FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WOMEN WEBCOMICKER GRANT NAN
PURPOSE
In order to foster women publishing independently, with economy, and as owners of what they create, I will award FOUR grants annually, of a year’s free hosting at WebComicsNation.com, to women making a regularly-updating new or existing webcomic of any genre or style.
The recipients will have unlimited data storage and bandwidth, the ability to choose to support their work with ads, and a storefront for selling merchandise.
The name of the grant is “Nan”, after the “digital person” Nan 11 from Rumble Girls: Silky Warrior Tansie. In RG, Nan agitates, comments on, and works behind the scenes to help the heroine, Raven, come to the understanding that being her own girl is the key to her strength.
I believe the Web already has what women wanting to make comics need, and that it has and continues to transform American comics from a work-for-hire Boy’s Club to a stage for everyone to perform on and be seen. The Web is living up to its promise, and comics can, too.
DEADLINE
Submissions are now open. Deadline for submissions is FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2006, 6PM Central.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF GRANTS
NAN Grant recipients will be notified WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2006, via email. A press release will be sent out concurrently. (Because, dadgum, we all need good news by Wednesday.)
ELIGIBILITY
1. Persons applying MUST be female. You will have to provide me with a document such as a driver’s license, birth certificate, military I.D., etc. stating you are female. In the case of team comics (no more than three persons on a team), the entire team MUST be female, and remain so for the period of the grant.
2. Applicants must be at least 18 years old.
3. The work submitted must be free of contractural obligation for web publication, must be the property of the applicant(s), must not infringe on other’s rights, nor be libelous or slanderous.
4. I am kindly disposed towards manga and Oni-like comics, but good comics most of all.
5. Previous experience a plus, but not neccessary.
6. The NAN Grant is open to ALL female webcomickers, regardless of experience. This includes young, brand-new comickers, older brand-new comickers, experienced comickers now paying a success tax for bandwidth use, professionals from other fields. You have to either already be making a comic that needs hosting, or want to host a new one.
7. Applicant bears sole responsibility for following these guidelines. Failure to comply with items 1.-3. will result in revocation of awarded grant.
RIGHTS
1. Applicants retain ALL rights to their work. Submissions are the sole property of their creator(s), period.
2. Comics published with a NAN Grant that are later collected for print are requested to add “Originally published in (year) on Webcomicsnation.com, with the aid of Women Webcomicker Grant Nan” to their indicia.
3. I reserve the right to use applicant’s names and representative art to publicize NAN without further compensation. (This means I will tell people who’s applied, who’s won, and point the inquiring to their work.)
4. NAN Grant recipients are encouraged to crow as soon as they recieve notification emails.
GUIDELINES
1. Ideally, BEFORE YOU SEND ME YOUR PROPOSAL, BUY or BORROW and READ “How To Write a Book Proposal” by Michael Larsen. (Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582972516/qid=1066192984
/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-7710080-8024610)
While it is geared towards non-fiction proposals, it does teach everything you need to know about crafting a readable proposal.
What I do not want to see is your entire story written out in a single-spaced block in email. Have mercy.
2. Show me you already know how to put a comic/images online. I want to see clean presentation (which means learning how to use an image editing program to take out grays from scans), good lettering (many decent free fonts available at blambot.com, so there’s no excuse for lettering in Times New Roman), and basic HTML (which will greatly enhance your experience in hosting with WebComicsNation.com).
Excellent proposals by Lynn Lau and Leigh Dragoon that won their creators contracts at GirlAMatic.com can be found here:
http://tentative.net/jupiter/
And here:
http://www.spidric.com/proposal/default.asp
3. Email me at nanoneone@gmail.com, subject line “NAN: (title)”, otherwise my spam filters will eat it.
To this address, send me the URL of your submission, and attach a scan of a document that verifies your gender.
Don’t tell me it isn’t your best work. If it’s not, why should I look at it?
If you do things like use “u” for “you”, “4” for “four” and “LOL” for punctuation, don’t when you write me. I expect to see a command of conventional English. Also, sell yourself without resorting to emoticons. They’re for casual correspondence, which a proposal is not, at least not to me.
4. It’s okay to be disappointed if I feel your comic isn’t right for Nan Grant, because no one enjoys rejection. I regret I will be unable to provide detailed guidance or critiques of submitted material. I hope you will submit again.
5. I and grateful to you for submitting, no matter what my answer is.