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

About the Author
Latest Posts

John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as 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.