Calling all aspiring cartoonists and graphic novelists: it’s time to get behind your drawing boards once again as we open entries for the Faber/Observer/Comica graphic short story prize, now in its 16th year. As ever, the winner will receive a cheque for £1,000 and their work will appear in the Observer New Review in print and online (the award for the runner-up is £250 and their story will also be published online). But even better, whoever takes home the prize will know that their work was read and loved by our two amazing guest judges: Max Porter, the bestselling author of Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, Lanny and Shy (who also loves comics), and Lizzy Stewart, the artist and illustrator, whose works include the full-length graphic novel Alison and a collection of stories, It’s Not What You Thought It Would Be (both were Observer graphic novels of the month).
Is winning the Faber/Observer/Comica prize a big deal? Yes! Among our past winners and runners-up 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 – became a film starring Monica Dolan. Last year’s winner, Rebecca Jones, is now at work on a longer story, which she hopes will be published in the fullness of time.
All you have to do to enter is create a four-page comic designed to run over a double-page spread in the New Review – a story that will ideally have a beginning, a middle and an end, and which will be accompanied by some alluring 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 months! – is 18 September.
