The longlist for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition has been announced today and there are, as ever, some great looking projects selected. We have some history with this great comics institution at Broken Frontier, of course, given that our own Jenny Robins won the competition in 2018 for Biscuits (assorted), and I was a judge for the 2014 edition which was won by Jade Sarson (For the Love of God, Marie!). If you want to read a whole host of creators, commentators and comics activists explaining just why its such a vital opportunity check out this piece at BF a couple of years back.
There are a number of familiar names on the longlist (and also some that will be new to many!) and it goes without saying that we are delighted our 2019 Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch‘ Aleesha Nandhra has been nominated for Local Angrej. The full list with sample images runs below.
TWENTY FOR 2020: LOCKDOWN LONGLIST ANNOUNCED FOR MYRIAD FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL COMPETITION
Myriad Editions is delighted to announce the longlist for the First Graphic Novel Competition 2020.
The competition offers the winner, or winners, the opportunity to have their completed graphic novel published by Myriad. It is open to all cartoonists, writers and artists who are UK residents (in support of Myriad’s mission to encourage publishing opportunities for British cartoonists), individually or as a team, who have not previously published a full-length graphic work. Entrants are asked for 15-30 pages of a graphic work-in-progress, fiction or non-fiction.
This year, the judges include cartoonist and GP Ian Williams, whose graphic novel The Bad Doctor was shortlisted in 2012; chef and contributor to Myriad bestseller New Daughters of Africa Zoe Adjonyoh, curator and chair of New Contemporaries Sacha Craddock, and Julie Tait, Director of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, supporters of the competition. They are joined by Myriad Creative Director, Corinne Pearlman who said:
‘This year we have seen more entries than ever before and the standard is exceptionally high. The circumstances are exceptional too. With the lockdown, we asked all entrants to resubmit their work digitally so that the judges could read at home before we gathered to share our opinions and debate online via a four-hour Zoom meeting. In previous years, I’ve been able to host the judging meeting at my house and we’ve spread out artwork on the floor and thrust pages at each other.
It was quite a challenge to have the same engagement on Zoom but the judges rose to it magnificently and, after some robust conversations, we are all delighted to celebrate these 20 promising new works.’ The shortlist will be decided late May, and the winner revealed at an event online in June. There were 118 entrants from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, over half from outside London, and just over half with women’s names.
Myriad’s graphics list include the three previous competition winners and six other books by shortlisted authors, as well as other works by authors introduced to Myriad through the competition.
TWENTY FOR 2020: LOCKDOWN LONGLIST ANNOUNCED FOR MYRIAD FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL COMPETITION
- 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
The longlisted artists are:
Our Glittering Future
Angelina Olkhovskaya and Anita Bruvere
Spanning the period between 1985 and 1992, a young child’s perspective on the falling apart of her family and her country, the Soviet Union.
This Woman’s Work
Lesley MacNiven and Heather Charters
How the workplace was not designed for women, how women’s lives have been affected. Documentary comic designed to inspire action and drive change in furthering gender equality.
Cyberman
Veronika Muchitsch
Ari lives in a small town in Finland, streaming his life online twenty-four hours, seven days a week. Non-fiction graphic novel about the transgressive act of online voyeurism.
Chillout
Ed Firth
What promises to be an indulgent orgy of hedonism turns into an uncomfortable confrontation. Interconnected queer stories taking place in London.
So My Body Pretty Much Hates Me Now
John Miers
The experience of living with multiple sclerosis channelled through the multiple visual styles of other artists: those with the disease and without.
Grounded
Kim L Pace
How making art and creativity allowed the author’s experience of coercive control to be understood, transmuted and used as a means to share with others.
Everything I Ever Knew Is on Earth
Pietro Soldi
You walk into a bar and accidentally meet a stranger who tells you something unexpected: the deal is done, the Earth has been sold.
True to Their Salt
Tim Catherall
The story of Indian and Muslim soldiers fighting for ‘freedom and democracy’ in WWI has echoes for Muslim and British citizens today.
Patterns and Portents
Teresa Robertson
How the death of Teresa’s twin brother affected family, friends and future generations, as, thirty years on, she looks after her twin grandsons.
Life Hurdling
Michael Parker and Cecily Salt
Ex-Olympic hurdler reflects on boarding schools, military service, sport and business through the prism of his relationships past and present.
The Fine Art of Destruction
Alex Moore
Out to salvage his father’s failing art gallery, Seb puts his family and his girlfriend on a collision course.
Black
Tobias Taitt and Anthony Smith
A dysfunctional family life, and a childhood spent mostly in care: Taitt’s story touches on themes of class and race as he gravitates from care to crime.
Satin and Tat
Myfanwy Tristram
Ella returns to the fishing village where she spent her teen years, but can she address the emotional fallout that followed her boyfriend’s suicide thirty years before?
This is the Word of the Lord
Gary McKeever
Novel inspired by the disappearance of Maura Lyons who converted from Catholicism to Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church in the late 50s.
The Mum Architect
Christine Humphreys
A story about towers, redundancy and finding a voice, the architect author questions skyscrapers and the theory and practice that encouraged them.
The Ghost Carp Part 2
Jane Porter
A comic re-telling of Moby Dick, set on an urban river, with facts and fiction based on the author’s own experiences of restoring the Wandle in South West London.
Polar Vortex
Denise Dorrance
A daughter escorts her mother with dementia across the US Midwest during a harsh snowstorm, while placating her estranged sister and unwanted visits from The Grim Reaper.
Local Angrej
Aleesha Nandhra
An exploration of identity in travelogue form as Nandhra escapes the family script to travel around India and discover how she truly feels about her culture and family.
Missing People
Pete Shearn
Brian would love to move from Morecambe. Becky, a successful professional, thinks otherwise. The couple rebuild their lives in the wake of a traumatising incident.
The Visitor
Mathew Jackson
Donnie was shocking, funny, with ‘an absolute beauty to the way he rebelled against the system and lived his life his way’. Tribute to a friend who ‘was not of this earth’.
