clear enough? Is this the right way to phrase this? Is this the right word? Is this the right letter? Is this the right punctuation?” etc, etc.

On paper, it probably sounds like something every writer goes through but when I say debilitating, I mean interferes-with-my-ability-to-live-a-normal-life-kind of debilitating. It’s kind of impossible to articulate how bad it was but it got to a point where I was so sick of myself and all the stories I never finished that I said fuck it–maybe if I just jump into a comic with nothing but a stupid premise, no planning and an impending deadline, I won’t have time to think about all these inconsequential details. So I sat down and forced myself to write, pencil and ink a comic, page-by-page.

It was essentially an exercise in automatism: I was still thinking about draftsmanship, composition, flow and everything but I kinda just let the story tell itself by writing/ drawing whatever felt like a natural progression for the narrative.

That was how I ended up with Marrow, which was kinda funny because the whole point was to make a goofy, low-stakes comic about nothing to circumvent the pressure of having to write anything good. Instead I’d inadvertently made something that was layered and deeply intimate and won the sci-fi category in the 2024 Minicomic Awards. But, more importantly, the whole process helped bring everything together. It reminded me of something I used to tell young artists: developing a style isn’t something you really set out to do, it’s something that just happens. You don’t practice drawing to get better at drawing; you do it to better channel your voice. It’s only when you can stop thinking about how to move your hand that your heart can take the lead.

I’d forgotten my own advice. I was so concerned about the technical details of how to write a story that I was basically assembling components rather than writing anything at all. Marrow helped me realize I’d already internalized everything I needed to write long ago. I just needed to stop thinking.

Expiry Date was a continuation of that process and made in basically the same way. There was just significantly less stress involved now that I knew I could trust myself.

Mostly.

Read the rest of the interview HERE! And dont forget to check out the Shortbox Comics Fair to support these lovely creators!!

[sobsannix]

A day in life of a freelance arsonist? some sketches and notes on what life could possibly be like for my comic's character Aries.

Last 7 days of Shortbox Comics Fair! Hope you can check out my comic before the fair ends! link: https://shortboxcomicsfair.com/shop-sq4wj/p/freelance-arsonist-by-sobsannix

-

twitter | ig | shop

[juangeedraws]

my sci-fi murder mystery comic A THREE BODY PROBLEM is now available for a limited time only at the Shortbox Comics Fair 2023 ✌️✌️

SB Comics Fair is an exhibition of 100+ all-new, original, independent digital comics available now and throughout the whole of October!

A survey astronaut, Io, unravels the murder of a private eye and his final unsolved case! The strange thing is, they're both cyborgs of the same model...

If you want to read about cyborgs, clones, and capitalism, this one's for you.

support me by getting a copy here:

[bogkeep]

"how could i leave you here all alone?"

[osric to accompany this piece, from blade of the fane by @theoplum]

[riotb0nes]

last day to grab my comic at the shortbox comics fair!

please check out all the amazing comics you can get!! ill also be donating 25% of all earnings to humanitarian aid for palestinians. please donate if you can!

[camccaff]

Baptism in the Mud, my new 62-page gothic queer fantasy comic, is out right now at the Shortbox Comics Fair!

Em is a magic, living doll who has, without precedent, fallen in love with a human. As Em struggles with how they fit into that relationship, they hear rumors of a life-granting deity, then venture into the woods to ask the mysterious goddess for a feeling, human body.

[bennizone]

STAGNATION SEED (SBCF COMIC) ⚙️"Newly heartbroken (again), Candy accepts her doting roommate Violetta's offer - to build a perfect android-lover. But as metal takes form in Vio's hands, the two are faced with what they’ve been repressing; Roots are sprouting. The inevitable is coming."⚙️

READ NOW!

[toumeyart]

My new 56 page interactive comic Avoiding Work at the Sunny Day Cafe and Bakery is available now at the Shortbox Comics Fair!

“Cat’s ultimate goal for any work day is to do as little as possible, but over enthusiastic new hire Kiki is making it difficult. Help Cat slack off, poke into her co-worker’s business, and maybe even find the source of the Morning Smell…”

Avoiding Work at the Sunny Day Cafe and Bakery is a choose your own adventure-style comic which uses the power of interactive PDFs to let you jump between pages. There are four endings and multiple pathways to reach them.

I wanted to make an interactive comic about a lazy worker discovering weird secrets at their seemingly idyllic workplace — I worked really hard on this one and I’m super proud of how it came out! I think it’s a really fun read, so check it out!!!

[laweyd]

Friendly reminder that I made a new comic for @shortboxcomicsfair coming this October !!

It’s going to be a romantic thriller with a hint of comedy and the supernatural !

[tumorhead]

Every single comic I've read from Shortbox Comic Fair has been incredible!!!! you should buy them. uhg i'm obsessed

[hopefullythingspanout]

Shortbox Comics Fair 2024!!

I’m going to mass reblog all of the comics that I’ve picked up from this year’s fair: both as a way of keeping track of what I have and to spotlight the creators involved.

Don’t know what the heck I’m talking about? Go checkout @shortboxcomicsfair and get yourself some amazing digital comics now throughout the rest of October! After that they’re gone!!