THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2024! 10 YEARS OF THE BF SIX TO WATCH! If anyone ever tells you that the UK small press comics scene is in a state of decline you have my explicit permission to laugh uproariously in their face. There’s no better example of itsvibrancy than the annual WIP Comics anthology projects which this year is the double book package of Tall Tales & Short Stories. If you are unfamiliar with WIP (Work-in-Progress) Comics it is a supportive community group for aspiring and/or emerging comics creators which holds regular meetings both online and in person. You can find out more about their excellent work here. I would suggest you do.
Cover by Claudia Matosa
What always appeals about the WIP anthologies is how often they play with format. From a newspaper comics-style newsprint offering to a collection of loose minicomics there’s always an implicit message that comics are a truly adaptable form. With Tall Tales & Short stories that aim is once again realised in tactile format across two books. Tall Tales is in portrait form but with the spine being at the top of the book, leading to a long, downwards reading experience. Short Stories is a landscape comics album, making use of dimensions all too frequently ignored in comics outside of newspaper strips.
First up, there are over 70 creators involved with Tall Tales & Short Stories so any commentary here is only going to be able to capture a mere handful of the artists involved. If you want a fuller look at one of these strips then we already covered Alba Ceide’s Tall Tale here which is also being released as a separate concertina-style minicomic at Thought Bubble.
Let’s look at some highlights from Short Stories first, though. Judy Powell’s ‘Granny and the Smart Party Frock’ (above) is a delightful slice-of-life anecdotal piece, gorgeously illustrated with a retro period feel and ending in a deliciously naughty visual punchline. Powell was the winner of LDComics’s Rosalind B. Penfold Award for ““finding your voice over the age of fifty” in 2021 and while to date I have read only limited examples of her work what I have seen continues to impress.
Mike Armstrong’s ‘Small Adjustments Made in Short Order’ (above) sees the lives of a group of woodland animals forever changed by their new mayor in a lovely piece of slapstick farce. Armstrong’s cartooning is always animated and lively and there’s a very relevant piece of social commentary underlying the surface level seriousness here.
woolypear’s ‘The Playground’ makes excellent use of the flow of the landscape double-page spread, reminding us of comics’ unique relationship with the passage of time in four seasonal shots of kids at play. Other strips to make fine use of the format include Peter Taylor’s ‘My Best Friend’ which packs an incredible emotional punch for just four pages, and Jess Hannar’s ‘Freedom’, as we follow the journey of a paper boat set sailing from a stream to its final destination.
Ed Firth’s ‘The Trees’ takes the lyrics of the Pulp song to create something starkly and eerily crimson from those words while Miki Shaw’s ‘Short-Changed’ captures the innocence of childhood by stripping images back to nothing but their young subject and ensuring that our focus is entirely on his body language. With Tall Tales the most impressive work comes from those who have really embraced the opportunities inherent in this very different way of showcasing comics. KitsuneArt’s ‘The House on the Hill’ (above) sees two young women explored a supposedly haunted villa. Location and atmosphere are enhanced by the way she uses the spiralling downwards potential of the portrait-sized splash page, especially to create a sense of tension when the duo find themselves within the creepy building’s interiors.
Ria Grix’s ‘Juoru’s House’ (above) is the standout here with the rooms of an apartment building standing in as individual panels and residents providing a running commentary on the new tenant in the basement. It also ends on another cracking visual punchline to match Judy Powell’s in Short Stories. Leina Elgohari’s ‘My Lockdown Memories’ also makes great use of the layout with four pages of pandemic memories that flow and merge into one another, echoing the strange feeling of skewed time that many experienced during that period.
And with yet another final panel flourish Emily Maher turns a vertigo-inducing trip up a skyscraper from uneasy autobio into a lovely flight of fancy in ‘Ping!’ while Joe Stone gives us an unlikely origin story in ‘A Life of Stone’ by adopting the idea of a tall tale with Munchausen-ian flair. Finally from this half of the releases Manon Wright’s ‘A Phantasmic Parade’ (above) also caught my eye for its adept use of the long narrow length of the pages. Dreamy and mystical with a vivid use of colour.
Not every contribution is fully-formed and that’s absolutely to be expected from a project that is about helping artists find their voices and their confidence. But once again this year’s WIP Comics anthology is a testament to the incredible and often uncelebrated talent on offer in UK indie comics. Extra mention to Mike Armstrong for his design work here. With Tall Tales & Short Stories WIP have once again provided us with Broken Frontier’s Thought Bubble Book of the Festival.
AJ O’Neill, Alba Ceide, Alex King, Andrew Attwell, AP Vrdoljak, Becky Appleyard, Bren Meachen, Bryan Mathers, Dan Pollard, Dave Turbitt, Deadly Knitshade, DLNoel, Emily Maher, Greg Donert, Hanna Gwynn, Jack Waugh, Jan Blum, Joe Stone, Kama Mielczarek, KitsuneArt, Lara Callaghan, Larisa Vieru, Leina Elgohari, Libby Reed, M K L Freeman, Manon Wright, Markus Pattern, Max Barker, Nicholas Nesbitt, Nick Bryan, Phng Keng Boon (Trish), Ria Grix, Robertas Alimas, Sam Hardacre, Tom Davies, Tristan Spill, Yawatta Hosby, Zubair M Chaudhry, Abi Wye, Andreas Cealera, Benjamin Nunn, Brandon Sked, Bruno Stead, Carsha, Christopher Hazeldine, Doz, Ed Firth, Edward Wills Garcia, Ellenor Mererid, Fantomlimb, lomcia, Jess Hannar, Joshua Knowles, Judy Powell, Kry Garcia, Larisa Vieru, Martin Bangratz, Mary Bluestocking, Matt Adcock, Mike Armstrong, Miki Shaw, Pete Hobson, Peter Taylor, Ralph Knight, Stefan Alexander, The Mollusc Dimension, Thomas Wrigley, turtlesboots, woolypear, Zach Cobb (W/A) • WIP Comics
Review by Andy Oliver
Visit the WIP Comics store here.
WIP Comics will be at Table C28 in the Travelling Man Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2024 runs from November 11th-17th with the convention weekend taking place on the 16th-17th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2024 coverage so far in one place here.
Art by Rocío Arreola Mendoza
