GRAPHIC SHORT STORY PRIZE

Are you an aspiring graphic novelist? Do you have an original story to tell? Since 2007, the Comica Festival, in association with publisher Jonathan Cape and The Observer newspaper, has held an annual graphic short-story competition offering a £1,000 cash prize and the chance to see your story printed in The Observer.

A free e-comic Shorties: The Best Of The Graphic Short Story Prize 2007-11 is now available to read online in which competition judge and graphic novelist extraordinaire, Bryan Talbot, selects his favourite entries from 5 years of the prize.

2011 COMPETITION

The winner of the fifth Graphic Short Story Prize, chosen from more than 200 entries, is Isabel Greenberg. Her winning entry, Love In A Very Cold Climate, tells the story of a marriage - only this couple, a south pole dweller and a north pole dweller, will never be able to touch one another, surrounded as they are by a magnetic force field. It's beautifully drawn, of course, from first to last frame, but it's also exquisitely written. In particular, the judges admired the way Greenberg handles time, somehow capturing a shared lifetime in just four pages. More...

2010 COMPETITION

Several hundred people entered the 2010 competition, from which the judges picked a longlist of 20. After this, a shortlist of six was chosen and one entry stood out as the judges clear favourite: Stephen Collins' strikingly weird In Room 208. More...

2009 COMPETITION

The third annual Graphic Short Story Prize attracted over 300 entries. The first prize went to the vividly captured and tender story Paint by Vivien McDermid, which the judges thought was a touching portrayal of mother with a small toddler. More...

2008 COMPETITION

There were 240 entries for the 2008 Graphic Short Story Prize, now in its second year, and the standard was superb. The judges were unanimous in awarding the prize to Julian Hanshaw for his haunting, evocative and beautifully drawn story, Sand Dunes and Sonic Booms. More...

2007 COMPETITION

In 2007 the Graphic Short Story Prize was launched by The Observer in association with Jonathan Cape and the Comica Festival, with the aim of celebrating the art of the graphic novel and to offer a platform for the graphic novelists of the future to emerge. The £1,000 prize was won by Catherine Brighton for her story Away In A Manger. More...