Short Shrift

Whatever happened to the short story? There used to be a few venues where standalone comics shorts could see print, but these days such tales are a rare discovery. Alex Dueben wonders what it might take to bring the short story to life.
01 August 2003

The debate over comics format has for years been the question of pamphlets versus albums and graphic novels. The debate has been an important one, and while a great many issues have yet to be decided about the future of the medium, there is one problem with the debate; it ignores shorter stories.

Now when I'm discussing "shorts", as I'm choosing to call them, I'm not using it as shorthand for any single issue of a comic book that you find. I mean a single, self-contained story that is told in a relatively short span of pages, be it five, ten, twenty-two, or whatever. If we're going to be technical, it's anything short of a graphic novel that's longer than a single comic strip.

Think of last year's THE MEGALOMANIACAL SPIDER-MAN, by Peter Bagge, or any standalone issue of the recent TANGLED WEB series, where creators were able to use the trappings of Spider-Man and take them in a new direction.

Then there's Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's HELLBLAZER one shot HEARTLAND, probably their best single work, or Ennis' recent WAR STORIES; Jason Hall and Matt Kindt's MEPHISTO AND THE EMPTY BOX; Dan Clowes' EIGHTBALL #22; Ariel Schrag's AWKWARD; Grant Morrison and Paul Grist's ST SWITHIN'S DAY. Judd Winick's ROAD TRIP.

Shorts may include single issue stories from ongoing series, but most issues in a serial tend to take place in the established context of the other issues, dependent upon the knowledge of other events in order to be fully understood.

For example, TRANSMETROPOLITAN and PREACHER are stories with a beginning, middle and end, and while they're well worth pursuing as entire works, I don't think that reading any random issue would be any more helpful than opening up to the middle of chapter 17 of a novel and expecting to hit the ground running. A possible exception is PREACHER #18, 'Texas And The Spaceman', the story of how Jesse's father got his "Fuck Communism" zippo in Vietnam.

SANDMAN, on the other hand, has a handful of issues that can be set apart from others, such as the stories collected in DREAM COUNTRY, or the famed issue #50, 'Ramadan', illustrated by P Craig Russell.

Critics always carp about how comics need to have more jumping on points; how every comic is someone's first comic; how the stories should be easily understandable for a new audience; but comics are primarily a serial medium, and for the most part one story has to continue month after month in a timely fashion.

And the truth about shorts is that they're hard. We see so few of them in large part because comics creators have to keep turning out serial stories on a regular basis, which perhaps explains why independent creators, who don't face the monthly grind and have the ability to define their work themselves, often do a better job at it.

Look back ten or fifteen years and it seems there were more opportunities to write singles. Marvel published EPIC magazine, which was more revolutionary than anything Quesada and Jemas have done since taking command. HEAVY METAL was producing some excellent stories. DC had BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT and the SHOWCASE series, which rotated their creative teams.

The problem is that no one buys anthology titles. ONI DOUBLE SHOT lasted thirteen issues, largely thanks to Kevin Smith's comic debut in the first issue, despite the excellent work of the Pander Brothers, the then-little known Judd Winick, Paul Dini and others.

Marvel recently published a couple of anthology miniseries featuring some high profile creators. PULP, the Viz-produced magazine, died last year despite some critical buzz. One of the few to endure has been Drawn and Quarterly's annual issues, although the recent attempt by The Comics Journal to expand its mission to create a regular anthology is not only stunning, but genuinely exciting.

Neil Gaiman has been publishing singles through Dark Horse recently with artists Michael Zulli (THE LAST TEMPTATION), John Bolton (HARLEQUIN VALENTINE) and P Craig Russell (MURDER MYSTERIES), but he has the 'brand name' to pull it off. Dark Horse has published collections of short stories from Mike Mignola and Frank Miller, but they're HELLBOY and SIN CITY stories, the works of big name creators telling stories that they've become associated with.

Some publishers, like Top Shelf, Oni, Fantagraphics, and other independents, will continue to allow creators to tell stories in unusual formats, but the truth is that there are few options. The most likely possibility is that they will either get collected along with other shorts by the same writer or artist, or even that they could appear in collections as an added bonus, in much the same way that filmmaker's short films are often included on DVDs of their feature length works.

One-shots will continue to come out from most publishers, but the truth is that shorts will mostly be relegated to two formats:

Mini comics, which may be reprinted later when the creator gains a certain degree of fame and success, like the SOUNDTRACK collection by Jessica Abel, or 32 STORIES, by Adrian Tomine.

And backup stories to titles like DETECTIVE COMICS, which often bear little relation to the main story. These often allow creators the chance write new stories and new characters. Ed Brubaker's CATWOMAN series was effectively launched in the backup strips. MANHUNTER, the Archie Goodwin/Walter Simonson collaboration, was a backup in BATMAN in the seventies.

Ask prose writers about the market for publishing short fiction, and they will likely tell you that it's a miserable situation there as well; there are far too many talented people with too few outlets that enable them to write. Short stories go generally unnoticed until they get collected, at which point they're often widely lauded. While I must admit it's sad to say, comics would do well to have a system even as good as this one.

Comic book writers have few options in terms of choosing the kinds of stories they want to tell. It's a shame, because one has to wonder about the kind of creators and creations that readers are missing out on. The best solution may be a quarterly magazine, mixing up high profile creators with talented novices.

Imagine if comics had a magazine like Tin House or McSweeneys. Not a highbrow or really literary magazine, but something hip and exciting. This isn't about creating a place for KA-ZAR or ADAM STRANGE stories. It's about creating a playground that's exciting and alive and really feeding off the culture. Where you could find work from different genres, crime and sci-fi, serious and humorous, autobiography and horror. This is about the industry changing. So who's going to step up?

Alex Dueben is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.

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