ShortBox #4: it's alive!

Hello, good day, and the best of the best to you! We're really excited to share the new ShortBox and its amazing line-up of artists with you today, with new books from Richie Pope, Dilraj Mann, Shivana Sookdeo, Becca Tobin, Sloane Leong, and Molly Fairhurst -not to mention a gorgeous, mousy, bibliophile-adventurer print from Nicolas Delort. Below you'll find further information on each item, as well as cover and interior page images for all the books. I've linked artists names to their respective website/blogs, and as ever, I really recommend clicking through and becoming more acquainted with the superb work on display.

Our small community has been growing slowly and steadily, so I thought it'd be worth going over a few things about ShortBox before we get into the heady stuff. 

1: ShortBox is not a subscription service. It's simply a (pretty special) box of comics we put together every 3 months. You buy it, and that's it- there's no further commitment to anything else, you've not signed up to anything. 

2: Pre-orders are now the only way to get a box; we won't be making any extra to go on general sale. Beginning today, until midnight on 31st of March, there's a 10-day window in which we take orders for the box. You purchase one, we put you down for one. And that system lets us know exactly how many boxes to make. You can pre-order ShortBox #4 here.

3: Pre-orders will ship around the second week of May. Depending on where you live in the world, and also on the mercy of the postal system, your box can take anything from 2 days to 5-6 weeks to get to you. After that period, if you still haven't received it, please get in touch with us via the 'contact' tab at the top of the site, and we'll take things from there.

4: We don't remake boxes. This is it. They're limited, we have a long list of excellent artists we want to work and we want to keep moving forward. Some books will go on individual sale at later points, either from us or available from the artists themselves, but other items are exclusive to the box only. Not to sound like a broken record, but we regularly receive emails asking if there's a way to get hold of a box. But we're a small independent outfit, and making extra boxes on the off-chance that they'll sell isn't something we can afford. This is why we bang on about pre-orders so much: if you want a box, grab it now!

5: We ship worldwide!

6: 10% of all ShortBox #4 profits will go to Islamic Relief's East Africa Crisis campaign.

I think that covers everything, but if you have any further questions, just let us know. Without further ado, here's our fantastic line-up for ShortBox #4:

Super Itis by Richie Pope, 24pp full colour. A tired construction worker gets stuck in a dream made entirely of the soulfood he ate for lunch. Waking up becomes more complicated when he meets a mysterious boy made of mac-n-cheese.

404 by Dilraj Mann, 28pp, two-colour.  Robert hates immigrants. He hates Kim Kardashian. He hates Jeremy Corbyn, David Cameron, animal cruelty, diesel cars, eco warriors, vaping, cyclists, Nostradamus, Spongebob Squarepants, DC superhero films, the number nine and magenta. Sitting at his laptop he warns the world. But on one tumultuous day his cruel anonymous commenting bites back.

Write, Write, Kill by Shivana Sookdeo, 40pp, full colour. A struggling author with a deficit of ideas faces a mountain of rejections. But then a strange thing happens: he discovers he can 'see' peoples speech, and begins stealing it for his manuscripts. Stealing soon leads to killing, and killing leads somewhere else... 

Ready Salted by Becca Tobin, 52 pp, full-colour. A fun, rambling, beautiful journey into the imagination of one of Britain's best cartoonists. Daily thoughts and happenings; animal and food creatures galore; full page paintings and corner page sketches, all make up this delightful compendium of art.

A Hollowing by Sloane Leong, exclusive ShortBox cover, 56pp, black and white. A quiet young girl is gifted a gentle black mare by her father but both horse and girl are not all that they seem. Dark memories bubble up, bitterness churns and dread seeps.

Kick, Don't Twist zine by Molly Fairhurst, 16pp, full colour. A study of form, gesture and the co-existence of emotion and the delight of the human body. A collection of paintings examining physical expressions of anger and feeling in a time that is raw to many.

'The adventure of books' A4 print by Nicolas Delort. Exclusive to the box.

Pre-order ShortBox #4.