Well the results are out for the 2009 Comica/Jonathan Cape/Observer ‘Graphic Short Story’ competition. For those of us who dreamed about winning, yesterday morning brought with it the sharp taste of a dream lost (to most of us).
So I did what every person who’s had 3 months of creating, stressing and waiting do, I met up with Mike and Sam (who also had entered the competition) and had a day of comics, food, arguing, frustration, beer and ultimately consolation. We understood the frustration of having put soo much effort into something that was only ever going to be read by a select few number of people.
So after sleeping on it and updating this website with a new section dedicated for comics I’ve created (the first of course is ‘Coffee Beans’), I had another bright idea. If there are over 240 entries (because that was last year, and apparently there were more entries this year than any other year), then maybe 100 of these entrants are online somewhere; maybe they’re also considering where to go next. So maybe it would be a nice idea to try and self-publish an anthology with these 4 page stories. This could then be something we show various publishers or can share with family etc.
Well the point is that the dream would start all over again for most of us.
So a call to all those who entered the competition but were also unsuccessful, drop me a line on twitter or via the email (khaled.aboualfa at gmail.com) or post a comment below.
Update: All those wondering how we can do this, there are a plethora of self-publishing options available through print on demand services (PODs). I’ve got a bit of experience with a few of them, most notably this: http://www.lulu.com/content/222930