Call for submissions – CBA vol 76: WORLD WITHOUT PICTURES – ART ON STRIKE
Call for submissions for:
CBA vol 76: WORLD WITHOUT PICTURES – ART ON STRIKE
Main editor: Mattias Elftorp
Deadline: February 15, 2027
Both comics artists and illustrators are heavily underpaid. Yet illustrations of all kind, from instruction manuals and pictographs to logotypes and deeply involving visual storytelling, surround us constantly. With this theme, we imagine a world where illustrations are on strike, where what remains is a collection of stories completely devoid of pictures. Let’s see what their absence has to say about our forgotten need, our neglected dependence, for the visual arts.
This issue of CBA will be a bit different, but we’re confident you’ll come up with something.
What’s allowed: Text. Speech/thought bubbles. Panels. Captions*.
What’s not allowed: Pictures. Logos. Pictures pretending to be text/text used as pictures (ASCII etc). Sound effects (text modified to visually represent sound). We may or may not disqualify color, because if you try to use it as a substitute for images, you’re on thin ice.
* But don’t cheat by describing what would otherwise have been drawn. That’s bad storytelling.
The absence of something can sometimes be as tangible as its presence. Play with that.
Be creative with the concept. It can be anything from a story about a world without pictures or a story about being blind, to something completely different. You can use a story that already exists but where the original pictures have been deleted. Try to make it work as a comics story. Try to make a point (implicit rather than explicit) about the importance of illustrations. Make the reader feel what they’re missing. Make the reader not be able to dismiss this as a lazy way to get out of drawing.
We also accept plain text articles relating to the theme (may be the importance of pictures, may be about the strike as a tool to improve working conditions in general), but the texts won’t take up a larger portion of the issue than they normally would (1 or 2, maybe 3 text pieces/issue), and where there would normally be an illustration, there will be an empty space.
Will we accept collaborative submissions, where there is one writer and one artist? Sure, why not? If you’re a writer and you need help with the composition to make it clear that there are no images where they should be, you may want the expertise of someone who is fluent in the visual language of comics.
If we can get employers to realize they need to pay more for illustrations (in comics or in general) after reading this, we have succeeded.
—SUBMISSION GUIDELINES—
Please read and follow these guidelines:
Number of pages: We prefer comics that are about 5-30 pages, but any number is welcome.
Format: 20 x 26 cm
Color: Color / Black and white
Language: English
File format: .TIF
Resolution: 1200 dpi line art or 300 dpi CMYK (profile: PSO coated V3, or you can send it in RGB and we’ll convert it)
Length (texts): A good size for a text is ca 7500 characters (including spaces), but it can also be longer or shorter.
Bleed: 5mm. Think you know how to handle bleed? Read this to make sure you know what we mean.
Within this space, there are no limits.
Delivery: We prefer download links that do NOT require us to login anywhere (or download links from your domain, etc).
Request: Please don’t use Comic Sans. We don’t like it and will ask you to change to another font.
And again; Please check our guidelines for bleed.
Please send us high-resolution files from the start. This saves time and we usually don’t have a lot of that.
Include a short bio*, with one URL (if you have a website or similar).
Please ask us if you’re unsure about formats, resolution, bleed, etc. We prefer stupid questions to bad files. And there are no stupid questions!
Normally, we also organize a release exhibition showcasing sample pages from the new issue. Please let us know if you’re NOT ok with us using your works for that purpose.
Policy on generative AI: We do not accept submissions that are created using generative AI.
*Your bio should be approximately 500-700 characters in length and written in 3rd person. It should read more as an entertaining and informative bio and less as a CV. What you want to say about yourself is up to you, but it’s generally more interesting for our readers to know about your interests, who you are and what else you’ve published that they might find, rather than where you’ve studied. We may edit it if needed to fit our format.
Send comics, questions, etc to: submissions(a)cbkcomics(.)com
Unfortunately we cannot guarantee you any payment for participating (although these last few years we’ve had more financing so we have been able to pay at least something, i.e. when all the expenses have been paid we will share the surplus of the financial support we receive for CBA amongst the participants). If we publish your submission you will receive 5 free copies of the issue, with the option to buy more at a reduced price. That’s all we can promise at this date. Hopefully you will find being in CBA an enjoyable experience. Naturally, copyright for your material will stay in your hands.
Also note that we are constantly overworked and there’s a great risk that we won’t get in touch in case your submission doesn’t make it into the current volume (we WILL, however, let you know if we do publish your submission, and if you don’t get into this one we might keep your comic for a future issue). We are sorry for this and will try to catch up as soon as things clear up (optimistically in 2029)…
Feel free to share this call for submissions to any comics creator you think would be interested!
CBA vol 73
