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Can't You Hear Me Knocking v.4: Mini-Comics   Tom, Guardians of the Kingdom and Invasion are both subtle dry comedies utilizing history as a backdrop. Are you a history buff? Or do you think living in England exposes you to a different world view? Tom: I don't really know if living in England (or Scotland where I lived until 5 years ago) has much to do with it, but then I don't have experience of living anywhere else, so who knows? I wouldn't say I was a history buff, but I am interested in it, I read history books and watch programs on TV but those comics are as much inspired by Monty Python and the Holy Grail as anything factual. I certainly don't research the books, I just use bits I've seen elsewhere and like. I like that bleak medieval-style world as it's simpler than our world and allows me to reduce things to the simplest elements. Tom! Scotland! Fuck me! You're going to laugh at me for saying this but... I love the Jesus and Mary Chain. They're one of the bands that changed my life. Do they get much love back in their native Scotland? Tom: I guess the Jesus and Mary Chain have a culty sort of following in Scotland, they were never huge there but people who like them seem to absolutely love them. Joe, your books are a riot, from beginning to end. Do people expect the same from you in person after having read your work? Any crazy fans? Joe: I think people are most surprised to find out that since I started doing minis a few years ago, I'm now little more than the figurehead (and handsome face) of Sayers Publishing International. My team of writers and illustrators, though, is nuts. At the Christmas party last year, this guy Roger, who draws the character Sun, got really drunk and took all of our awards and threw them at people on the street from the executive balcony. Oh man, that was a riot. Have you ever been tempted to do something completely different? Like when Dee Dee Ramone did that rap album? Joe: Well, actually, Dee Dee and I just went back into the studio last month... Really, though, I like to do different things. I paint, do some silk screening, and play a mediocre ukulele. A little while back I decided to focus mainly on comics. I worried about spreading myself too thin. I've been branching out a bit more in comics, trying different forms. Right now I'm finishing up a choose-one's-own-adventure type story with a caveman robot. I've never done that before.  Rob, Healing Hans has to be the best title for a book I've ever heard. How did you get together with writer Matthew Craig? What's does the future hold for the worlds first Zen super hero?Rob: Matthew posted this 'artist wanted' ad on Delphi forums and I reacted to it. He thought my work was pretty interesting and said, ah what the hell. Without knowing it from each other we starred in the same British anthology, only for the sick and twisted, Commercial Suicide volume 2. This issue featured my own "When the Shit Hits the Pants" and his "Duck with a Gun" (when reading this you get the impression he was drunk and stoned at the same time) and we both featured in the British "Just1Page 2" the charity anthology for pinups. So, coincidence? As for Healing Hans is there a future for this Zen super hero? I asked the creator himself: Mathew Craig (Healing Hans writer): Quote Begins: "Healing Hans will return." Quote Ends. Healing Hans was one of four superheroes I created for a self-published comic called HERO IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD. They were really only meant to be throwaway characters - the whole book was done, notes to print, in about a week, in preparation for last year's Caption festival - but Hans just seemed to stick in my head. So, when it came time to write some stories for my portfolio, Hans seemed like the perfect character. The first story I wrote - internecine football-based pub ruckus - wasn't great, but Rob said he wanted to draw it, anyway. It was only when I realized, in the middle of a rambling email much like this one, that Hans was Scottish (it could happen: do you know how many *Henriks* have been born in Glasgow over the last few years?), that the whole origin story came flooding out. Rob liked that better, and here we are. So it's really all Rob's fault. We will do more, as time permits. I have a bundle of things which need attending to, first (such as trying to sell a few stories... people keep asking me for something called "RHENDT" whatever that is...). Rob and I have a Top Secret Short Story in the pipeline, for one. But, yes, to cut a long story short: Healing Hans will return. Rob: Damn, that Matthew can talk. Healing Hans writer Matthew Craig can be reached at http://www.thematthewcraig.com/hans.htm. Do you guys remember your first comic book? Chris: I was at a Flea Market and my dad bought me issue #222 of Amazing Spider-Man for ten cents. It was sitting on the corner of a table full of junk. The table could have had precious antiques or magical tiki heads, but all I saw was Spider-Man. That was in or around 1981. My next-door-neighbor collected comic books and he had piles and piles of them. I remember going over to his house and sitting on his bed looking at them. Just the covers, I don't think he ever let me take them out of the bag. But he made sure I saw all the key books he owned that I would never get to touch.  Rob: Phooie, long time ago. It was the Fantastic Four # ? but then in a Dutch translated series, it was done by Byrne in his prime time. In Belgium and Holland such comics came out once in the 3 months, of course they featured 3 comics and they cost lesser than the original comics (couldn't understand English this little boy). The first original comic I bought was... Drum rolls, please... BLOODSTRIKE. Yep you heard me full-action-comic-splash page-galore from the creator stable of Liefeld. I still think it's pretty good but that's more nostalgia I guess, yeah it was pretty horrible. But I am a major Rick Veitch fan, so I was surprised to see a Bloodstrike back-up story in Supreme (Alan Moore writes and Rick Veitch on flashback art). Give me your worst selling comic Mr. Veitch said, and they did, even one that was cancelled nearly a year ago. Who remembers this, shit? Ha, me. Regretless to say issue number 2 didn't get printed. Tom: I can't quite remember, but it'll have been an Asterix book. I used to love them as a kid, I'd get Tintin out of the library too, but it had too many words.Tom, Help this Yankee out. What's an Asterix book like? Tom: Asterix is a series of French album style comics for kids, like Tintin but with more slapstick and jokes, it was about a Gaul village resisting the roman occupation. Have a look at: http://www.asterix.tm.fr/. Why mini books? What are the benefits of a smaller print runs versus a large mass printing? Joe: When you're self-publishing and doing smaller print runs it gives you the freedom to try different things. I initially make about 100-150 copies of a book.  That way, if a particular idea doesn't work then I'll never print it again and I won't have spent too much money. Also I won't have a warehouse full of unsold "Drawings of my Cat Sleeping on the Couch". Tom: I actually do quite large runs of my comics (well for small comics anyway, at 1,000 copies a time) and I plan to do larger runs in the future as it's more economical. But I always try and keep the hand-made aesthetic, and to make the book a beautiful item which will feel special. I'd say that the advantage I get by doing it all myself (or with help from friends) is that I've got complete control over the finished product and can make sure that it presents my story in the best possible way. Chris: I think it has something to do with crafts. My mom is a huge craft lady who has always been working on one project or another. It's really difficult to explain, but she has done basically everything in the field of crafting and sewing: costumes, beading, stuffed animals, china dolls and quilts. You name it, she has done it.  So I've grown up appreciating the time it takes to make these things. I'm pretty sure that's why I like minis so much.Also being a graphic designer has made me appreciate paper and the types of things you can do with paper. There are amazing mini-comics out there, all shapes and sizes on all types of subjects. I still remember one year at FLUKE getting a little packet of Eleanor Davis' comics. It was 3 of them, tied together with a little string with a hangtag. They were small, no bigger than a business card. One of them had wholes punched all through it and the cartoon interacted with them. Another one had a slipcover, she had folded a little slip cover for this tiny comic. It was so neat and personal. I'll take a hand assembled, screen-printed mini comic over any mass-produced comic book any time. They just have some kind of power that regular comics don't have. I'd love to screen print all the covers to my minis. Luckily I have friends that are professional screen printers and they did all the Wide Awake anthology covers. But for all the other stuff I have to use colour printers or stamp the covers. The largest print run I've done was for Wide Awake 5: 500 copies. The amazing thing was that it has a big foot on it and we hand cut and applied 5 toenails and stuck them to the cover. The toenails were printed on scratch and sniff paper that smelled like stinky feet. I was insane to think my friends would want to sit around and do that all day. But they were happy to and we had a blast doing it. They cursed my name the whole time, but we still had fun. Rob: Mini-comics? Why? Ha, good question... 'cause nobody wants to publish my work... ha,ha. But serious, mini-comics is a way to start and a handy thing to give away to publishers and sorts or if you're short in cash flow. Benefits? You all have to do it yourself, but IT IS self rewarding.  How did you get started making the minis?Joe: A few years ago, I was hanging out in this bar pretty regularly drinking beer and drawing on index cards. I started working on this series of random drawings that seemed like it would be fun to compile into a little book. At this point, I really had no idea that there were mini-comics at all and I hadn't read any comics since I was about 15. So, naturally, having never done it before, I picked a really irritating size for the book to be and an equally irritating way of assembling it. Nonetheless I made about 50 copies of "Product Directory" and gave them to friends and such. Then one day, not much later, I went into Comic Relief in Berkeley and saw literally hundreds of minis and realized that all of these people must have traveled forward in time, saw my amazing book, then went back in time and made their own minis. But seriously, it was pretty cool to realize that other people were doing this. Tom: I was doing an MA (postgraduate degree) at the Royal College of Art and had been looking at comics and coming up with ideas for years but not actually doing any and I thought if I'm going to do it I'd better just get on with it. I had planned to get lots of people involved, but for various reasons it ended up just being myself and Simone Lia. We called the comic 'First' we made 180 copies, all printed on the college laser printer and hand bound with a letterpress cover. We sold them all and got a college prize for it and used that money to publish 'Second' and set up Cabanon Press and our website. Rob: That was when I still was in school, I graduated in 2004, in my second year I was the only one who worked 'round comics, everyone else was making these children's illustrations or other. But comics that was my thing and I found I was getting better and better at it. Naturally with teachings in how to draw humans, perspective and all manner of materials and surroundings helped a lot. It was like a bomb exploding in my face, the little pieces of the puzzle falling together in this beautiful centerfold, mmmm... And suddenly I could move a person in a room, and could draw city's and animals (no, scrap that) and other cool stuff (yep that sums it up). But as a reward to myself and just for fun I made my first mini-comic, that was 2 years ago. In the end of the semester you had to present something, a finished product to your teachers and you get graded, so voila without further ado I presented the "Alphabet Agency". Still think it's good and has some fresh and disturbing ideas/visuals in it, something I want to get back on, later. Chris: Thankfully Chris Staros of Top Shelf Comics always had a little box full of some of the best mini-comics out there. This was about 6 years ago. I was at a comic convention and I ran across them and was like, "Wow, this thing has a 4 colour screen-printed cover. I've got to have more of these." I was addicted so I started hunting them down and picking them up and searching them out at stores in Atlanta and Charleston. At the time my friend Duane and I had been doing a comic for our local news weekly. I thought, "Hey, lets collect these and put them together in a comic and we'll get our friend Darryl to screen print a cover. Then we can give them out at shows and stuff." So we got our other friends to do stuff and we printed up 100. They were gone in no time. So when we decided to do another one, more of or friends wanted in. So we printed 200. They were gone faster it seemed. So we kept getting more people and doing more quantity. It became a big chore for me to organize the books, so I started doing little mini-comics of my own stuff. With Wide Awake 5 I decided it had gone as far as I could take it. So now Duane and our friend Justin are going to take it over and move it in another direction letting me focus more on my own comics.  What minis are you enjoying right now?Joe: I just picked up the second issue of Andy Hartzell's brilliant minicomic "Monday". Aside from being a great story it also has one of the coolest silk-screened covers I've ever seen. I also just got a couple of new books by Rina Ayuyang that are very cool and fun. Josh Frankel, who is hilarious, has a new book coming out soon that I'm really looking forward to. I'm eagerly awaiting Jason Shiga's newest book. I also love pretty much anything by Fredo, Dan Zettwoch, or Lark Pien, to name a few. Tom: I've been rereading my copies of the "Brin de Livre" series by Benoit Jacques which are lovely, and inspirational. I'm very rarely far from my copy of "OAF" by Mat Brinkman which was the first mini comic I ever bought and I think is incredible. Chris: Man, I've already finished off the box of mini-comics I got from SPX. Good stuff. I advise everyone interested in Independent comics to go to that show. It'll change your world. There are freaking unbelievable things at that show. Bring a lot of money, because it's not like you're going to be able to pick it up someplace else. If you see it and you like it you better grab it. I snagged a really cool box seat from King Mini. It was a screen-printed box that had everything he had in stock, plus he drew a picture for it. I love taking it off the shelf and looking through it. I'm really looking forward to going to SPACE next month to pick up some new goodies! It'll be my first year there and I'm sure I'll spend a wad. I'll have a table so hopefully I can peddle some of my goods and maybe come back not completely broke. But I know I'm gonna be thumbing home. Rob: Hmm... this is hard. I rarely see good minis, if I can find them at all, except my own of course, hehe. So I can't really answer that question. I am enjoying RubberLoveBox by my brother. What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to someone making their first mini book? Joe: Just make something. If you've never made a mini before, the worst thing you can do is decide that you want to do a 200-page full colour graphic novel. Maybe some people can pull that off right away, but most people will get discouraged very quickly. Draw an 8-page comic and learn how to lay-out your pages and design a cover and photocopy and staple. It can be really rewarding to make something crappy. Each subsequent mini you make will be better than the one before. And then one day you will rule the world. Chris: Unlike real comic books, where there is no money to be made, there is absolutely positively no money in mini-comics. Most likely you'll loose money if you add in the time it takes to put it together and distribute it. It is for people who enjoy making comics and sharing them with others. Don't rush it. Think it through. Plan it out. Think about the materials around you. Look at the different types of paper available. Get crazy with it. Yes, you can just do a story, Xerox it and staple it together. But you've got an opportunity to add something that mass produced books can't have.  Rob: This is going to sound corny, but believing in yourself is the best advice I can give. Your art has to maintain a certain standard, first it has to be presentable to other people, not just your friends but also publishers or people who work in the biz. If you think your art is good enough you can go from there and your work will evolve throughout a period of time. It's extremely gratifying to make your own mini, don't hesitate to do that sometime in your early career.Tom: Don't worry about it just do it. If it's shit, do another. Tom, what's the mini book scene like out in England? Tom: It's quite small, but there are people doing interesting things. The comics' scene is quite small here anyway, and there aren't that many comic shops so it can be quite tough to get your stuff out there. Tell me about the business end of mini books. How are they distributed? Where are your books sold? Rob: This is really simple. I sell them to friends and distribute them myself. Belgium is a small country where you can get anywhere in 2 hours. We have 5-6 good comic shops in here in my opinion. These are the stores you can get anything from American, European comics and Graphic Novels to some manga, toys and merchandising. But a mini-comic is also this mini portfolio you can carry around. You can give it to publishers on conventions or give it away to interested people in the field. Joe: The books that I sell myself are through my website www.jsayers.com and at small press shows. Most of my books now though are sold through Global Hobo Comics Distribution: www.hobocomics.com, which was started by comics artists Jesse Reklaw and Thien Pham. They've been trying to bring comics to all of the major mini-comic and small press shows throughout the year. They also sell to comic stores around the country. It's pretty cool to get an email from someone who bought one of my comics from their local comic store in New York or Chicago or wherever. Also I'll be selling as many books as possible at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco in April. Tom: When I started out I went round lots of shops with my books (art bookshops, big chain stores, little bookshops, everything really) which was quite depressing as most didn't want the comics, or didn't know where to put them and even most of those who took them didn't reorder. I have since realized that the best thing (for me) is to have a handful of shops who I know and like (they tend to be small comic, design or art shops) and who care for the books (In the 'news shed' of Cabanon Press is a list of all UK stockists). I'd say I sell around 80% of the comics through shops, and the rest myself through the website or at exhibitions and comic festivals. I'm talking to a couple of US outlets at the moment.  In the end I couldn't support myself through comic publishing, I accept this and even think it's a bit of a bonus as I only have to publish things when I'm ready and in the way I want to rather than when I need cash, although saying this I do intend to try in the future to handle it all in a more businesslike manner and make more money out of it. I also use the comics as publicity for my illustration work.Chris: I sell them at conventions. Most conventions have an Indie area so you can get a table fairly inexpensively. That's the best way to sell books. I wouldn't recommend doing it with just one or two books. The more you have the more people will buy the more money you'll make and the more you can spend on other peoples mini comics. I also distribute over the Internet via www.wideawakepress.com. Mostly to individuals, it's a lot of work trying to distribute your books to comic book stores. Most are on a consignment basis so you have to keep track of them. I'm horrible at it. There are a lot of people who do it. It's just too much work. I'm lazy and I'd much rather be shooting out the window of a stolen car, driving down a crowded freeway, from the comfort of my own sofa. Outside of comic books, what do you do for fun? Chris: Everyday I draw robots and e-mail them out to people. I try and draw them in 3 minutes on the computer. It's a fun way to get warmed up for the day and I get to do my part to keep SPAM alive and well on the internet. I like playing with my new son. He just turned 5 months and it's amazing watching him grow and learn and explore. It's a wonderful thing and I know for a fact he is the brightest cutest boy in the world. He told me so.  I also like to play video games but I have to unplug them or get my wife to hide the games when I have a big project. I get so addicted and I just about killed myself trying to finish the new Grand Theft Auto.Rob: Comics fuck my brain. I can't do anything else (I can watch Star trek original series on DVD and Romero zombies are everywhere around us). I have a girlfriend so much attention goes that way. Yes, the occasional cultural environment: museums, concerts, heavy drinking and so on... Tom: I Iike to cook and go to the pub. Joe: Well, I love to be outside which is one of the reasons I live in the Bay Area. I'm into hiking and riding my bike around and drinking beers in the sun with my girlfriend. I'm a professional gardener. Oh, I don't know, is any of this interesting? Now I'm gonna make stuff up. I'm a semi-professional cat-groomer. I run a pancake-themed e-business out of my van. I volunteer at the local country club serving hot meals and cold martinis to over-privileged families. I compete in long-division contests. I collect night-lights and fond memories. That was a blast guys! Wow, if only I really could get the four of you together in a room. It would raise the national security alert to salmon or cranberry zing. Thanks for taking time out of busy schedules and sharing your experiences with us. If any of you ever make it to SF I'll buy the first round. Except you Rob. You're obviously a fucking maniac, stay away from me. You can pick up Tom Guald's latest work Three Very Small Comics at the Cabanon Press web site. Not only are the books totally brilliant but one of them also makes a very nice mini poster. I'm looking at mine now... J. Chris Campbell's new one-man anthology Zig Zag is available for pre order from Diamond. Give your hard working retailer this order code MAR052485. And they can order it for you. C'mon that kid of his needs diapers. Check out more of his stuff at www.jchriscampbell.com Joe Sayers is alive and well at http://www.jsayers.com/ If you ever wanted to know what happens when the Sun and the Cloud go to a bar you better pick up The Sky #3 and find out. More east bay mini comic masterpieces can be found at www.hobocomics.com Check out the brilliant Healing Hans in its entirety at The Healing Hans Directory. Rob Croonenborghs can be reached at rob_croonenborghs@hotmail.com Personally, I think it gets forwarded to a prison. Tony and I will be at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco this April 9th and 10th. Look for us at table 120. Interestingly enough this table is about 18 feet from the bar.  Anyone looking for more than two syllables may want to show up earlier than later. That Saturday night I'll be on hand at the Isotopes Excellence in Mini Books award ceremony. Then on Sunday, I'll be the terrified monitor on the Bay Area Cartoonists panel from 11:30- 12:30. The line up is pretty intense with Kieron Dwyer (Last of the Independents, L.C.D.), Fredo (Shpilkes, Black Sheep), Justin Hall (True Travel Tales, Only in San Francisco), Laurenn McCubbin (Rent Girl, XXX Live Nude Girls), Spain Rodriguez (Trashman, Nightmare Alley) and Trina Robbins (GoGirl, The Great Women Cartoonists). Wish me luck. Awright you varmints, get off the internet and make some damn mini books.
 Jason McNamara is the author of the Less Then Hero mini-series, for more be sure to visit Polite Strangers.com.  PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum. E-Mail Us - E-Mail Us To Comment On This Article. Can't You Hear Me Knocking v.0: Paige Braddock Can't You Hear Me Knocking v.1: Justin Hall Can't You Hear Me Knocking v.2: Tom Manning Can't You Hear Me Knocking v.3: John Heebink Industrial Archive - Read past Industrial articles |
Oh my aching Christ.
