Jonathan Cape are celebrating 5 years of their Graphic Short Story Prize by releasing Shorties! – a 125 page e-book collecting together both the winning entries from the first 5 years and a selection of the best entries selected by Bryan Talbot.

The collection cover is of course by Adam Cadwell, whose thoughts on it, and his cover design process, can be seen at his blog. Shorties also includes Adam’s 2007 entry Spilt Soda.

Shorties! is available to read in many ways… online and iBooks version here or in full at the Guardian website here.

But first, a couple of my faves that made it into the book….

Jim Medway

Laurie J Proud

Paul Gravett kindly lets us know that the Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story competition and prize will be continuing this year, the fifth time it will have run, which is good news for Brit comics and comics creators. I did worry that in our current climate of slashing cutbacks that something like this might have been vulnerable and I am glad to see instead they plan to build on the previous years and continue with it. From this year’s description:

“For its fifth year, The Observer/Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize  has just been announced, inviting UK residents to submit a four-page comic on any theme, with the winner receiving £1,000 (the runner-up £250) and getting their story published in The Observer Review and on the Guardian and Vintage websites. This Prize has really galvanised the creative comics scene in this country, stimulating more people to try their hand at sequential art to express themselves. It has also led to several fresh British voices having their debut graphic novels published by Jonathan Cape.

Regular jury members Observer literary critic Rachel Cooke, Random House Creative Director Suzanne Dean, Cape publisher Dan Franklin, Paul Gravett, Comica Festival director, are joined this year by the pioneer of UK graphic novels Bryan Talbot, of Luther Arkwright, Alice In Sunderland and Grandville fame, and David Nicholls, acclaimed author of One Day and a writer for film, television and theatre.”

The Graphic Short Story prize is a cracking way for new talent to try their luck and also a nice boost to the profile of the British comics scene and some of the brilliant talent we have in our islands, not only offering some support to creators but raising the profile of the medium to a wider audience outside the comics community (and kudos to the Observer and Guardian, they have been very good at reviewing and supporting graphic novels for a good while, well done them).

(a page from In Room 208, last year’s winner, by and (c) Stephen Collins)

The deadline for the 2011 competition is the 14th of October – full details can be gleaned from the Cape site and you can see some of the previous winner’s works here. You can listen in to a conversation Paul had with Stephen Collins, winner of last year’s prize, here. And as always do let us know if you are entering and share your entry online, we’d love to have a round-up of some of the entrants, there are always some great short comics works and it would be nice to highlight them. As usual the winner will be announced during November’s Comica Festival in London; Paul is also telling us that they hope to have an exhibition of winners and various entrants to go along with this, I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about that later on in the year.

There’s just under a week to go until the deadline for this year’s Jonathan Cape/Observer/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize, a happening which has now become a bit of an annual event among the UK comics folks. It’s been great to see this becoming more established and it is a terrific opportunity for the talent in the UK scene to show off their skills to a wider audience. This year’s judges are Audrey Niffenegger, David Hughes, Rachel Cooke, Dan Franklin, Paul Gravett and Suzanne Dean, with the winner scooping £1000 and their four page short published in the Observer Review, while the runner up wins £250 and their work appearing on the Guardian and Vintage websites.

It’s great to have this happening again and I’m sure it has stimulated a lot of folks in the comics community to give it a try. I suppose the only drawback to this if that obviously only a couple can be in the winners and so there will inevitably be interesting work that most of  us won’t see (the Cape Twitter feed has been commenting on an ever growing in box of entries to look forward to reading next week). Some folks who didn’t win in previous years have posted their entries online afterwards and we’ve linked to them where we’ve seen them, but we were thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to bring those together into one place to celebrate all of them and let folks see those works too?

So if you have taken part this year, once the competition is over and the winners are announced and shared with the world perhaps the other comics creators who entered would like to share their entries with us and we could post them here on the blog with links back to your own site? Obviously this would have to wait until after the winners are announced and published, but it would be nice to gather some of the other entries together and display them in one spot after that so we can all enjoy them and show them off a bit. If you’re taking part this year and are interested let us know via the comments or email me at joe.gordon (at) forbiddenplanet(dot)co(dot)uk

SelfMadeHero’s latest Eye Classics graphic novel, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness was chosen over the weekend by Rachel Coooke for the Observer Graphic Novel Of The Month. Here’s just part of Cooke’s excellent review:

“All I can tell you is that I am a complete evangelist for this book, which I consider to be quite magnificent. …I vividly remember the way the story of Marlow and Kurtz and their Congo adventures worked its singular magic on me, and I had thought the experience would be impossible to repeat. But, no. Reading this adaptation in bed the other night, I felt both horrified and beguiled, just as before – and closing it, I worried, just a little, that I would not be able to sleep.”

I’m currently finishing the book off and my own review will be up on the FPI blog later this week. But simply put – I concur.

Meanwhile Observer columnist and judge on the prize Rachel Cooke has an article online talking about how she was won over to the comics medium and why non comics readers should be paying more attention to it: “All of a sudden, a whole slew of books came my way that made me think graphic novels could be as satisfying, and even as literary, in their way, as a regular novel. First, I read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, a brilliant book about growing up in post-revolutionary Iran that has become an international hit and an Oscar-nominated movie. Then, even better, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. This book, too, tells the story of a childhood (an annoying thing about the term “graphic novel” is that it is so rarely accurate: many of the best ones are memoirs).” (via Ian Culbard)

The 1st prize was awarded to Vivien McDermid with her story “Paint”. Described as a “vividly captured and tender story” that was a “touching portrayal of mother with a small toddler“. Vivien will receive a cheque for £1000 at the ceremony at the ICA at 2.30pm on Sunday 8th November.

(The 2009 winner of the Observer/Cape Short Graphic Story competition: Vivien McDermid’s “Paint”)

Second place and winner of a stack of graphic novels and a check for £250 was Joff Winterhart with “Days of the Bagnold Summer” which they described as a “hilarious and achingly realistic portrait of a mother and teenage son”

(Joff Winterhart’s “Days of the Bagnold Summer”, runner up in the 2009 Observer/Cape Short Graphic Story competition)

Congratulations to both winners and to all that entered – the article talks of the fantastic quality throughout the entries this year, something we’re beginning to see online with various cartoonists posting their entries on various sites and blogs already. More on those later in the week.

Guardian /Observer: Every Picture Tells A Story article.

Days of Bagnold Summer is available to read here: page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4.

Paint is available to read here: page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, or online here.

From the official release: “Remember how you were with seven classic comics for grown up boys and girls. We are printing an original issue of Jackie, The Beano, Roy of the Rovers, Bunty, The Dandy, Tammy and Whizzer And Chips every day in the Guardian and the Observer from Saturday 12 September.

It all starts on Saturday with the 1975 Valentine’s Day special of Jackie, featuring David Essex, Slade, the Cathy and Claire problem page and a Donny Osmond strip story! The Beano’s back on Sunday with the 2000th issue from 1980, featuring a Dennis the Menace front cover and all your favourites: Lord Snooty, Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids.

On Monday it’s the one where Roy Race is shot in Roy of the Rovers from 1981, followed by the Bunty 1972 Summer Special on Tuesday. The Dandy, with the last Korky the Cat cover from 1984 is your comic for Wednesday, while Thursday sees the return of the very first Tammy from 1971. And finally, on Friday, catch up with Sid, Slippy and Shiner in Whizzer and Chips, two comics in one!

They don’t make them like this anymore.…”

The running order of the releases is:

Saturday 12th September – Jackie
Sunday 13th – Beano
Monday 14th – Roy of the Rovers
Tuesday 15th – Bunty
Wednesday 16th – The Dandy
Thursday 17th – Tammy
Friday 18th – Whizzer and Chips

The Guardian and Observer have been consistently good at covering comics and supporting creators (publishing strips, taking part in the Comica/Cape/Observer short graphic fiction competition, printing reviews) which I’ve been delighted to see (kudos to them), but there’s something rather touching about this nod to our Great British comics heritage, drawn from the once huge array of weekly comics which we all used to read from childhood right through to teens, most now largely gone. (thank to Hayley at the Guardian for the heads-up)

(a frame from last year’s Observer winner, Sand Dunes and Sonic Booms by and (c) Julian Hanshaw)