Short Run -

Health & Safety Information

[Updated for 2023] If you haven’t been to a previous Short Run festival, you should know that we are unlike a mainstream “comic-con” in many ways. We are a free, one day festival that takes place in a large, 12,000 sq. ft. space on the ground floor, with tall front windows and a high ceiling. There are no smaller break-out rooms. There will be a few hands-on activities like zine-making or screen printing, but the main focus will be on the exhibiting artists showcasing their work at tables on the festival floor. Approximately 250 artists will be there, and we expect attendance to be about 4,500 people spread out over 7 hours. Read more…

Info for Exhibitors

[UPDATED for 2023!] Here are details about travel, lodging, WiFi, food, etc.! We are looking forward to seeing you and providing you with a great festival experience! Read more…

Festival Venue Information

[UPDATED for 2023!] We are happy to return to our festival venue Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center. Read more…

Fest Photos 2022

Find all fest photos on our Flickr page! Also check out this fest report by our photographer Chris Anthony Diaz, for The Comics Journal. Read more…

Trailer Blaze Comics Residency 2023

Another wonderful week at The Sou’Wester Lodge for our 7th annual Trailer Blaze Comics Residency, with 13 artists from all over – Seattle, Philadelphia, Hiroshima, Norfolk, Portland, Omaha, Haida Gwaii, Osoyoos! Read more…

Year In Review (so long 2022!)

It happened! We successfully held our 10th anniversary Short Run Comix & Arts Festival after a 2-year postponement! 200 exhibitor-artists (from all over the US, and 6 other countries) filled Fisher Pavilion, and over 4,000 people attended over 7 hours. Despite it being a very rainy weekend, Saturday was mostly sunny and clear, and at one point there was a rainbow! Exhibitors reported record sales, which meant Seattle came out to support these artists that have been so isolated without the festival circuit. THANK YOU SEATTLE!!!

DASH GRANT recipient 2022 – Julia Wald

Local artist and illustrator Julia Wald is this year’s DASH GRANT recipient! We were really excited about her story synapsis and hyper-color drawing style of her upcoming comic, Uncle Scam’s Army Navy Surplus, an autobiography of their first job out of school in Buffalo, working at an army navy surplus store where they sold military gear to doomsday preppers, zombie cosplayers, and neo Nazis. This first part of a much longer story will premiere at Short Run on Nov. 5th. Read more…

Katie Kelso Travel Grant Recipients

Saoirse Alesandro (CA), golden collier (IL), Anna Tararova/Empress Editions (PA), Dustin Garcia (CA)

Each of these incredible artists & festival exhibitors will receive $400 towards their travel to Seattle for Short Run on Nov. 5th! Read more…

Trailer Blaze 2022

Trailer Blaze 2022 really, truly happened after a 2 year postponement, and it made the experience even more special.

This year we welcomed new residents Veronika Muchitsch (UK), Melanie Stevens (OR), Krusty Wheatfield (CA), Lenora Yerkes (DC), Janna Morton (MD), Rachel Scheer (Seattle); invited artists Lydia Fu (IL), Katie Fricas (NY); alumni, local mentors Mita Mahato, E.T. Russian, Lauren Armstrong, Megan Kelso, and Kelly Froh. Read more…

SHOW UP – monthly artist talks

We want artists to get to know each other better, through their work and processes, and to invest in each other more fully as a year round community. Artists will stand up and stand by their work, and present it to other people, instead of working mostly in isolation with no feedback or support. What does being part of a community mean? That we all live in a geographical area, or that we are invested in the progress and success of our peers? Let’s inspire each other!

Short Run Comix & Arts Festival Catalog

As consolation for another year passing without a festival, Short Run has published The Short Run Comix & Arts Festival Catalog, which features 40 new releases from WA State comic artists, authors, and zinesters, ads for small print and publishing businesses, plus DIY projects and local stores. This free, 16-page newsprint catalog, designed by Jacob Covey, will be mailed all across the US. Read more…

Where to get our new book

Pick up a copy of our new book Decade: 10 Years of Short Run Comix & Arts Festival at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, Elliott Bay Book Company, Push/Pull, Floating World Comics in Portland, Silver Sprocket in San Francisco, and Spit and a Half online distro.

What a great idea! The “Comics Festival” has become such a crucial and integral part of the comics community over the past couple decades, and while there are plenty of social media posts and con-reports that surface online, the experience is pretty ephemeral. Seattle’s Short Run Fest has solved that by producing this gorgeous, full color year by year look back at their festivals and events over the past ten years. – John Porcellino

If you cannot pick it up in person, it’s also on our Etsy page for $27 (US shipping included).

“Decade” in The Stranger

We loved talking with Jasmyne Keimig about our new book, our next project, and the festival’s future.

Decade is most accurately described as a sort of yearbook of the Seattle comics scene over the past several years as documented at the Short Run festival and at satellite events. The book plays with yearbook photo idea on the first and last pages, which are stacked with photo portraits of many artists over the years. When I first opened Decade I found myself searching for familiar faces, remembering what is was like to see these unmasked faces all together IRL.

Full interview here.

Books and Totes

Board Member McKenna Haley with our new book “Decade: 10 Years of Short Run Comix & Arts Festival” and with tote bag designed by Weng Pixin. Books and totes available on our etsy page.

Book Release Party & Art Show

Celebrate the release of Short Run’s “festival in a book” on Saturday, September 11 from 5-8 pm at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Georgetown. Made during the pandemic for a community missing connection, Decade chronicles 10 years of Short Run festivals, workshops, residencies, performances, parties, and people.

Short Run in The Comics Journal

Read Kelly Froh’s essay here.

The Short Run Festival takes place inside a huge hall with floor to ceiling windows, located in the middle of Seattle Center’s expansive campus of performing arts buildings, community gathering spaces and sports arenas. It’s where the Space Needle is. It’s where the monorail goes. In addition to our tried-and-true roster of supporters that we’ve built over the last decade, we have been able to count on tourists and locals alike, who just happen to be at Seattle Center, to find their way to the festival floor. Because of our size, we are filed in the “first to close, last to re-open” category of businesses. We are eager to return to festival planning, which we usually begin a year in advance, but our worry is that large, crowded, indoor events like Short Run won’t see the attendance we are used to anytime soon unless half of the population holding us back suddenly changes its collective mind and gets vaccinated.

Short Run Slideshow Series

Short Run Slideshow Series showcases the work of four Seattle comic artists—Lauren Armstrong, Megan Kelso, Myra Lara, and Meredith Li-Vollmer—and their processes of stepping outside of their familiar ways of working. In recent individual projects, each artist confronted unique challenges that inspired them to stretch their usual approaches to research, collaboration, and the comics medium. This video series, taking the slideshow as its model, brings together the artist’s voice with images of the artwork to highlight these new directions. Read more…

Short Run in Crosscut

What have we been up to and what do we have planned? Check out this article by Paul Constant for Crosscut.

“DECADE: 10 years of Short Run Comix & Arts Festival” (a festival in a book)

Copies are available for $27 (includes shipping, US addresses only).

The first 200 copies sold also receive a limited edition, two-sided, Risograph poster with art by Jasjyot Singh Hans and Eroyn Franklin, designed and printed by Hocus Pocus Press.

Looking for online comics workshops?

There’s lots of great online content out there to keep you inspired and help you keep up your drawing and comics-making practice. Read more…