Domino Books, 2020

I started Domino Books in 2011. At that time,  I wrote the following about my hopes for what Domino could be:

Domino Books believes that all people—not only those that call themselves artists—have images and phrases lying in their hearts and minds. We’d much prefer a world where people sit down and try to bring these things to the surface, rather then attaching widgets to gears for someone else’s benefit.

We publish artists that remind us that art is worth devoting your life to, even if there are no tangible rewards. It is our sincere hope that readers of our publications will have yet another pressure put upon them to not ignore their innate creativity any longer.

9 years later, I still believe this, and I’m proud of the efforts Domino has made to articulate these ideas. Domino has published 12 books and distributed over 500 self published mini comics and zines.

People (myself included) constantly try to define what comics are, or what the medium can or should be. However, actually looking at the wide variety of work being made in this moment presents a clear refutation of any neat summary. For 9 years with Domino, I’ve tried to curate a selection of items that express this, often going out of my way to include work that doesn’t fit into what I like about comics but still has a powerful expression within it.

The accessibility and affordability of the materials needed to create and publish comics makes it one of the most radically open mediums in existence. With Domino, I’ve been trying to build a place for comics that can be accessed by anyone in the world, who can then engage with artwork made by anyone in the world. The work on our site is sent to us from hundreds of different artists, and then sent out again to hundreds of different readers, who can then struggle with/against these works with as much energy and thought as they choose to bring to them.

I’m writing all this because I’m choosing to spend more time on Domino to properly articulate all this and hopefully figure out how to do more with the already in place structure. Over the last few months, I’ve been adding more and more work to the shop, and will continue to do so from here on out. I’m trying to build an even richer portrait of what people do with comics, a portrait that I hope contradicts my own ideas as much as possible. You can view this changing picture every day here.

Logo by Marlene Frontera