Home › Comics › Open University puts out a call for Editorial Cartoonists

Open University puts out a call for Editorial Cartoonists

By John Freeman on March 27, 2024

Supported by the Open Societal Challenges Fund and the British Association for the Study of Religions, the Open University, King’s College London and Pitik Bulag cartoon collective have launched a competition to match cartoonists up with socially-minded academics to collaborate on a series of images that make the latest research about pressing social challenges accessible to general audiences.

It’s trapped! Freedom of the press is under threat - cartoon by ZACH — *It’s trapped! Freedom of the press is under threat – cartoon by ZACH*

Successful cartoonists in the planned project, titled “Academics and Artists addressing Societal Challenges” will receive a £300 commission for their collaboration with an academic. Five cartoonists are being sought.

The Open University says the artist will retain copyright but they also say the final works will be “sharable under creative commons conditions”.

The deadline is Wednesday noon 3rd April 2024, but initially, the requirements in their “Call for Expressions of Interest from Cartoonists” are just a short statement of interest and examples of prior works, so cartoonists may want to spend a bit of time over the Easter weekend putting an email together.

• All the details of the “Academics and Artists addressing Societal Challenges – Call for Expressions of Interest from Cartoonists” are here (PDF format, download available)

• If you have any questions, contact Dr Paul-François Tremlett (paul-francois-tremlett@open.ac.uk)

With thanks to Vilnis Vesma (“Vilnissimo”) at the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain

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.