Home › Comics › British Comics › Sidekick Books seek creators for ground-breaking Poetry Comics project

Sidekick Books seek creators for ground-breaking Poetry Comics project

By John Freeman on April 26, 2015

Sidekick Books – the award-winning publishers of collaborative books of poetry and illustration run by Kirsten Irving and Jon Stone – are publishing the UK’s first book of poetry comics, Over The Line, with support from Arts Council England, and want to publish new work.

The team behind the project, who include writer Chrissy Williams, director of the Poetry Book Fair and cartoonist Tom Humberstone, are interested in work from solo creators, as well as collaborative groups or partnerships, and will offer payment to successful contributors.

They are not looking for illustrated poems; they are looking for submissions that follow the visual structure of comics, but which focus on poetry rather than narrative.

If you are interested, download this form to find out how to submit. The deadline is 12th June 2015. If you want to know more about Poetry Comics then read some digitally on issuu; or check out Ink Brick, the first journal to focus on Poetry Comics.

If you want to find a poet or artist to collaborate with, use the #poemcomics hashtag, and tweet at @chrissywilliams, @TomHumberstone or @SidekickBooks so they can retweet your request.

• A Poetry Comics exhibition runs at the Poetry Library in London from 12th May – 12th June: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/poetry-comics-1000811. Go to http://poetryandcomics.tumblr.com/ to see some examples

(Thanks to Matt Badham for the heads up on this)

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.