Save the date for these upcoming artist talks! Free, limited seating. Read more…
SHOW UP artist talks
News
Short Run Comix Festival
The 2024 iteration of Short Run will come with a slightly revised name.
With a plethora of zine fests and art book fairs being held around the country, we believe it’s a good time for us to commit our show solely to alternative comics/comix!! There are so many good comics being made all over the world and we want to double-down on what we do well, bringing you some of the best of what’s out there.
We know that some of the most innovative and exciting work in comics is happening in hybrid forms. Zines and art books with comic content, image + text story-telling, and graphic illustration will still be considered. There will be zines and art books that will fall into a gray area – that is why every application is carefully reviewed.
And remember: Short Run celebrates the art of storytelling and print books. Please limit the amount of stickers, prints, cards, or apparel at your table and do not bring games, jewelry, or other crafts.
Here is a list of other fairs/fests/shows, as well as resources, in Washington State.
Exhibitor applications will open again on June 1, 2024.
Short Run Festival Weekend Photos
Festival Photos by Chris Hong, @cx.photo.resu
Check out all our albums here!
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…
Katie Kelso Travel Grant Recipients 2022
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…
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).
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 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…
“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…
Year in Review/ Annual Report
Dear Friends of Short Run,
We are finding it hard to make a closing statement about 2020: It was hard, confusing, shocking/not shocking, boring, scary, and it went on and on. The best we could do was stay present and hold our community close. This year-end report shares what we did to make it through. Your donations and your support helped keep the lights on throughout it all.
Short Run presents a socially-distanced public display of Robyn Jordan’s Covid-19 Comics
What has it meant to live through this time? It’s been different for each of us, but many of our experiences are shared. We’ve watched our collective anxiety creep to a boiling point as we’ve learned to fear one another’s touch and presence. Read more…
Blazers art show featuring work from 2020 Trailer Blaze residents
Short Run and Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery present: BLAZERS NOV 14 – DEC 09 Read more…
HOT MACHINES a Risograph art show
Short Run and Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery present: HOT MACHINES
OCT 10 – NOV 11 (all day opening on Saturday, October 10th)
Hot Machines is a Risograph art show featuring prints and books printed at Paper Press Punch (Jessica Hoffman & Justin Quinlan, Georgetown) and Cold Cube Press (Aidan Fitzgerald & Michael Heck, Pioneer Square), two homegrown small businesses hanging on through it all – Read more…
Coronavirus-related comics
Are you stuck at home? Are your anxieties through the roof? We’d like to collect 1-page comics about what your daily life looks like now, whether it be good or bad. We’d like to share what this experience LOOKS like. Pages will be reprinted in a quick & dirty old-school photocopied zine (once we feel safe going out to print it), in the meantime, we’ll post the comics on our tumblr page and share the link widely. Stick to 5.5″ x 8.5″ digest mini-comic format so that we can easily put it together. No deadline, comics will be loaded as they are received.
Email your comic page to short.run.info@gmail.com
2019 Festival Concludes!
Thank you everyone who exhibited, attended, volunteered, promoted, or funded us! What an amazing year! We’re still compiling photos but keep your eye on our flickr page, where all the photos will be stored.
Dash Grant winner announced!
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.
