THANK YOU FOR AN INCREDIBLE 9TH FESTIVAL! 4,200 people attended and we had so much fun! Next year’s festival will take place on Nov. 7, 2020. Registration opens in June.
“In virtually no time flat, Short Run has gone from ‘let’s put on a show’ to ‘this is the heart and soul of Seattle’s creative community.’ Imagining a Seattle without a Short Run is as unthinkable as a Seattle skyline without a Space Needle.” – The Seattle Review of Books
Malaka Gharib’s graphic memoir, I Was Their American Dream, is about growing up Egyptian-Filipino-American. Short Run board member, Otts Bolisay, a Filipino-Bahamian-American, knew of Gharib first as an NPR journalist before realizing she was also a comics artist and zinester. This is their conversation.
This year we plan to introduce our special guests to our audience via personal interviews with the Short Run Board. We are very excited to welcome them to Seattle, and hope you will take the time to get to know their work prior to their arrival in November!
Cartoonist Glynnis Fawkes and Short Run board member Meredith Li-Vollmer met at the University of Oregon in 1989 when they took a year-long math class together. Thirty years later, Meredith interviewed Glynnis, who will be a visiting artist at the Short Run Comix and Arts Festival this fall. They discussed Glynnis’ unusual pathway to comics—via archaeology—and her two books that will be published this year, Charlotte Brontë Before Jane Eyre and Persephone’s Garden.
Glynnis Fawkes and Meredith Li-Vollmer in Topics of Modern Math class in college, circa 1989, where Glynnis did some fine comics doodling while Meredith looked over her shoulder. Drawn by Glynnis. Read more…
Two $200 grants will be awarded this year to traveling exhibitors who express financial need. Short Run had the honor of knowing Katie Kelso, a true adventurer and lover of books, who passed away in 2017. Her gift helps artists with travel expenses getting to Seattle for Short Run. We will never forget her!
Exhibitors – this is not a separate application, simply mark that you are in need of financial assistance in the exhibitor app. No explanation needed.
We are happy to announce that after much deliberation, we have selected Rumi Hara, a comic artist and illustrator from Brooklyn, NY, as this year’s Dash Grant winner. The grant provides $250, a half table at the festival, mentorship by a special guest, access & instruction to local screen print co-op, and a place in our annual art show at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. Rumi’s book is about the adventures of the scavenging “Peanut Butter Sisters” as they get along in life with the guidance of nature- they travel on the backs of whales and energy of hurricanes. The story evolves as their resources dry up and they have to have more human interactions.
The concentrated time spent at Trailer Blaze, with such an amazing and diverse group of artists, was exactly what I needed to reconnect to both my work and myself. – Jessica Hoffman
Short Run is Seattle’s local comix art festival, with almost 50% of the exhibitors being from the Pacific Northwest. But we also are committed to making it possible for national and international guests to attend to help widen our artistic and cultural perspectives and to work collaboratively across borders.
So says The Seattle Review of Books (writers Paul Constant and Dawn McCarra Bass)
From a visitor’s perspective, Short Run was as smoothly run and as packed with intriguing new titles as ever. The show has grown nicely into Fisher Pavilion — so much so that it’s hard to remember when it was held at Washington Hall or in the Vera Project. Short Run is home, and the festival reached a point in its development when most people involved know what to expect. “Short Run” has become a shorthand for a very particular aesthetic: supportive, enthusiastic, eager for new work and new talent and new artistic perspectives. It’s becoming an institution of its own. (Click link for full article!)
Paper Press Punch, Hocus Pocus Press, and Short Run Seattle will share studio space in the Original Rainier Bottling Plant building in Georgetown. Read more…
Retirement message from Eroyn Franklin, co-founder and Creative Director Read more…
We are happy to return to our festival venues Fisher Pavilion and The Vera Project at Seattle Center. The exhibitor tables, animation tent, and bake sale will be at Fisher Pavilion, and creative programming to be featured at The Vera Project in their gallery and stage rooms. Read more…
We’re excited to announce that November Garcia is our Dash grant winner for 2018. We are looking forward to helping her publish Marlarkey #3, her autobiographical mini-comic. Garcia is a cartoonist born and raised in the Philippines. She lived in San Francisco for most of her 20s and 30s but has now moved back home. We are interested in the comics she makes documenting this change of lifestyle. We can’t wait to have her at Short Run in November! Read more…
