Calling all aspiring cartoonists and graphic novelists: entries are once again open for our graphic short story prize which, in its 15th year, has a brilliant new partner in the form of the publisher Faber, and particularly stellar guest judges in the form of the acclaimed actor and comics fan Michael Sheen (The Queen, Good Omens, Staged), and Adrian Tomine, the cartoonist famed for his New Yorker covers and the author of, among other books, Killing and Dying and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Cartoonist. The winner, as always, will receive £1,000 and their work will appear in the Observer in print and online. The runner-up will receive £250 and their work will also be published online.
People often ask whether this prize (henceforth to be known as the Faber/Observer/Comica prize) has the power to change lives. The answer is: yes. Among those who have been winners and runners-up in the past are Isabel Greenberg, the acclaimed author of Glass Town, Matthew Dooley, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize-winning author of Flake, and Joff Winterhart, whose graphic novel Days of the Bagnold Summer, a story that began its life as his entry in the 2009 competition, eventually became a film (Monica Dolan and Rob Brydon starred). Last year’s winner, Astrid Goldsmith, has already signed a deal with Jonathan Cape for her first book, based on her winning entry, A Funeral in Freiburg.
To enter you must create a four-page comic designed to run over two full pages in the Observer – a story that will ideally have a beginning, a middle and an end, and which will be accompanied by some suitably lovely and original illustrations. After this, we do all the hard work. To enter, and to read the terms and conditions, click here. The deadline – you have three months! – is 16 September.
