Spain’s FNAC-Salamandra International Graphic Novel Prize graphic novel competition open to all

By John Freeman on August 17, 2015

Fueye by Jorge González, which won the first FNAC-Salamandra International Graphic Novel Prize in 2007.

Recently launched is the latest competition for Spain’s FNAC-Salamandra International Graphic Novel Prize, which will go to an original, totally new and completely unpublished graphic novel – and the winner will net a cool €10,000 euros.

The competition, which launched in 2007 is open to all nationalities and languages and was first won by Argentinian artist Jorge González, who won it with his masterpiece Fueye, an account of European emigration to the author’s homeland, which was subsequently published by Sins Entido but doesn’t appear, as yet, to have been published in English.

Art from Chucrut by Ana Sainz, the 2014 winner of the FNAC-Salamandra International Graphic Novel Prize.

Subesquent winners were Guillaume Trouillard and Samuel Stento for La estación de las flechas (“The Season of Arrows”, 2008), Esteban Hernández for ¡Pintor! (“Painter”, 2009), Mireia Pérez for La muchacha salvaje (“The Wild Girl”, 2010), Juan Berrio for Miércoles (“Wednesday”, 2011), Sento Llobel for Un médico novato (“The New Doctor”, 2012), Antonio Hitos for Inercia (“Inertia”, 2013) and, last year, Ana Sainz (also known as Anapurna) for Chucrut, (“Sauerkraut”), which will be published by Salamandra Graphic in November.

Ana Sainz’s Chucrut is the story of Sarah, a young woman working for a printmaker in Germany, just after the death of his father. As the story develops, Sarah begins to mix reality with fantasy amid secret goings on in a basement and newspaper reports of missing bodies from a nearby Faculty of Medicine…

“[Chucrut] is a story about which I’d rather not give too many details, but I had wanted to tell it for some time,” says Ana. “I took advantage to turn something “compulsory” into a personal project. I was seriously questioning whether to enter it for the competition, but I think that it is important to move your work if you believe in it as it is difficult for someone to come and look for you. I’m glad I did.

Entries to the FNAC-Salamandra International Graphic Novel Prize, a competition that aims to promote and encourage comic creation inyternationally, cannot have been serialised or previewed in print or online, for example and it must be a project exclusively entered for this competition. The minimum number of pages to enter is 16 in black and white or in colour, A4 size, with a detailed two-page synopsis (96 pages maximum).

The deadline for entries is 27th November 2015 with the winner announced in January 2016, who will get €10,000 euros, in two payments, one on winning, the other on publication of the finished graphic novel.

• The address to send your entry to is: Ediciones Salamandra, c/ Hermosilla, 121, 1o B – 28009 Madrid, Spain and there are more details in French (PDF) on the Cité de la BD site. If you have any questions, contact premio@salamandra.es

• Read an interview with the 2014 winner Ana Sainz on the MarcaEspana web site (in English)

(Thanks to Paul Gravett for the heads up on this)

About the Author
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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.