2025 FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL AWARD

-

 Full details 

The 2025 First Graphic Novel Award is for debut authors at any age, 18+: comics creators, cartoonists, or writers and artists who have not previously had a full-length graphic novel published. The First Graphic Novel Award is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

The winner will be offered a contract by publisher SelfMadeHero to complete their work for publication, and will be awarded a £500 cash prize sponsored by The bks Agency.

The award is an amazing opportunity for anyone wishing to create a graphic novel for the first time. 

The First Graphic Novel Award is a biennal award run in partnership with The Cartoon Museum, publisher SelfMadeHero and independent graphic novel editor Corinne Pearlman. Founded in 2012 by publisher Myriad, it was previously known as the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition, and has helped to launch several comics creators on their path to publication. In 2023 the new award was held thanks to generous support from the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) and the bks Agency, sponsors of the £500 prize for the winner.

The award is open for submission from 9 January 2025 until midnight 22 April 2025.

Entrants are required to submit 15-20 pages of a graphic-novel-in-progress, fiction or non-fiction. The panel of judges include publisher Emma Hayley, contemporary artist Janette Parris, and graphic novelists Shazleen Khan, Karrie Fransman and Oscar Zarate.

Longlisted entries will be announced in September 2025 and displayed at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival.

Shortlisted entries will be announced at the Cartoon Museum in October 2025 and displayed at the MCM Comic Con and Thought Bubble Festival in November 2025.

The winner will be announced at an award ceremony at Waterstones Piccadilly in December 2025 and given a £500 prize by The bks Agency. They will be offered a contract by SelfMadeHero, including an advance against royalties, and given editorial and design support to complete their work for publication.

All entrants will receive brief feedback on their work. In addition to the judges’ comments, longlisted entries will be reviewed by literary agent James Spackman at The bks Agency and by chief book buyer Nessa Urquhart at Waterstones.

The biennial award was founded by Myriad Editions in 2012 as the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition, which was held four times between 2012 and 2020. As well as publishing books by the winners, Myriad also published several shortlisted authors. In 2023, under the new partnership with SelfMadeHero and the Cartoon Museum, the award was won by Alex Taylor, whose graphic novel, Bone Broth, will be published by SelfMadeHero in late 2025. Do check out our shortlist and longlist from 2023 – publishing rights are available for many of the excellent creators you may be seeing here for the first time.

Special thanks to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) and Thought Bubble Festival, LDComics and the many cartoonist and comic creator networks, fairs and festivals, and individual creators and comics professionals supporting the call for entry.

Entry forms will not be available until 9 January, but check out details of entry here.


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DAW

-
Image
Full details  Overview Founded in 1971 by veteran paperback editor Donald A. Wollheim, along with his wife, Elsie B. Wollheim, DAW Books was the first publishing company ever devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy. Now almost 50 years and two thousand titles later, DAW has a well-deserved reputation for discovering and publishing the hottest talents in the industry. Many stars of the science fiction and fantasy field made their debuts in the pages of a DAW book, including Patrick Rothfuss , Tad Williams , C. J. Cherryh , Mercedes Lackey , Kristen Britain , Melanie Rawn , C.S. Friedman , and Tanith Lee . Despite its high profile, DAW is still a small private company, owned exclusively by its publishers, Elizabeth R. Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert. Betsy and Sheila are strongly committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, and to keeping a personal “family” spirit at DAW—something they feel is all too rare in today’s world of international cong...
Read more

Dark Edge Press

-
  Full details  CONTACT US WE ARE OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS!   We accept un-agented manuscripts in the following genres: Psychological, Crime, Legal, Medical, Techno, and Hard-boiled Action-packed Thrillers. Procedurals, Chillers, Grip-lit, and Domestic noir. Contemporary, Historical, Romance, Up-lit, and Literary fiction.   We are particularly interested in receiving submissions from authors who identify as (dis)abled, BAME, and/or LGBTQIAP+, especially if your title features a character who exhibits these qualities.   Send your synopsis and full-length novel as separate attachments along with a short author bio in the body of your email to the address below.   Dark Edge Press is a dynamic digital first publisher. Our staff have over ten years experience in the trade. We work with some of the most diverse, enthusiastic, highly qualified individuals in the publishing industry. We offer our aut...
Read more

Polis Books

-
Full details  Polis Books is an independent publishing company actively seeking new and established authors for our growing list. We are currently acquiring titles in the genres listed on the web site. Please keep in mind that while Polis Books does accept unsolicited submissions, due to the incredibly high volume of unsolicited material we receive, we will only respond to queries if we have interest in the submission. If you have not received a response to your query in 12 weeks you can assume we have passed on it. We know how much time and effort goes into every manuscript, and we sincerely apologize that we cannot reply to every submission individually.  Please keep in mind that we do not publish stand-alone novellas or short stories, and novel-length submissions should generally be a minimum of 60,000 words. We will very rarely consider titles under that length. Note: we do not respond to emails that are not submissions . If you want to know whether w...
Read more