Size Cannot Be Detected
摘要
This chapter is about minicomics in archives and as a form of memory. I begin by discussing the difficulties of storing minicomics because of their small and irregular sizes: the problems that minicomics generate for domestic archives point to broader challenges in the areas of information storage and institutional archiving. I argue that the elusiveness of minicomics within the home rehearses the problems of digital data retrieval. Another thread is that, in refusing to be constantly on display, minicomics decline the work of objects of heteronormative orientation as theorized by Sara Ahmed, which I link to Kate Eichhorn’s notion of photocopying as a queer form of reproduction. The second part of the chapter discusses how minicomics have been reprinted in durable editions, notably Adrian Tomine’s 32 Stories: The Complete Optic Nerve Mini-Comics (2009), a boxed set of facsimile minicomics. I conclude with a close reading of Tomine’s “My Appearance On… The Jane Pratt Show” (1993), which invites the question: how does a minicomic from a period when photocopied culture was peaking illustrate the cultural gatekeeping to which photocopied texts were subject? And to what extent does the photocopied image represent a revenant of alternative culture?