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Submit a Comic

Crucial Comix is invested in supporting new and emerging artists, so we are always open for submissions. To send in your comic for consideration, fill out our submission form. Our editorial team reviews new submissions once a month. You can submit a finished comic, including comics already published elsewhere (like on your Instagram or as a zine), or pitch a new comic that you have not yet created.  If you work for a media outlet or institution and have a comic Crucial could republish or co-publish, feel free to get in touch with us about collaborating at editors@crucialcomix.com.

You might want to submit your previously published comic to us if you want another place to distribute your comics alongside your social media feed, a print-only publication, or a publication that has ceased operations.

You might pitch a comic to us if you're a cartoonist looking to work with experienced editors.

Comics we’re looking for:

We publish narrative nonfiction comics. They can be about all kinds of subjects and in all sorts of mediums, from oil painting to pen-and-ink to collage. Here are some examples: 

  • Memoir comics: Stories based on personal life experiences, especially stories that connect to larger societal patterns and issues. 
  • Reported comics: Journalistic stories built around interviews, research, and data, and science comics that break down a complicated topic in an engaging way.  
  • Comic essays: Opinionated comics that reflect a clear perspective on pop culture, politics, news, and science. 
  • History comics: Comics that illuminate historical moments, movements, or figures that connect to today’s world in a profound and relevant way. 

We focus on comics that are longer than one panel but shorter than a book. Our sweet spot for comics is from 10-60 panels.

We’re less interested in:

  • Infographics or educational comics that center on just conveying information rather than being built around a narrative 
  • Comics that use a fictional narrator to explain a nonfiction story

We’re not looking for:

  • Comics that are 100% fiction, such as fantasy stories, poetry comics, highly abstract work, and hypothetical narratives   
  • Single-panel political cartoons or gag comics 
  • Illustrations, such as fan art, that are not comics 
  • Book-length narratives 
  • Print-only comics that cannot easily be adapted to publish online

There are many great comics that blend genres and are hard to label. For example: Deeply researched history comics that include imagined historical scenes inspired by real life. If you’re not sure if your comic fits at Crucial, submit it! We will get back to you to let you know if we think Crucial is the right home for your story. 

How to submit or pitch a comic:

Fill out our submission form below.

What to need to fill out the submission form if you’re pitching a comic idea:

  • A paragraph describing your idea
  • A short explanation of why you’re the person to make the comic, including your background and experience with the topic. 
  • A rough idea of how long you imagine the comic to be 
  • A link to previous comics work that’s in a similar style to the comic you’re pitching (a class project or comics published on your Instagram are fine!) 

What to need to fill out the submission form if you have a comic you’d like us to republish:

  • A link to your comic. It can be on social media, your personal website, or a Dropbox or Google Drive link if it can be viewed by anyone with the link.
  • A short bio about yourself 
  • Information about when and where the comic was published

Artist-writer teams are welcome to submit finished comics or pitches. 

If you have a good idea for a comic, don’t have an artist in mind, but do have a budget to pay an artist, feel free to get in touch with us to participate in our artist-matching program. An editor will set up time to talk through your project and potentially be able to pair you up with an artist in the Crucial community to work on your comic. 

If you don’t have funding to pay an artist, we do not have capacity to pair you up with an artist. We recommend collaborating with a friend and getting in touch with us once you have a completed comic. (Or take one of our comics classes and draw it yourself!)

Email us at editor@crucialcomix.com to talk about sending us a sample of your work and to discuss distributing your zine or sticker through our shop. 

Reprint rate: $100 for anything previously published, including work you’ve published on Instagram or with other outlets. 

Original comic: $100, and artists work with experienced editors to create their comic. 

Artists keep all rights to their work. Artists sign a licensing agreement with Crucial giving us the right to publish your work, but ownership of all comics remains with the artists.   

We generally don't accept comics with art or text that has been created using generative AI tools like ChatGPT or DALL-E. If you choose to submit a comic that's been created with generative AI, describe what you generated and how you used the material.

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