The Five-Page Folded Mini-Comic is a comic printed on a single sheet of paper. The paper is folded in half four times so that the resultant page is 1/16th the original size. Each unfolding then reveals a page double the size of the previous page. The fifth (counting the “cover”) and final page takes up one full side of the sheet.

I was working as a receptionist in the spring of 2007, with way too much time on my hands and access to plenty of paper, when i first stumbled upon the idea*. I thumbnailed out a number of folding comics, but it wasn’t until the end of that year that I found a story that seemed really well-served by the format. Prologue became the first of a series of ‘blog-like autobiographical gestures I call The Oubliette.

At the Stumptown Comics Fest in the Spring of 2009, I happened upon Jon Chad, whose minicomic Whaletowne employed the same format. Charmingly drawn and tucked into a silkscreened whale-shaped paper slip-jacket, it details the rise and fall of a whimsical subterranean empire.

That Summer at the MoCCA Art Festival, i met Swedish cartoonist Sofia Falkenhem, who’s long had her workshop students make similarly-formatted mimicomics (her variation uses three folds instead of four), which she’s found to be a useful educational tool.

They’re fun, and you should try one.

Read more:
Oz and Ends: Single-Sheet Comics
Optical Sloth: On the Beach
Stumptown Trade Review: Mini-Comic Madness: Oubliette

*I’m not so arrogant as to believe no one ever thought of this before. I’m just not aware of anyone who did. if you are, please point me in their direction.