As you may recall, I’ve entered three illustration/comics competitions in recent weeks:
- The Cape/Comica/Observer Graphic Short Story contest
- The Thought Bubble Comic Art competition
- The Association of Illustrators Prize for Illustration
(I’ve also entered the competition to design a new pound coin, just for fun! And so did my daughter. But that’s another post for another time).
It’s interesting to compare and contrast the entrant’s experience for each of these contests.
Thought Bubble: After submitting my strip by email, I had an acknowledgement to thank me for entering.
I just had a look at the competition page and to my surprise they have put all the entries online. I’m also surprised to see how few entries there apparently are – 38 in the over-18s category and just eight in the 12-17s. Still, that’s a nice wodge of comic strips to browse if you feel so inclined, and several of them are excellent.
Thought Bubble will be displaying every single entry over the course of the festival, which also gives a good incentive to enter, whether or not you think you might have a chance of winning.
Cape/Comica/Observer: The date that the winners will be informed is clearly given on the contest website, and that has now passed (sorry to break it to you gently if you are still hoping!). In fact, run out and buy your Observer on Sunday because that is when the winning strips will be printed.
There’s no acknowledgement email, or indeed any other communication to the entrants until then… but then, of course, there are far more people submitting entries to this contest. Last year I remember seeing that they’d had 180, and this year they’ve announced that the number had gone up. So perhaps it would be impractical for them to put all of them online anywhere.
Luckily, as you know, I’m making it my mission to collect together as many entries as I can, and you can see the results here. Please let me know if you have seen any I’ve missed, or have one to add yourself. So far I have found 23, which is already more than I managed the year before, though clearly only a small proportion of the complete set.
Prize for Illustration: I got an automated email on upload of my entry, and today I’ve just had an update to tell me who the judges are and that they had an “overwhelming” number of entries (ulp!). They will be judging on the 29th of October and hope to tell everyone the outcome shortly after that date.
As 100 entrants will be selected to be exhibited, this also feels like a competition where the odds are a little kinder. Plus, among the several judges there are an agent and editors of magazines: it has to be a good thing that your artwork is passing under their eyes.
That’s my summary of how it feels to be an entrant in one of these illustration and comics competitions. In short, from the entrants’ point of view, a little communication goes a long way.
Have you entered any of these? How are you feeling about it?
Myfanwy Tristram 