Comics publisher ShortBox may have folded this year, but Zainab Akhtar’s annual ShortBox Comics Fair still has a sparkling present and future. Open for October, a fabulously curated collection of digital indie works are for sale online. Featuring a ton of creators, some established and some just starting out, it’s a grab bag of wonderful comics. We’ve done a round-up of our favorites just in time for some last minute shopping before the shop closes at the end of the month (Thursday, Oct 31st, 8 pm GMT, to be precise!).
Lindsey Cheng Dates A White Boy!!!
Asia Miller
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I was immediately drawn to this comic because of how Lindsey is, well, drawn: her little zigzag-blush cheeks and oval eyes and stripey scarf are just adorable. And the comic is adorable too! Really lovely character designs for everybody, not just Lindsey, really solid pacing, strong themes, and a good understanding of what to show and what to tell. Recommended for fans of Scott Pilgrim and slice of life stories.
— Masha Zhdanova
Last Stop
Jade LFT Peters
I loved Napkin by Jade LFT Peters in last year’s Shortbox Fair, so I had to get their new comic this year, and also possibly everything they do forever. Last Stop is about two people trying to get to a Halloween party when their bus gets portaled into another dimension — oh no! It’s extremely funny, the art is inventive and expressive, and the dialogue feels so alive, like these are all real people talking to each other. Peters is really good at situational comedy and establishing distinct characters quickly. I’d read a whole series about Beomyeong and Pinar and their friends.
— Masha Zhdanova
Being Useful
Laura Knetzger
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Being Useful is a horror story about being the devil’s complacent right hand. The narrator, known only as “Useful,” is a maid who lives in a mansion atop a hill. She serves the master of the mansion, and that is the only life she’s ever known. When the people of the village below the mansion change their behavior and cease to bring offerings to the master, Useful must face the question of what she is: a human? A monster? Something else? The mansion is a really wonderful setting — with just black and grey inks, Laura Knetzger creates a lot of life, movement and strangeness within the mansion that make it feel safe and fascinating rather than isolating — although that is a deception, as Useful is isolated. The character designs are also great — think sinister and expressive eyes, and clothes and hair that reveal a lot of personality and status. It’s a really rich comic, and one I’m going to be thinking about for a long time.
— Alenka Figa
Beetle
Shee Liu
Beetle follows two days in the life of a young girl in a quiet rural town. The sepia-tinted monochromatic art is soft and lovely, and its chibi characters remind me of old JRPGs. Shee Liu’s strength as an artist is in environmental design, with each scene giving the reader a heightened sense of the quality of the light, from the dusty morning sunlight in a classroom to the overbright moonlight shining through the window at night. Liu’s simple but confident art invites the reader to share a quiet moment in a gentle and nostalgic world filled with open green spaces and endless afternoons spent looking for bugs in windswept fields. For me, Beetle was a much-needed breath of fresh air, and I felt just a little lighter after reading this sweet minicomic.
— Kathryn Hemmann
Goodbye Apple Island
C.R. Chua
https://www.instagram.com/ceearrchua/p/DBTChcSyoQp/
Goodbye Apple Island from Shortboxed alum C.R. Chua is a colorful 48-page comic about a young boy named Luca who lives on a beautiful green island connected to the mainland by a single rope bridge. The island is scheduled to be evacuated due to an impending earthquake, but Luca becomes so engrossed in his giant mole research notes that he and his long wolf companion miss the last crossing before the bridge collapses. Despite its tense action sequences and mustache-twirling antagonist, Goodbye Apple Island is all in good fun, and its combination of goofy characters with surprisingly grounded worldbuilding reminds me of the early episodes of Adventure Time. Even as it touches on the serious topic of population migration in the wake of natural disaster, Goodbye Apple Island is a cleverly written adventure that would be great to share with kids.
— Kathryn Hemmann
Aglæca
Mohnfisch
Aglæca is a 72-page dark fantasy about a cursed castle in the woods. It’s rumored that the master of the castle has made a bargain with a witch, and that her price was levied on his young son. One stormy night, three visitors arrive at the castle seeking shelter, one of whom is a noblewoman of the same age as the host’s son. While the adults play a dangerous political game with words, the two teens walk through the castle and tell stories about who they would be if they didn’t have to be themselves. This iceberg of a story ends on an ambiguous note, and its atmosphere of mystery is enhanced by Mohnfisch’s masterful charcoal drawings of Gothic castle architecture. The contrast between the fluid and expressive human characters and the solid lines of stone and wood is nothing short of marvelous to behold.
— Kathryn Hemmann
