This year, we have decided to launch the annual Faber/Observer/Comica graphic short story prize with an event as well as an announcement: an evening that will hopefully be highly enjoyable for anyone who has followed the progress of the award, as well as helpful to those who might be thinking of entering this time around. On 9 April, then, come along to the Bindery in Hatton Garden, London, where a panel will discuss graphic novels in general and our prize in particular – tickets are still available. On stage will be last year’s brilliant judges, Luke Healy and Posy Simmonds, as well as Lesley Imgart, who won the 2024 prize for her charming, funny comic Witch Way?. The event will be chaired by me, and I hope to see you there.
But back to the details of 2025. As ever, the winner of the prize will receive a cheque for £1,000 and his or her work will appear in the New Review in print and online (the award for the runner-up is £250, and their story will also be published online). Perhaps the bigger thing, however, is that both will know that their work was admired by our two guest judges: Aimée de Jongh, whose graphic adaptation of William Golding’s classic Lord of the Flies was published to such acclaim last year; and Jonathan Coe, whose wonderful novels include What a Carve Up!, The Rotters’ Club and The Proof of My Innocence. This is the 18th year of the prize, and we’re so happy to have them.
Winning is often the beginning of something. For some, it has meant a book deal. Among past winners and runners-up are Isabel Greenberg, whose graphic novels include Glass Town, the best book about the lives of the young Brontës you’ll ever read; Matthew Dooley, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize-winning author of Flake (I hear he has a new book on the way); and Joff Winterhart, whose graphic novel Days of the Bagnold Summer began its life as his entry in the 2009 competition, and later became a film starring Monica Dolan. To enter, you must simply create a four-page comic designed to run over a double-page spread in the Observer New Review – a story that will ideally have a beginning, a middle and an end, and deploy original illustrations in its telling. After this, we do the hard work. So, to your drawing boards. For more details, including the deadline, click here.
To book tickets for Celebrating the Graphic Novel at the Bindery, London EC1, click here
