Category: comics

The Best American Comics are accepting submissions for their next volumes! We are pasting in the info they’re sending around if you’re interested! Wanna buy the most recent 2008 edition guest edited by Lynda Barry? Go here!

Dear cartoonist, editor, publisher, or individual involved in comics some other way,

Now that Lynda Barry’s spectacular Best American Comics 2008 has hit the stores, we can finally reveal our guest editor for the next (2009) edition: Charles Burns! We’ve just passed the deadline for the Best American Comics 2009, and the selection process is in full swing. We’re thrilled to be working with Charles, and look forward as much as you do to seeing what he chooses as his Best American Comics. If you submitted last year, and your work is selected by Charles, will will be in touch somewhere around December or January.

Meanwhile…

We can’t tell you who the guest editor for 2010 will be, but believe us when we say you’ll be excited when you hear. So we need to start receiving all the fantastic books, comics, minis, and webcomics out there for this eligibility year. We know there are all kinds of great comics that came out for SPX or APE. All those books are eligible for the NEXT volume of BAC. This call for entries is to remind you that we accept books ALL YEAR LONG! We send a first batch of comics to the guest editor mid-summer so we really need to have new comics as soon as they come out, not to mention the fact that we have more time and attention to read your books carefully than when we’re swamped at the end of the eligibility year.

So: Please submit your comics published since September 1 of 2008 for the next Best American Comics. If you don’t publish comics, we’ve put you on our reminder list because we know you know people who do, and we hope you’ll pass on this reminder to them. Especially when it comics to minis, webcomics, and very small press, we need your help to make sure we’re seeing what’s great out there in the comics world.

thanks!

Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
Series Editors
The Best American Comics
Houghton Mifflin Company
215 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10003

How to submit:
Comics published by North American artists on paper or on the web between Sept 1 2008 and Aug 31 2009 are eligible for BAC 2010.

Mail one copy of each of your books to us at the above address. Please make sure to attach your contact information and the RELEASE DATE. If it’s not inside the book, stick a post-it on the cover with that info.

Web comics should be submitted as printouts with publishing dates for EACH STRIP. For ongoing strips we recommend sending a selection of your best material.

For more details on the submissions process and rules, look here: http://bestamericancomics.com/2007/submissions.php
(this page will be updated soon for the 2008 volume, but the rules are all there already).

The editors of The Best American Comics are soliciting submissions for their series! Maybe, if you send your comics to them, you’ll get lucky! Here is their request!

Dear cartoonist, editor, publisher, or other individual involved in comics in some other capacity,

We are the series editors for the Best American Comics. We are sending you this mail to let you know (or remind you) about what the Best American Comics is and how to submit your comics.

What is The Best American Comics?
It’s an annual anthology of the best comics short stories and (excerpts of) graphic novels by North American authors each year, published by Houghton Mifflin. It is part of the prestigious Best American series, which also includes The Best American Short Stories, Essays, Non-Required Reading, and so on.

Eligibility
The author must be North American (i.e. from Canada, United States, or Mexico). Work published between September 1, 2007 and August 31, 2008 is eligible for the 2009 volume. The 2010 volume will cover work published from 9/1/08 – 8/31/09, and so on. Individual issues, collections, original graphic novels, and self-published comics (including mini-comics) are eligible for consideration. We must see your comics in order to consider them! Please send one copy of each book you publish to us. Please clearly label each book submitted with contact information and date of publication. Comics published on-line must be submitted in the form of print-outs.

How does it work?
The series editors (that’s us) are responsible for collecting, reviewing, and selecting semi-finalists from all comics published by North American authors in a given year. Each year the editorial team (ourselves and Houghton Mifflin in-house editor Anjali Singh) select an established comics author to act as guest editor. The guest editor is responsible for choosing among the semi-finalists (and adding to the list if he or she sees fit) to create the list of works for inclusion in the book. If your work is on the final list, you will be contacted by us in October or November for permission.

Send Us Your Comics!
We  hope you will put the Best American Comics on your finished book mailing list and automatically send in anything that might be eligible. Keep in mind that even if you miss one year’s deadline a book will be eligible for the following year’s volume.

Note that the publishing deadline for the 2009 volume is coming up at the end of this month.  We will only accept books for this volume until mid-September so send your books in sooner rather than later!

Please send your books to us at the address below. If you have questions don’t hesitate to e-mail us at either jabel@jessicaabel.com or matt@mattmadden.com

Feel free to forward this message to anyone you know that is involved in comics, especially small or self-publishers.

yours,

Jessica Abel and Matt Madden

Mail all your eligible comics to:
Jessica Abel & Matt Madden
Series Editors
The Best American Comics
Houghton Mifflin
215 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10003