Counting Down: Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition Winner to be announced at #LicafLive

By John Freeman on October 7, 2020

Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition 2020

The winner of the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition will be announced during #LicafLive, this year’s free online Lakes International Comic Art Festival, taking place this weekend.

The announcement will be made at 3.00pm on Sunday 11th October, as part of three days of celebrating the comics form, normally taking place in Kendal each year but moved online this year in response to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

*It may be virtual, but LICAF Live 2020 is still being promoted in Kendal itself*

Topical and contemporary issues – online voyeurism, risky sex, dementia, suicide, racism, murder and selling the Earth – dominate the shortlist for the competition and show that the graphic novel is very much alive and kicking in Lockdown 2020.

In all, there were a staggering 118 entrants from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, over half from outside London, and just over half with women’s names.

Black © 2020 Tobias Taitt and Anthony Smith - one of the shortlisted stories in the 2020 Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition, which has featured in three volumes of the digital anthology Aces Weekly — Black © 2020 Tobias Taitt and Anthony Smith – one of the shortlisted stories in the 2020 Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition, which has featured in three volumes of the digital anthology Aces Weekly

On the short list for the 2020 Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition are Denise Dorrance with Polar Vortex; Ed Firth with Chillout; Veronika Muchitsch with Cyberman; Pete Shearn with Missing People; Pietro Soldi with Everything I Ever Knew Is on Earth; Anthony Smith & Tobias Taitt with Black; and Myfanwy Tristram with Satin and Tat.

The competition offers the winner, or winners, the opportunity to have their completed graphic novel published by Myriad. Entrants were asked for 15-30 pages of a graphic work-in-progress, fiction or non-fiction. This year, it was judged by Dr Ian Williams, author of The Bad Doctor and The Lady Doctor. and founder of Graphicmedicine.org; Sacha Craddock, independent art critic, writer and curator; Corinne Pearlman, creative director, Myriad Editions; Zoe Adjonyoh, award-winning chef, author of Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen Cookbook and contributor to the New Daughters of Africa anthology; and Julie Tait, founder and director, Lakes International Comic Art Festival.

This is the fourth time Myriad has run the First Graphic Novel competition. The three previous competitions have provided a unique opportunity for creators to see their debut graphic novel in print, furthering Myriad’s mission to encourage and nurture new talent, and to provide opportunities for established artists who have not previously embarked upon a full-length work.

Myriad’s graphics list include the three previous competition winners: Gareth Brookes (The Black Project, 2012), Jade Sarson (For the Love of God, Marie!, 2014), and Jenny Robins (Biscuits, 2018), to be published by Myriad in November 2020.

Myriad has also gone on to publish six other books by shortlisted authors, as well as works by authors longlisted for the competition. The publisher’s latest book by Hannah Eaton, Blackwood, whose first graphic novel Naming Monsters was shortlisted in the inaugural competition in 2012, is available now.

• The winner of the 2020 Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition will be made at 3.00pm on Sunday 11th October online at www.comicartfestival.com

• The Virtual Comics Clock Tower is online at licafclocktower.com

2020 MYRIAD FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL COMPETITION SHORT LIST

• More about the 2020 competition here on the Myriad Editions web site | Information about the previous competitions can be found here

Denise Dorrance is an American-born cartoonist and illustrator. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, she moved to London where her sharply ironic work appears regularly in magazines and newspapers.

A collection of her cartoonsIt’s All About Mimi, was published in 2013 and her first graphic novel (a work in progress) won the Rosalind B. Penfold award.

In Polar Vortex, an adult daughter escorts her dementia-ridden mother across the Midwest of the United States during a harsh snowstorm, while placating her estranged sister and unwanted visits from The Grim Reaper.

Ed Firth is an East London-based portrait artist and zine maker, as well as founder/facilitator of East London Life Drawing.

He started creating books and zines in childhood, gradually drifting into animation and club VJing, until his transition into sequential art in 2019, producing semi-autobiographical slices of life that don’t flinch from the bleaker side of human nature.

What promises to be an indulgent orgy of hedonism turns into an uncomfortable confrontation in his story, Chillout, offering interconnected queer stories taking place in London.

Veronika Muchitsch is a comic book artist based in Falmouth, Cornwall.

With an interest in observing solitude and the way we inhabit and experience the world, her comics are a declaration of love to people who create their own worlds in the digital age.

Her story, Cyberman, a non-fiction graphic novel about the transgressive act of online voyeurism, centres on Ari, who lives in a small town in Finland, streaming his life online twenty-four hours, seven days a week.

Pete Shearn has been happily creating comic strips for his own amusement over many years.

He recently took the leap into graphic novel writing, and his work aims to shine a light on issues affecting society, while also portraying the foibles and peculiarities of everyday life.

Pete works for the NHS and lives in the third most fashionable suburb of Stockport, England.

Pietro Soldi was born in 1990 in São Paulo, Brazil, and since last year has been living in London.

He has published his comics online since 2017, and recently has started dedicating his time exclusively to comics and illustrations. Pietro is 6′ 4″ so he’s easily spottable from a distance or in a crowded place.

In his story, Everything I ever knew is on Earth, you walk into a bar and accidentally meet a stranger who tells you something unexpected: the deal is done, the Earth has been sold – and change is coming soon…

Anthony Smith worked for a few comic publishers before moving into advertising, working as a creative for a number of years at several top agencies.

He then returned to illustration, and in recent years has had numerous cartoons published in the national press.

Tobias Taitt was raised as a child of the state in the 1970s and 80s.

He became passionate about UK history, specifically the untold lives of its citizens. He believes their stories should be recorded for future generations, just as he has done with his own.

Anthony and Tobias’ story Black, which has been serialised across several volumes of the acclaimed digital anthology Aces Weekly, is a tale of a dysfunctional family life, and a childhood spent mostly in care, touching on themes of class and race as adolescent Tobias gravitates from care to crime.

Myfanwy Tristram – drawing comics since the 80s, contributing to anthologies, exhibitions and books as well as self-publishing her work within the UK’s vibrant small press scene.

In 2018 she launched Draw The Line, a global collective of comic artists illustrating ways to question the political status quo.

In Satin and Tat, Ella returns to the fishing village where the tragic events that shaped her teen years had unfolded 30 years before.

Is she any better at processing the emotional fallout that followed her boyfriend’s suicide?

2020 Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition longlist

• Tim Catherall
• Denise Dorrance
• Ed Firth
• Christine Humphreys
• Mathew Jackson
• Lesley MacNiven & Heather Charters
• Gary McKeever
• John Miers
• Alex Moore
• Aleesha Nandhra
• Angelina Olkhovskaya & Anita Bruvere
• Veronika Muchitsch
• Kim L Pace
• Michael Parker & Cecily Salt
• Jane Porter
• Teresa Robertson
• Pete Shearn
• Pietro Soldi
• Tobias Taitt & Anthony Smith
• Myfanwy Tristram

• You can read about each of their submitted works here on the Myriad Editions web site

• The winner of the 2020 Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition will be made at 3.00pm on Sunday 11th October online at www.comicartfestival.com

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.