SPELLBOUND: A Boston Urban Fantasy Comics Anthology

Now’s the time to pitch your ideas for Spellbound, our upcoming Boston-urban-fantasy comics anthology. The full submission guidelines and details are here.

In celebration of our new editorial staff, The Boston Comics Roundtable is printing up a ‘quick and dirty’ comics anthology. This one is going to be short and sweet at 32 pages, so while the page cap is 6-pages we greatly encourage you to submit shorter and more concise pieces. The theme—democratically decided through an online vote—is Boston Urban Fantasy. What’s it mean? You decide, but could include:

  • Taking the subway to the past or the future (if disappointed we didn’t do trains!)
  • Punk rockers in the Fenway with dragons.
  • Fredrick Douglas, Colonial Super-hero.
  • The Boston Harbor in the 22nd century.
  • Field reports from the homeless future seers of Harvard yard.
  • Well…you get the idea! We want YOUR ideas and submissions!!!
Specifications
  1. Dimensions: Trim 7” x 8.5”, image safe area 6.5” x 8” — no bleeds.
  2. Color: Black & White only.
  3. Page count: Maximum 6 pages.
Submission

Please send us a 1-2 paragraph proposal or a brief script. We will also accept finished pieces, although we will be looking for new work and new writers/artist as well as welcoming our radical favs from previous editions. You are all great, but our page length is brief so send us your best (short and sweet) stuff! If we can’t publish everyone, we will at least give everyone our most sincere feedback and thoughts on your work and how we think it might fit in other publications. Thank you ahead of time for your work, support and incredible creativity!!!

Important dates

We really want to get this done quickly!! We want to be ready to sell them at Boston Comic Con, which is the last weekend of July so we are going to be keeping to this deadline as closely as we can. We may have to make some pragmatic decisions so this is a good place to keep your ideas simple and easy to operationalize!! (In other words, that historical-fantasy novel will have to be published elsewhere—hopefully one of our next editions!) Thanks for keeping this in mind as you brainstorm with us.

3/12 – Proposal or script deadline. In addition to getting this done quickly we REALLY want to encourage new members to submit. If you are new to publishing comics but would like to start getting out there—work with us. Perhaps we can pair you with a writer or artist who is also starting out. DON’T BE SHY—WE REALLY WANT YOU!!! Write up your idea—1-2 paragraphs or a script (give us your page count!) and we will do our best to mentor, advise and walk you through the process. We’re also new to editing a comics anthology so we are going to try to be welcoming, patient and ON SCHEDULE!

5/15 – Final art deadline. Expect us to bug for updates before this deadline, but this is when we need it DONE!! (If you’re going to be freedom fighting in the Vorblatt nebula until 3 days before deadline, this may not be the anthology for you.)

Proposals, Ideas and Submissions should be sent to: Olivia Li: lovianart@gmail.com. (Also, this is an all Boston local, so folks from elsewhere we welcome your work for NEXT project.)

Remember: Black & white, 7” x 8.5”, work safe 6.5” x 8”— no bleeds, max 6-pages!
Drawing by Ben Doane.