Call for submissions – CBA vol 59: ALONELINESS
Call for submissions for:
CBA vol 59: Aloneliness
Main Editor: Oskar Aspman
Deadline: October 1
In a world where everyone seems to be moving into the forced crowd that is the City (more than 50% of the entire population of earth live on the 2% surface that is urbanized, in Sweden the rate is 85%). The epidemic of loneliness is skyrocketing alongside the skyscrapers, we sit inside our empty little apartments with our empty little hearts. The mortality rate of being lonely rivaling those of smoking too much. We are but morals and the City is our graveyard it seems.
And one bad thing isn’t enough, because at the same time a new phenomenon is being researched. Aloneliness is the negative feelings that arise from NOT spending enough time alone. In a city, in a crowd there is never time to slow down, to contemplate, to ponder and to recover. Stress and its manufactured hellhole well-being-spa-solutions is in itself another epidemic.
SO this issue of CBA invites you to explore this longing to be more alone. Take us to your favourite place of solitude. Show us moments of solitary relaxation. Tell us the tale of nosthalgia-ridden woodlands, a sunlit forest glade, the forgotten refuge on a rooftop in a crowded city.
Where do you go to, my lovely
When you’re alone in your bed?
—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
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 (wetransfer usually works fine, for example).
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.
Include a short bio*, with one URL (if you have a website or similar).
Please ask us if you are 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. It’s part of our marketing and it usually takes place in a physical exhibition space, although these days we’re more likely to make a digital exhibition online at the Hybriden website.
*Your bio should be approximately 500-700 characters in length. 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 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 amongst the participants). If we publish your submission you will receive 10 free copies of the issue. 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 2025)…
Feel free to invite people to the Facebook event or share this call for submissions blogpost!
CBA vol 56|57: UNCOMICS
From hospital staff to comic creators to basically any job in the gig economy, burnout has become an increasingly normal part of everyday life for many of us since the term was getting widespread use in the late 1900s. Anyone who doesn’t have a steady income, or who is expected to do more work in less time than is reasonable, can feel it. So who or what is to blame? Could we create a situation, a systemic change, to avoid the conditions that cause burnout?