When we lost Alison Brown last year we lost one of the friendliest faces on the UK comics scene. Alison was for many the public face of London’s Cartoon Museum and a regular presence at comics events in the capital. Today the Cartoon Museum has announced the ‘Alison Brown Young Comics Maestro Award’ for aspiring comics artists aged 18 or under. The full press release with entry details is below. Spread the word on this everyone. As well as being a great opportunity for the next generation of comics artists it’s also a fitting tribute to a much missed cornerstone of our community.
Alison Brown Young Comics Maestro Award 2022
The Alison Brown Young Comics Maestro Award 2022 competition is now open and we are looking for the next big comic artist!
The Comics Maestro Award celebrates Cartoon Museum staff member Alison Brown, who passed away from Covid in 2021 at the age of just 39. Alison loved comics and championed young comic artists.
Send in your very best comic strip, three pages maximum, to enter the competition and get your work in front of judges from The Beano, The Phoenix, and The Cartoon Museum. There will be one overall winner and two runners-up. The winner will receive a £200 prize and the runners-up will each receive £50 prizes. We intend to announce the winners in May 2022.
To enter please send your comic strip to either The Cartoon Museum, 63 Wells Street, London, W1A 3AE or hello@cartoonmuseum.org. Make sure you include your name, age, and contact details. If you are under 18 and sending your entry via email, please make sure a parent or guardian sends in your cartoon. Entrants must be aged 18 or under.
The deadline for entries is Monday 30 May 2022. Regrettably, we will not be able to return any physical entries that are sent in.
Comic strips must be no more than three A4 pages long. We are accepting hand-drawn comics on paper and we are also accepting digital art. Unfortunately, we will not be able to return any comic strips sent in on paper.
For some inspiration, you can download free drawing resources from our website to help your layout your comic and learn to draw cartoon faces – or you could attend our school holiday Create A Comic workshops.
Judges:
Hannah Berry (Comics Laureate 2019-21, Cartoon Museum trustee)
Martin Rowson (Cartoonist, The Guardian, The Daily Mirror)
Michael Stirling (Head of Beano Studios Scotland)
Laura Howell (Beano Artist)
Tom Fickling (Editor/MD of The Phoenix)
Steve Marchant (Learning Officer at The Cartoon Museum)
Kate Owens (Collections Manager at The Cartoon Museum)
