Mini-Comics from Silber Media

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We make mini-comics the size of a pack of matches. Most issues are about 40 pages long.
All prices include shipping!

Subscribe to physical copies of our next ten mini-comics.
$10 ($15 intn'l).

Subscribe to digital copies of our next twenty mini-comics.
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Just $5.

60 comic book box set collection (in a handfinished wooden box) of our first 60 books.
$60 ($75 international) or as a digital download collection ($12).

Astronaut Jane
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A new series? Maybe. Astronaut Jane is about an astronaut alone in space. This piece was written based on the cover art - which is an interesting way to work.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Jason Strutz.

Built
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
Built is the story of a robot fighting his programming & his masters.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Joe Badon.

Cerebus Reflection
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
So I'm a big Cerebus fan & a big Conan fan. I originally wrote this story as a short King Conan piece, but Margaret Liss was looking for some stuff for her Cerebus Newsletter so I changed a few words around.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Jason Young.

Come Home Safe
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
The story of the existential haze of a musician's life
Story & words by Andrew Weathers.
Artwork by Brian John Mitchell.

Cops & Crooks
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
The lives of a cop & a crook intersecting.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Jason Young & Eric Shonborn.

Just A Man
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A western with a nameless hero.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Andrew White.

order all five Just A Mans for $4.50 ($7.50 intn'l)

Lost Kisses
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
Self-deprecating comedy & tragedy.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Brian John Mitchell.

order all twelve Lost Kisses for $9.00 ($11.00 intn'l)

Lost Kisses Daily
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A collection of a month of daily strips.

Lost Kisses DVD - My Life is Sad & Funny
$12 ($15 intn'l)
DVD collecting cartoon versions of the first ten Lost Kisses.

Ultimate Lost Kisses
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
The emotionally traumatic stories that shaped a woman's life.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Dave Sim (ULK #11), Jeremy Johnson (ULK #12).

Extreme Lost Kisses
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
Stick figures get extreme in the style of Rambo instead of Rocky.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Nick Marino.

Marked
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A demon hunter is pulled out of retirement.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Jeremy Johnson.

Mecha
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A former slave & giant robot.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Johnny Hoang.

Messenger
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
The elder gods are coming. Will you stop them or guide them here?

Mobil Zombie
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A mini-comic about working in a gas station after a zombie apocalypse. BJM's second comic from back in the year 2000.
Story & words & art by Brian John Mitchell.

Monthly
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A mini-comic about the dark side of relationships.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Eric Shonborn.

Poit
$2 ($3 intn'l)
Stickfigures, surrealism & murder. 2 stories in 2 versions of the comic
Words by Brian John Mitchell
Story & artwork by Dave Sim

Pow Wow
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A mini-comic about the folk magic of the Pennsylvania Dutch & the problems coping with a loved one dying.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by ED.

Promute Origins
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A mini-comic about the origins of Promute.
Words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Andrew Sandor.

REH
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
REH is autobio stories about Robert E Howard.
Story & words - Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork - Andrew White.

Shimmer
$2 ($3 intn'l)
Brian John Mitchell's first mini-comic from all the way back in 1995 about dread, despair, & the hope for salvation.
Words & semi-surreal art by Brian John Mitchell.

Small Art Series
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
Abstract paintings telling stories of paranoid survival.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Brian John Mitchell.

Star
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
Star is the story of a rocker trying to outrun his demons.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell
Artwork by Kurt Dinse

Storyteller
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
A piece inspired by Professor Brian Coppola about the nature of reality.

Vigilant
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
Vigilant is the story of vigilantes or revolutionaries or a better future.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell
Artwork by PB Kain (#1) & Brian John Mitchell (#2)

Worms
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
Surreal story crossing Lovecraft & Kafka.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Kimberlee Traub.

order all seven issues of Worms for $6 ($8 international)

XO
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
The adventures of a sociopath with a heart of gold.
Story & words by Brian John Mitchell.
Artwork by Melissa Spence Gardner.

order all seven issues of XO for $6 ($8 international)

Silber Mini-Comics Sampler
$1.50 ($2.50 intn'l) (includes shipping)
Seven original short tales from Lost Kisses, XO, Worms, Just A Man, Mecha, Ultimate Lost Kisses, & Marked.
Sample all the series on a budget.

Free Downloads

Built #1	PDF	CBZ
Cops & Crooks #1	PDF	CBZ
Just A Man #1	PDF	CBZ
Just A Man #2	PDF	CBZ
Just A Man #3	PDF	CBZ
Just A Man #4	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #1	coming soon	coming soon
Lost Kisses #2	coming soon	coming soon
Lost Kisses #3	coming soon	coming soon
Lost Kisses #4	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #5	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #6	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #7	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #8	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #9	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #10	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #21	PDF	CBZ
Lost Kisses #22	PDF	CBZ
Ultimate Lost Kisses #11	PDF	CBZ
Ultimate Lost Kisses #12	PDF	CBZ
Extreme Lost Kisses #1	PDF	CBZ
Marked #1	PDF	CBZ
Marked #2	PDF	CBZ
Mecha #1	PDF	CBZ
Monthly #1	PDF	CBZ
Poit - La Jetee	PDF	CBZ
Poit - WTF	PDF	CBZ
REH #1	PDF	CBZ
Small Art Series I	PDF	CBZ
Small Art Series II	PDF	CBZ
Star #1	PDF	CBZ
Vigilant #1	PDF	CBZ
Worms #1	PDF	CBZ
Worms #2	PDF	CBZ
Worms #3	PDF	CBZ
Worms #4	PDF	CBZ
Worms #5	PDF	CBZ
Worms #6	PDF	CBZ
XO #1	PDF	CBZ
XO #2	PDF	CBZ
XO #3	PDF	CBZ
XO #4	PDF	CBZ
XO #5	PDF	CBZ
XO #6	PDF	CBZ
XO #7	PDF	CBZ

Reviews:
Brian John Mitchell specialises in mini comics so small that they're probably best described as micro-comics. I’ve seen many small press creators supplement their traditional DIY output with a few super-tiny publishing experiments over the last few years, but Mitchell really takes this practice to the next level by exclusively focusing on these matchbox-sized books. Working as writer only, he enlists the help of a wide variety of artistic collaborators to illustrate his work, from unknowns to even Dave Sim of Cerebus fame. Featuring avenging cowboys, giant worms, gory gang land killings, post-apocalyptic wastelands and demon fighting, it seems like all weird and wonderful things come in small packages.
Ironically, considering their diminutive size, the content of these comics is almost always epic in scope. As you might be able to guess from the list of features above, there's an extensive focus on loud-and-proud genre work, with pop-culture staples like Sci Fi, Fantasy and even Western, prominently used in his work. The advantage of this is that the stories have an efficient, boiled-down quality to them; providing the reader has some understanding the genres they are channeling. Some work, some don’t, but all have a certain charm to them; tiny creative perspectives that gradually form a larger picture of Mitchell’s overall style.
Of the selection Mitchell kindly sent us, Just a Man (drawn by Andrew White) stood out as the most successful in its aims, reducing the Western genre to its core semiotic components. It's a familiar story: a nameless man laying a bloody road of revenge across the West following his wife’s murder. Though truncated, it builds on the preexisting expectations of the reader, economically building a satisfying narrative and setting. In this sense, it reminds me of Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth; where the comic partially relies on readers’ understanding of genre archetypes to be engrossed as quickly and subconsciously as possible. Admittedly, I’ve only had the pleasure of reading the fourth “issue”, and an introductory story within the Silber Mini-Comics Sampler, but I was nonetheless impressed by just how atmospheric and engaging it manages to be.
Also of note is (the slightly bigger in format) Mecha, labelled as an accompaniment to a Silber Media released album by Remora (Mitchell's music project) of the same name. I don't know much about the music itself, other than one Remora CDs features a picture of a Zentradi mech from Robotech/ Macross, so obviously its okay in my book. The comic itself is a post-apocalyptic story about a man's discovery of a gigantic aging mech. In a narrative archetype so classic it rivals Homer's Odyssey in terms of replication, he subsequently repairs and pilots the machine. Drawn attractively by Johnny Hoang, it reads very much like the kind of dirty 1970s Sci-Fi comic you'd find at a garage sale amongst a tattered pile of 2000ADs and weird 1970s-era Kirby covers; which you shouldn't need me to tell you is no bad thing at all. No sir.
I'd be remiss not to mention the reversible crime comic Cops & Crooks, which, features a story from the titular factions on each side. Affordable, portable and coming with oh-so-handy tiny plastic comic bags, head on over to the Silber media website to load up on these miniature marvels now. They May get lost in your longbox, but at least you'll be able to fit them in your wallet for your next ride to work. Ride on public transport that is, we really don't endorse reading mini-comics whilst you drive. Peace!
~ Martin Steenton, Avoid the Future

Brian John Mitchell publishes his micro mini comics in batches, so it seems fitting to review them in a like fashion. All are printed in black & white, handmade, saddle stitched, with self-covers that are included in the page counts listed (below). Unless otherwise mentioned, they measure about 2" x 2.25" and each one is packed in its own tiny plastic bag. Most of the series are continued from issue to issue, but with the beginning recap at the start of each issue you can enjoy them singly as well. They will likely end with a cliffhanger, but that's part of the fun.
Silber Mini-Comics Sampler #1 60 pages. At $1 a copy I'm not sure why a sampler of Silber's tiny titles is necessary, but for those afraid of commitment this may be just the ticket. On the other hand, the book isn't a simple reprint of excerpts from the titles it samples. No way. Instead, each micro sample presents a few original pages in the spirit of seven of Silber's ongoing series. So if you're a completist, you'll want this one too. Here's what's inside, in Mitchell's own words:
Just A Man tells the story of a man in the old west fighting for vengeance, justice, and salvation with a gun. With art by Andrew White.
Worms follows a young woman who's a victim of medical experiments that have made her world a very dangerous place. With art by Kimberlee Traub.
XO is about a sociopath with a heart of gold . . . who can't stop killing people. With art by Melissa Spence Gardner.
Marked chronicles the life of a retired demon-hunter dragged back into his profession and on the run from the law. With art by Jeremy Johnson.
Lost Kisses chronicles the life of a depressed, self-obsessed, and self-deprecating stick figure. With art by Brian John Mitchell.
Ultimate Lost Kisses stands Lost Kisses on its head with great artwork and heartfelt stories from the female perspective. With artwork for the sampler drawn from Arlene Hughes' collection of Chinese paper cuttings.
Mecha follows a lone survivor trying to save the human race and hopefully end his life and suffering in the process. With artwork by Johnny Hoang.
Due to their relatively high page counts and size Silber's micro mini comics are puffy little packages. Fortunately, Mitchell compresses each one and stuffs it into a tiny plastic bag that helps preserve and flatten them out. The rest of the batch he sent consists of:
Cops & Crooks #1 by Mitchell (story) is split down the middle and requires readers to flip the comic over to its second cover to continue reading. 40 pages. The the Cops half by Jason Young and the Crooks half is drawn by Eric Shonborn.
Each half tells the story of a boy growing up without a father who was killed by either law enforcement or a criminal. Each character is defined by his past. As their futures rush together, they are sure to clash in an upcoming chapter.
Just A Man #4 by Mitchell (story) and Andrew White (art). 48 pages. Previously, the main character went on a killing spree to avenge his wife's murder. Then he was hired to rescue his employer's daughter from a whorehouse. Problem is, shortly after saving her, he discovers the girl really wasn't his employer's daughter, and his wife is still alive. He settles accounts with the boss man and then sets out to find his spouse.
Marked #2 by Mitchell (story) and Jeremy Johnson (art). 52 pages. After almost a decade of normal life, Mark excises his retirement to fight some local demons. Unfortunately he's grown weak and had to unleash his inner demon to win the fight. Now it's on the loose and that spells the end of Mark's civilian life. There's nothing left now but battle and escape.
Mecha #1 by Mitchell (story) and Johnny Hoang (art) is an unusually large format for Silber, measuring in at about 2.75" square and 32 pages. Martians have invaded and conquered Earth. They've enslaved what remains of the native population. As the story opens, the narrator finds himself cast in the role of a gladiator fighting for his life for the entertainment of his captors. He escapes to find his destiny on a almost hopeless planet.
XO #6 by Mitchell (story) and Melissa Spence Gardner (art). 40 pages. In the last chapter, the sixteen-year-old narrator committed a semi-accidental murder and was left with the dead body and a vintage Ford Mustage. He takes off on Interstate 95 to deal with his immediate problem and his longer term dilemma.
Worms #6 by Mitchell (story) and Kimberlee Traub (art). 44 pages. After escaping from a series of medical experiments in which her body became host to alien worms, the narrator/main character jumps into a huge tank only to be swallowed whole by a gigantic worm. Fortunately her mind controls it and she uses it to fight back at her captors. That is, until they turn up the juice.
It's hard to go wrong with any of Mtichell's minis. They're action-packed and filled with unexpected twists. Just choose your favorite genre and dive in. $1 each from Silber Media Comics.
~ Midnight Fiction

Looking at the newest set of minicomics from Raleigh, NC’s own Brian John Mitchell and friends, it’s become clear that the most successful of these odd little 2×2? (and occasional 3×3?) micro-minis tend to have the simplest rendering styles. Take Worms #6, for instance. Kimberlee Traub’s thick but simple line verges on the abstract at times, adding a certain weird energy to this sci-fi/military conspiracy story. On the tiny pages where each page contains a single panel, Traub eschews any pretense of traditional narrative flow for a series of striking singular images. On the other hand, the Johnny Hoang-drawn Mecha #1 is done in a realistic style with narrative captions written in a difficult-to-read script. Based on an album, Mecha also reminds me a bit of the old Marvel Killraven series, with Martians taking over the planet and forcing children to fight in arenas. Even in a 3×3? format, the small size of the pages does no favors to Hoang’s art, which itself is serviceable but otherwise unremarkable.
As always, these Mitchell-written comics dip into genre concerns like crime (Cops & Crooks #1), gritty westerns (Just A Man #4), or sociopathic killers (XO #6). Mitchell is careful to have each of these comics tell a complete story in a single issue, even if they’re part of a larger storyline. Mitchell packs 40-50 pages in each issue; even at a panel a page, Mitchell’s dominant narrative style still makes each individual comic a surprisingly meaty read. That narrative deliberately cultivates a flatness of affect that turns each genre slightly on its head. In XO, for example, the matter-of-factness of the murdering protagonist is so disconcerting that one almost forgets why he’s taking a long road trip to Miami. The simplicity of the rendering here also worked to the comic’s advantage. Cops and Crooks was a flip-book mini, with one side featuring a first-person narrative from a criminal on a vendetta against the police because his father was killed by a cop, and the other side featuring a cop whose father was killed by a criminal. The heavy rendering of Eric Shonborn’s “Crooks” portion looked like it was inspired by Jim Lee-era X-Men comics, which didn’t translate well at all. The latest issue of Just A Man felt repetitive, lacking the sheer audacity of the two most recent issues.
The most intriguing mini in this bunch was Silber Mini-Comics Sampler #1. Rather than include sample pages from each of his series, Silber instead wrote new 8-page stories that focused more on character, theme and set-up than on plot. Anyone curious about what these minis are all about would be wise to pick up this comic, which includes a short from the Lost Kisses series, a hilarious stick-figure series about one man’s thoughts on life. The drier the humor and blander the situation, the more interesting Mitchell’s comics tend to be. Mitchell seems fascinated with genre comics, but the micro-mini format seems a poor fit for a number of them. In the Sampler, at least, one can get a quick sense of what Mitchell does best, along with an understanding of Mitchell’s unusual voice as a writer.
~ Rob Clough, The Comics Journal

I have a whole slew of these mini-comics and almost regular size comics. Let me go down the list – one at a time explaining what they are and what they are about.
XO#6 – Continuing an early XO adventure about a youth finding his life vocation. The hero of the story, if you want to call him a hero, does a semi-accidental murder and was stuck with a dead body and a vintage Ford Mustang. After causing a person’s death, the so-called hero thinks of his future. Will he have a future?
Worms #6 – A notable climax in the Worms story. Imagine your body being the host of some kind of alien worms. When I was a kid I would squirm hearing stories of tape worms and ring worms. This little comic book will make you squirm!
Just a Man #4 – The tension mounts and the body count continues to grow.
Marked #2 – Fighting demons the old fashioned way, with physical violence. Man, watch the Demon Hunter go to work, fighting a demon, but before doing so, getting sick in the toilet! The Demon Hunter takes energy from other people, so he can confront this monstrocity of a demon and beat him down like a step-child! When he is finished beating the demon, he forces the demon back into his chest and heads out to catch a train!
Cops & Crooks #1 – Debut of a new series about two very different lives intersecting. Art by Eric Shonborn & Jason Young of Guttertrash.net – Yikes! Talk of killing cops, killing the system, building an empire. A hatred that goes back when the star of this story says that cops killed his dad!
Mecha #1 – A new series giant-sized by our standards. An homage to the post-apocalyptic sci-fi of the early 1980s. Art by Johnny Hoang. Wow! Great science fiction artwork with a story about fighting Martians. A story of a fighter, a gladiator falling in love with the woman of his life, only to find out she is dying.
Silber Mini-Comics Sampler #1 – Seven incredibly short pieces from seven of our series.
My thoughts about Silber Media Comics, if the Mayan Prophesy of 2012 is correct and the world is coming to an end, I wouldn't mind having some of these comics in my back pack, for my last reading enjoyment!
~ Paul Dale Roberts, Jazma Online!

I got these in the mail a while ago and just now made my way through the last one. Silber minicomics are some seriously mini comics, each page a little bigger than a postage stamp (image above slightly larger than actual size). One panel per page, one line of narration per panel. The idea is that you can put a few of them in your wallet, read them on the bus or train or whatever, so that's what I've been doing for the last little while. It's a spartan way of doing comics, occasionally even close to avant-garde (as in the "Marked" comics, where panel after panel of loose, swiped-looking '90s-style hero art get hurled down into an emotionless well until it all just stops). This stuff is the bare minimum of "sequential art", wedded to stock genre stories that don't emote or engage so much as simply exist and wait for you to come to them. The format is something some of the artists can deal with and some can't -- the bad ones just do drawings, the good ones take the image-image power of facing pages, build up a stony rhythm, and make the pictures really cascade. Notable titles are Marked, Mecha, and Just A Man. This stuff is pretty weird; inaccessible, largely tone-deaf comics that inhabit a sometimes uncomfortable place between craft and lack thereof. But that's the charm of them, the charm of the noncommercial, the primal. Here's their site: you could definitely do worse.
~ Matt Seneca, Death to the Universe

Brian John Mitchell’s minicomics are odd little things, measuring about 2×2?. Each page contains a single panel, and they are paced such that the reader is encouraged to tear through them. Each title is a variation on a genre concept, told in roughly the same narrative voice from comic to comic. That voice is a first-person narrator with an odd flatness of affect. No matter how weird or horrible things may get, the voice retains that same unshakable level of calm. How well each particular comic worked depended on the artist.
For example, MARKED #1, with art by Jeremy Johnson, is the weakest comic in the batch. It’s a story about a guy hunting a couple of killers possessed by demons, with the twist that he was holding back his own demon. Johnson’s art walked the line between simple and unclear, resulting in a number of pages that were simply incoherent. On the other hand, Kimberlee Traub’s art in WORMS #5 ( a sci-fi/horror comic about a girl trying to escape from a deadly lab with her new-found, worm-given powers) is simple and stylish. The story also has a manic quality to it that propels the reader through the hero’s attempt to escape. The story also has a creepy quality, as the worms inside of her become beloved figures in her life in a way that is not explained.
Mitchell’s western series, JUST A MAN #2 and #3, pick up after the first issue’s massacre of a man’s family. He guesses who the killers were, coldly murders them all, and then leaves town. The first issue was impressive in its cold bleakness, but the series took a series of wacky left turns as it proceeded. The man goes to another town, winds up taking a job retrieving a young woman from a brothel, and finds his supposedly dead wife is working there–and starts shooting at him. We learn that the man was a Clint Eastwood-style killer who hung up his guns, but fell quite easily into his old habits when he had to. The artist, Andrew White, frequently employs a close-up style to emphasize the hero’s point of view. For example, when he’s in a bar, the reader only sees a bottle and glass in a panel. It’s an odd comic that reflects the slightly skewed perspective of Mitchell as a writer.
The most unusual of all these comics was ULTIMATE LOST KISSES #11, which was drawn by Dave Sim. Yes, that Dave Sim, of CEREBUS fame. The story involved a woman who found out that the son she gave up for adoption was now grown up–but in prison. Sim used the one-page, one-panel approach to repeat variations on the same static image as though this were a flip book. Meanwhile, Mitchell’s flat narration beats on in every panel, relating the feelings of the character, but only in the most restrained manner. The most striking image that Sim repeats is that of her son, with a shaved head and angular profile, calmly relating why he committed murder. It’s a comic that doesn’t seek to pass judgments on its characters: it simply relates disturbing events and asks the reader to accept them, as is. Removing the genre tropes from his storytelling made this the most direct and powerful of Mitchell’s comics. The Silber media comics do come across sometimes more as novelty items than real attempts at expression, so it was interesting to see Mitchell work with Sim to create a comic that was genuinely chilling.
~ Rob Clough, The Comics Journal

The more I read of Mitchell's minicomics, the more impressed I am. He has excellent command of the format?he understands what he can and can't do, and he plays to its strengths. The stories are lean and mean, no filler, and even though the issue don't take long to read, I find myself going back to particular issues for multiple reads.
~ Brian LeTendre, Secret Identity Podcast

We’ve been talking a lot lately about how much comics cost, and alternate ways of writing and marketing comic book stories in the current economic climate. In jumps Silber Mini Comics, postage stamp sized books by writer Brian John Mitchell that have one panel per tiny page, printed on regular paper, and sold for a dollar each. Are they worth it at any price? Is this the wave of the future, or a relic of the past?
To get a sense of what this means, I decided to do mini reviews of Silber Mini Comics. Pretty clever, I know, I’m amazing:
XO #5: Most adorable little crime comic ever? It may be the size, but this was like if Bazooka Joe decided to try crack one day.
WORMS #4 & #5: The Prisoner, by any other name, but also a good, dream-like use of the Mini Comic format.
JUST A MAN #1, #2 & #3: What if you took every Clint Eastwood Western and made them into a tiny comic? But what if we could?
MARKED #1: The phrase, “They’ll be back in in two nights. I can smell their plans,” should let you know whether you’re interested in this or not.
LOST KISSES #9, #10 & #11: The first two issues are blog posts in comic form. Issue #11 is the most focused story of this whole bunch of comics… With art by Cerebus’ Dave Sim.
On a whole, the books aren’t breaking any new ground, and with the exception of Lost Kisses #11, they lack a certain clarity of focus to the story, aping other people’s ideas rather than creating their own. Also, only occasionally does Mitchell really make the format work for him, as it does in Worms (each page is like a deepening nightmare).
However! Since this does sometimes work, Mitchell, with the help of a good editor (or a little self editing) could really focus on a unique idea that works specifically with this format, and be on to something. Or, bring on other writers and artists (as he does with the Dave Sim issue), and let them play, working instead as a publishing house. Either way, $1 is a bargain in this economy, and Mitchell, with a little perseverance and smart choices, could really build Silber Mini Comics into something interesting.
As it is, they’re an interesting glimpse at one possibility for the printed pamphlet’s future.
~ Alex Zalben, PopCultureShock

The mini-comics themselves really ranged in quality for me. They’re tiny little books. Barely over an inch by an inch. That doesn’t give much room for impressive art or a lot of words per page. Most take the form of poetic shorts, I guess. The narratives tend to have pretty simple twists that don’t really impress. Looking through the stack of them, Kurt Dinse’s art on “Star” #1 was one of the stand-outs and there’s something very simple and charming about “Built” #1 by Mitchell and Joe Badon. The absurdist “Poit” comics in collboration with Dave Sim (you read that right) are interesting in their use of the same art, but don’t really cohere into anything.
The use of violent twists is something that seems to run through all of the books and grated on me as they kept piling up. It’s somewhat predictable when you read a bunch of these in a row. By the time I got to “XO” #7, it just made me groan more than anything, because the twist was annoying after so many. Still, there’s something that draws me to these little comics. They aren’t always entirely clear/apparent on the first reading and that challenge of seeing how they work exactly, of what Mitchell and company were going for, is appealing.
Definitely different than most of what’s out there, the Silber mini-comics definitely won’t be for everyone, but are interesting to check out. You can learn more at their website.
~ Chad Nevett, Comics Should Be Good

Silber Media's Brian John Mitchell sent me a huge batch of his latest micro-mini comics. As always, these minis are 2x2" and range from 12 - 40 or so pages. They're almost entirely written by Mitchell and drawn by a number of collaborators, though Mitchell does do stick-figure drawings for some of these comics. Mitchell's minicomics publishing empire is one of the odder phenomena in comics today, and I always look forward to a new shipment. Given the size of this latest shipment, I'll do a lightning-round style evaluation of each, with just a sentence or two of commentary.
Poit!: WTF and Poit!: La Jetee, by BJM and Dave Sim. The common thread for all of these comics is a palpable yet restrained sense of desperation. These stick-figure experiments with Sim feature precisely the same art in both minis, with completely different dialogue (written by Mitchell) in each. In one, the protagonist pops in and out of horrible events as a time traveler. In another, he constantly dreams about killing his girlfriend. In both cases, suicide winds up being his solution.
Lost Kisses #21, by BJM. This has always been Mitchell's best series: a series of stick-figure drawings featuring dialogue with narrative captions that provide a funny counterpoint, although that humor is cynical and frequently pitch-black. This one also focuses on time travel, musing on how it might affect his life.
Built #1, by BJM & Joe Badon. This story about a robot with human emotions who strives to move beyond his station in life is about 90% filler, plodding on long after its premise was established.
xlk: Extreme Lost Kisses, by BJM & Nick Marino. Best way to describe this comic: if Rambo had been done as a stick-figure cartoon with an overdubbed narrator pontificating about his mission ala Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now.
Ultimate Lost Kisses #12, by BJM & Jeremy Johnson. This story about a teenager who becomes pregnant and is determined to keep it feels a bit like a Dave Kiersh comic, minus compelling imagery.
XO #7, by BJM & Melissa Spence Gardner. This is the continuing story of an introspective assassin who muses about his life and his relationships. In this issue, he falls in love with a woman who should raise red flags, and winds up paying a price. This was a genuinely exciting comic, and Gardner's simple gray-scaled art is effective in giving the reader short sharp shocks on each page.
Small Art Series: American, Awake, Climb, Professor Horton, Why Birds Sing, miscellaneous, by BJM. All of these feature color photos of assorted textures, meant to mimic wood, fire (Professor Horton is about the original Human Torch), plumage, etc. These tiny comics are worth a glance, though not a lingering look, because it's less about aesthetics than concept.
Monthly #1, by BJM & Eric Shonborn and Star #1, by BJM & Kurt Dinse. Mitchell loves flipping seemingly mundance stories into supernatural thrillers, all while maintaining the initial dramatic/romantic thread. Monthly drops an early clue as to why its protagonist can't find the right girl to fall in love with and why this is so important, and then spills its reveal halfway through. It's a funny, effective bit of shock, aided by clear and stark art by Shonborn. Star's concept is similar, though it lets the cat out of the bag a little earlier and so starts to drag halfway through. There's also too much clutter on the page.
Vigilant #1, by BJM & PB Kain. This comic about vigilantes is both tedious to read and boring to look at. It's one of the rare total misfires from Mitchell.
~ Rob Clough, High-Low

Brian John Mitchell and his various artists seem to pump out these tiny comics with regularity, and while they're not exactly revolutionary works of art that demand seeking out whatever the cost, they're unique objects, interesting to examine as art done under constraints, with one small image and some text on each miniscule page, which can alternately make for interesting minimalism or self-indulgent pointlessness.
Of the minis pictured above, the most interesting is probably "Poit!", which features stick figure art from Dave Sim (yes, that Dave Sim) that was completed and then scripted by Mitchell. There are actually two versions of the comic, both using the same art, but of the two, "La Jetee" is a bit more effective, presenting the sudden transitions that occur along with the titular sound effect as either hallucinations or shifting realities, while "WTF" turns them into a guy apparently going crazy, leading to the same result. It might have been better to limit this to one version, but it's an interesting experiment.
On the other end of the spectrum is Lost Kisses #21, which continues a series by Mitchell in which a stick figure both narrates his thoughts and comments "humorously" on them. Previous issues in the series have seen some tired exploration of typical male neuroses, but this one takes a bit of a departure, as the stick figure discusses time travel, which he believes he has been experiencing via seizures. Presented differently, this might be interesting, but the awkwardness of the dual narration and commentary ruins it, and the ever-grinning simplicity of the art makes the comics format of the story nearly pointless.
The Lost Kisses series also seems to have some offshoots, with Ultimate Lost Kisses #12 featuring art by Jeremy Johnson and telling the story of a pregnant teenager, and Extreme Lost Kisses #1, illustrated by Nick Marino, turning the stick figure protagonist into a pretty funny version of an action movie hero, all macho swagger, nonsensical plots, and constant violence. Both are a pleasant change, but not exactly the best of the bunch.
Mitchell definitely seems to do better when he branches out into varied subject matter, although recurring supernatural concepts like monsters and demons do seem to show up pretty regularly in these comics. "Monthly", which is nicely illustrated by Eric Shonborn, is kind of neat, about a guy searching for love, with the title and time period of his searches making sense after a revelatory twist. "Star" seems like it could also be interesting, following a traveling singer who is constantly being pursued by demons, and featuring some of the best artwork that fits onto these small pages by Kurt Dinse, full of moody, expressive shadows. It is a bit over-narrated though; Mitchell could stand to either pare down the language he uses or work on varying his style, since the declarative, staccato nature of his captions gets pretty repetitive over several of these comics. That probably wouldn't help "Vigilant" much though; it's a silly thing following some hooded figures who have apparently retreated from society so as to beat up ne'er do wells, with crude art by PB Kain.
In other genres, XO #7 continues the story of a sociopathic assassin who, in this installment, falls into drug-fueled debauchery and lets a woman get too close, but manages to survive a death threat through his sheer amorality. It's creepy in its depiction of a dead-eyed, near-emotionless killer, with pretty good art by Melissa Spence Gardner. Built #1 looks to start a new sci-fi series about a football-playing robot of the future who gains sentience and makes an attempt at freedom, and it's compelling and almost heartbreaking in its depiction of the robot's desire to live as more than a slave to violent entertainment. The art by Joe Badon is a bit scratchy and rough, but that's mostly just a style to get used to, and it works when depicting the action of the football game and the frantic flight of the robot.
Finally, the "Small Art Sampler" series contains some tiny paintings by Mitchell, all centered around various themes, printed in full color, but mostly just consisting of blobs of color. There is some attempt to explain the themes of each booklet through short text pieces, but they're pretty inscrutable, although I did kind of like the way the images in "Climb" resembled chain link fences. These were apparently all featured in a gallery show, which may have been a better manner of presentation, but they do make for an interesting collection of abstract art, and could allow one to make all manner of interpretations, if one was so inclined.
As always, it's nice to see Mitchell and pals making their attempts to expand the idea of what comics can be through contraction of the space used in the comics themselves. They're not always successful, but they're out there pumping these things out, obviously passionate about their art, and that's something to be admired. Hopefully they won't be quitting anytime soon.
~ Matthew J. Brady, Warren Peace Sings the Blues