Have you seen part 1 of how to make your own mini-comics? If not, take a quick look at it here, where we discussed the basics of creating your own mini-comic. Go ahead and review it, we’ll wait here. Hmm hmmm hmmm… *tuneless whistle* Dum de dum…hot in the office today. But it’s cool outside. Good day to wear one of those shirts with the zip-off sleeves…hey, let’s look at a mini-comic while we’re waiting…

Deep Cut by Hellen Jo reveals the story of hair care gone wrong…or right?

Oh, you’re back! Great. Well, today we have some more mini-comic making options for you. First, here’s an abbreviated reminder of the basic mini-comics recipe from part 1:

The Mini-Comics Order of Operations:

1. Pick a format
2. Make a dummy
3. Draw and write the story
4. Transfer the story to the page
5. Fold a test comic (or staple or glue it or whatever it takes) and make whatever changes are needed.

Got it? Good. Let’s look at two more options for making single-sheet mini-comic options. Both are very simple, and the results are very book-like.

One-Sheet Mini-Comic, version 2

With this folding scheme, an ordinary sheet of copier turns into a little 6-page book (plus front and back cover). The secret to this magic trick is careful folding and cutting…and the more precise your folds and creases are, the easier it will work.

So first let’s make the folds. (Tip: Run the back of a spoon across each fold to make them nice and crisp). Do this:

Now your sheet of paper is nicely divided into its eight separate pages. So pick up your scissors and:

And, finally, fold the whole dang thing into a mini-comic:

Pretty easy right? Except for that confusing last part which is kind of hard to draw. So check out this video for a demonstration.:

Note that when you put your art on the page, one row will be upside down relative to the other (it helps to make a dummy or sketch version that you can reference while you’re working on it). For this kind of mini-comic, you can print all the pages on one side of your paper. But it’s also cool to add a full-page image on the flip side, creating a mini-poster for readers who unfold the whole thing.

 

The reverse side of Ian Sampson's Pep Talk mini-comic features a full-page poster.

One-Sheet Mini-Comic, Version 2:

This variations is similar to the six-pager, but it adds two more pages to the comic. Those pages are on the flip side of your paper, so two-sided printing is required.

Here’s a demo video:

 

It could be that the 8-page format is underutilized, because no one in our Club had an example in their collection of mini-comics. But this from a Quirks Comics Club member gives an idea of what the final product can look like. (Even people who aren't good with scissors are welcome in the Quirk Comic Club.)

Okay, that should keep you plenty busy (making mini-comics), but if you're looking for more mini-comic making ideas, want to learn how to find awesome mini-comics, or need a reminder as to why mini-comics are so amazing, make sure to check out our other mini-comic posts!

_{Mini-comics displayed are from the personal collections of Quirk Books Comics Club members and are intended as a small and subjective sampling of the ever-expanding universe of mini-comics.}

We love yakkin' about mini-comics (we've already discussed why they're so awesome and where you can find them), but here's someone else's eloquent summary of why they're so great:

I've been reading comics since I was a wee'yin, drawing comics since high school and writing about comics since college. In all of this time, I have narrowed down the thing I love most of all in the entirety of the medium: comics written and drawn by amateurs, doing whatever they want and talking about the things which matter most to them.

Despite superheroes owning the vast majority of the market, comics are an inherently personal medium. The stories most creators tell, outside of the mainstream market, are intensely personal, even if they're not biographical.

And then there's the democratic nature of the distribution. An all-night copy center is all any creator needs to make their personal story, their vision, their perspective made available to the world at large.

Mini-comics are the apotheosis of the potential of comics, created by people whose formal skills tend to be uncluttered by formalism and unconstrained by convention. They are wildly valuable, and exceptionally lovable.

So says Quirk Books author Jon Morris, comics creator, and the operator of one of the oldest and smartest comics blogs on the Internet. As Jon notes, mini-comics are an excellent medium of creativity for anyone who's into comics, even if you’re not a professional or trained artist. Making a  mini-comic to share with friends or family, or just for the fun of telling a story, is well within your grasp! 

 

For inspiration: Illustrator Maritsa Patrinos's beautiful Curses and Blessings mini flips over to reveal blessings or curses, depending on your mood.

As we’ve seen, mini-comics can be as simple or complicated as the creator chooses. But for the most part the creation process is broadly similar. So here's a recipe for mini-comics that you can follow for your first mini-comic, or your five hundredth.

The Mini-Comics Order of Operations

Step 1: Decide on the format of your mini-comic. How will it be folded, how big will it be, what kind of paper will you use, how many pages will it have? You need to know this up front, because you want your story to fit the book.

Step 2: Make a dummy. It’s helpful to have a blank version of your mini-comic on hand so you can see how much space you have to work with, what the panels look like (are they vertical? horizontal? square? Something else?), and where the page turns are (it’s nice to pace the dramatic moments of your story so that turning the page reveals a surprise). You might make a quick sketchy version of your story right on the dummy, to see if your assumptions about the final product are correct.

Step 3: Create your story. Draw it, write it, color it, whatever and however you want to do it. Just make sure it will fit the format you decided on in step 1. If you’re drawing at a larger size and intend to shrink your art digitally—a tried-and-true comics strategy—make sure the proportion of your drawings are right for the pages of your mini-comic. That is, if your folded comic has panels 3 x 4 inches, the panels of your original art have to fit that proportion.

Step 4: Get your story onto the comic page. There’s lots of ways to do this. You might draw and write directly on your dummy, so you can photocopy that page to produce the mini-comic. Or scan your art and make a full-size document to print out and duplicate. Or maybe you do the whole thing digitally. Maybe you photocopy your drawings, cut out the panels, tape them in place, and use that as your master document for duplicating.

Step 5: Fold your mini-comic. This is the really hands-on part…but don’t worry, we’re about to show you some options. Some mini-comic formats require stapling, gluing, sewing, or other techniques for putting the pages together. But for now we’ll keep things simple.

Step 6: Make corrections. You’ve created your first mini-comic. Congratulations! But maybe it didn’t end up exactly the way you imagined. There’s a panel in the wrong place. One of the folds is in the middle of a drawing. The back cover is upside down. Don't worry, this is normal! Consider that first print to be test, and go back and make whatever adjustments are needed to put everything in its place.

Making a Single Sheet Mini-Momic: Variations

Lots of mini-comics are structured like little-sized version of standard comics, with multiple pages stapled together in the center, or like teeny books, bound at the spine. But an easy way to make your first mini-comic is to use single sheet of folded paper. Here are three options for that, all of which work will with a standard letter-sized 8 ½ x 11 sheet, the paper size that's beloved of offices copiers and home printers everywhere.

No-Fuss Version Mini-Comic:

Why not just draw a comics page, fold it up however you want it, and call it a mini-comic? Quick, easy, and frees up more time for drawing.

 

Some of the mysterious and compelling comics in this series by Justin Quinlan are single sheets of paper folded up and presented in a cool envelope. Simple but effective!

Accordion Fold Mini-Comic

This is another very easy option: Cut the sheet of paper into fourths (or thirds, or fifths, or whatever size you want). Then fold each strip accordion style. Each segment becomes one panel of your story. If two sided printing is an option for you, your comic can be twice as long. As a bonus, each sheet of paper yields four comics (or three, or five), multiplying your output.

 

Nine Lives, by Kristyna Baczynski, uses a simple accordion fold to present exquisite and beautiful illustrations.

Single Page Mini-Comic, Version 1: The Expanding Map Fold

Remember when people used to keep folded-up paper maps in their cars, instead of relying on GPS and their phones? Probably not, but this folding scheme sort of recalls those old-timey road maps. The format is fairly easy to use, yielding a four-page comic with a front and back cover. As the reader unfolds the comic, the pages get bigger and bigger, giving you a chance to really bump up the drama. There are some production challenges; when you place the art on the page, some of pages will be upside-down relative to the others, so maybe do a test first to make sure your artwork is oriented properly. And if you want to use the last (and biggest) page, you'll need to do two-sided printing.

Check out this mesmerizing video to see how to fold it:

Just dive in and make some mini-comics!" says Kelly Bastow, aka Moosekleenex, illustrator of The Fangirl's Guide To The Galaxy, and numerous comics. "Mini-comics can be about anything, they can be fact or fiction, any type of art style, busy or simple." Kelly and writer/artist Caitlin Major are the creators behind one Quirk's favorite webcomics, Manfried The Man.  Explore other folding and layout options for making your own masterful mini-comics here and here! 

_{Mini-comics displayed are from the personal collections of Quirk Books Comics Club members and are intended as a small and subjective sampling of the ever-expanding universe of mini-comics.}

Hey there, lovers of crochet and literature! With Mother's Day this coming Sunday, show Ma you care—with cards featuring adorable amigurumi. We're giving you two Literary Yarns Mother's Day cards to post to Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook. Because we all know your mom is on Facebook. Just click the image to be taken to the file, and then right click and save! We hope she appreciates these literary puns as much as we do.

We told you how much we love mini-comics (a lot) and why they’re so awesome (too many reasons to fit inside these parentheses).

So are you ready to start filling your shelves with mini-comics? One of the best aspects of collecting mini-comics is that, even more so than for traditionally-published comics, no two collections are the same. That intricately-folded octagonal comic with the hand-colored front cover which you bought at an arts festival may have only been sold for six months before the creator got tired of finger-cramps. Or maybe it was one of just a hundred ever produced. If hunting for comics is sometimes like tracking big game, collecting mini-comics is like capturing rare beetles on the verge of extinction. Luckily, some mini-comics are more like ladybugs, easily acquired if you know where to look.

Whether you’re new to the world of mini-comics or already hip, here are your best bets for finding them…along with some more examples of favorite mini-comics from members of the Quirk Comics Club.

1: Go to comics shows! The first and best way to get ahold of mini-comics of all sorts and styles…and meet the people who created them. Not only does a comics expo, festival, convention, or show give you the opportunity to eyeball a slew of mini-comics in person, all at once, you’ll find creators who don’t have an Internet presence or who don’t sell their work online. That’s right, such people do exist! So a comics show is liable to expose you to minis that you wouldn’t find anywhere else. (Do your research, of course…some shows are more welcoming to independent comics creators than other.)

2: Think locally. Not all mini-comics travel very far, so it make sense to seek them out in your own backyard. Are there any cartoonists or comics creators in your area? They may sell mini-comics at local events, like art fairs or book festivals or music performances. What about your local friendly comics shop…might they have a selection of mini-comics, maybe on that shelf in the back corner where you’ve never bothered to wander? Or maybe the staff can clue you in to local mini-comic makers of note. A local library, especially in an artist-heavy town, or a college or university library, may have a few in their collection that could lead you back to the source.

3: Yes, yes, yes, OK, the Internet! We hope you’ll find opportunities to buy mini-comics directly from the creators, but there’s no denying that the Internet vastly extends your reach…and helps comics makers get their work to a much wider audience. You know how to google, but here are some leads to follow:

Start by checking the websites and social media streams of creators you know, or have heard of.

The Comics Journal offers reviews and round-ups of mini-comics, like this one. Minis referenced in older reviews may no longer be available, but their creators could have new ones on offer. You’ll also find reviews at opticalsloth.com.

Don’t overlook Etsy, which is chock full of comic-maker shops. Making mini-comics is a form of crafting, right? Start by searching for comics/handmade in the “Books, Movies & Music” category.

If you want an overview of mini-comics history, and don’t mind reproductions of the originals, Fantagraphics has you covered with a two-volume Treasury of Mini Comics set.

That should keep you busy, but remember to spend some time making space on your shelves for all the new mini-comics you’ll soon be ordering…and making. That’s right. We've also discussed how you can make mini-comics of your own (Part 1, Part 2)!

MORE OF OUR FAVORITE MINI-COMICS:

In Blintz, by Rel, three wishes and two blintzes add up to a conclusion that blintzes are awesome.

 

Like her full-length graphic novels, Julia Gfrörer's Palm Ash is powerful, disturbing, and grim, and beautifully drawn. The brightly colored paper she favors for her mini-comics adds a dream-like contrast to the dark doings within the pages.

 Sad Animals, by Adam Meuse, ascribes the neurotic thoughts of humans to a bunch of cartoon animals. We don't know why that's entertaining, but it is.

Itching to start making your own mini-comics? Check out our How to Make a Mini-Comic: Part 1, How to Make a Mini-Comic: Part 2, and Mini Comics: The Wrap-Up for folding tips and layout tricks!

_{Mini-comics displayed are from the personal collections of Quirk Books Comics Club members and are intended as a small and subjective sampling of the ever-expanding universe of mini-comics.}

Here at Quirk Books we love comics. No duh. We even have a monthly Quirk Comics Club, when Quirk staffers meet over lunch for a show-and-tell of comics we’re buying, reading, and making. Check out our neat club pin:

We love comics of all sorts, from superhero books to indie memoirs to vintage newspaper strips to the weird artsy stuff to anything with cats in it. But there’s a special place in our heart for one particular comic book iteration: the mini-comic (a.k.a. mini comic or minicomic, but let’s go with mini-comic).

What is a mini-comic?

Don’t let the name fool you; a mini-comic doesn’t have to be small, as master of comics Jessica Abel points out. But very often they're mini in stature for practical reasons, because mini-comics are a favorite method for independent comics makers to self-produce, promote, and sell their work.  Creators typically make mini-comics in small batches, usually reproducing them by means of photocopier or desktop publishing hardware. When you spot a mini-comic in the wild, it’s likely to be littler than a standard published comic (because paper costs add up), and it’s probably been folded, stapled and/or bound by hand (by the artist and whatever friends and family they can con into helping).

Exception: Welcome to the Pleasure Dome by Ian Sampson is not only a mega-sized mini-comic, it unfolds into a poster-sized final panel.

The Schulz Library, at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River, Vermont, has upwards of 3,000 mini-comics in its collection. Their curators offer this definition:

A mini-comic is small, inexpensive, short-run comic, often handmade by the creator. Typically they are about half-letter in size, since that's easiest to produce, but our collection (known as the Zine Garden) includes mini-comics that are the size of a matchbook to huge 11×17 handmade books and everything in between.

“We don't have hard and fast criteria, there's a bit of ‘we know it when we see it,’ ” Schulz librarian Jarad Greene tells us. "But usually, it's folded and stapled/stitched by hand. Self-published, perfect bound books that don't have an ISBN are sometimes included as well.”

Why are mini-comics awesome?

For so many reasons!

For one thing, a mini-comic is like a unfiltered channel of creativity, direct from the cartoonist’s brain. There are precious few barriers to creating a mini-comic—if you have time, paper, drawing implements and an idea, you’re pretty much set. Comics artists and writers can use mini-comics to experiment with concepts that wouldn’t work in larger, longer, or traditionally-published formats. A mini-comic can run with a crazy idea that might be harder to sustain in full-length comic…and that goes not just for the story and art, but also size, shape, color, packaging, and production method. You can try almost anything in a minicomic.

 

      

Destination Earth, a mini-comic by Debbie Fong, includes a fold-out diary kept by the cat-astronaut protagonist.

 

Mini-comics can handle personal stories, like Kate McDonough's exploration of living with social anxiety, or simple concepts, like her documentation of bizarre items she encountered while working at a thrift shop.

They’re incredibly diverse. Mini-comics can be as appealingly simple or exquisitely complex as their creators decides to make them. Some minis are minimal, just line drawings on a folded sheet or paper. Others are like little jewels, with intricate art, creative packaging, unusual shapes and sizes, fancy bindings, and/or sophisticated printing techniques.

Mark Burrier's Show Off creates dark humor with simple line-drawings.

Rachel Bard's tiny mini-comic Come Back Soon , about as tall as a jumbo paper clip, comes with a teensier comic inside it. Her Growing Hope is printed in metallic gold ink on dark blue cardstock, and comes in a wrap-around band with a cutout in front.

They suggest a personal touch. Though they’re a reproduced medium, like all comics, many mini-comics havea hand-made quality that reminds you there’s a real person on the other end…someone who took the time to plan and print and cut and fold and staple and pack them. You can buy mini-comics at comic shows and chat with a creator who might go on to become famous (comic book famous, that is…but sometimes that's still pretty famous!). If you order a mini-comic online, you might get a hand-written thank you note with your purchase. Blockbuster comics and million-seller graphic novels are great, but minis remind us that comics are a vehicle for individual creativity at all levels, and can travel from creator's brain to reader's hands with fewer stops in between tham most media.

You've probably seen Tom Gauld's cartoons in The New York Times, The Guardian, and in his books published by Drawn & Quarterly. But he once published mini-comics through his own (now defunct) small press.

They’re cheap! Inexpensive, that is. There’s not much risk in spending a few bucks to sample the work of artists you’re not familiar with and bring their nutty ideas home with you. And at few bucks a pop, you can quickly build your own mini-comics library.

So we're agreed…mini-comics are awesome! But where does one find these insanely amazing treasues? Good question…check out our How to Find the Greatest Mini-Comics post for more details! If you're already dying to make your own comic, check out How to Make a Mini-Comic: Part 1, How to Make a Mini-Comic: Part 2, and Mini Comics: The Wrap-Up for ideas!

_{Mini-comics displayed are from the personal collections of Quirk Books Comics Club members and are intended as a small and subjective sampling of the ever-expanding universe of mini-comics.}