Strumpet Merch!!!

Hi Strumpets!  Tomorrow is the last day of our Kickstarter, so I thought I'd do a little tour de merch, to let Kickstarters and prospective Kickstarters know what they will be getting in addition to our beauteous comics. 

First up, our mug, in a handy wraparound view!

Next up our tote, with art by the amazing Audrey Weber!  IT IS ORANGE!  Here's a mockup:

Why orange?  Well, because the pocket- you've gotta have a pocket - will be in one of an array of super-groovy vintage fabrics, from an authentic fabric sampler from the Seventies.  Here are some samples:

Blimey!

And finally - our buttons!  So everyone will know you support us.

Let's keep the t-shirt mysterious for now...but it will be cool.  This, I swear!

Wanna get your hands on Strumpet 4, and some of this cool swag? 

Here's that Kickstarter link...pre-order today!

Introducing the artists of Strumpet 4: Audrey Weber

Strumpet 4 approaches! As we continue with our Kickstarter campaign, we're taking this time to draw attention to all of the incredible artists who have contributed work for the upcoming issue.

Today's featured Strumpet is the excellent Audrey Weber, of leafy, lovely Brooklyn. Audrey's comics and illustrations are charming, beautifully hand-colored, and imbued with a certain winning touch of mystery.

In addition to her drawing talents, Audrey has some serious fiber arts skills, and does all kinds of beautiful textile design.

 

It is pretty much impossible to go wrong with a cat quilt. But it is very possible to go wrong with your life -- by not obtaining your very own copy of Strumpet 4!  So pre-order your own copy via our Kickstarter today!  This campaign ends on December 19th.  

Introducing the artists of Strumpet 4: Casandra Grullon

Another day, another awesome Strumpet artist to introduce! As the Kickstarter campaign marches on and the publication date for issue 4 draws nigh, we're taking a look at all of the talented people who contributed work for this upcoming comics explosion. Today, the superb Casandra Grullon!

Casandra is a New York native and a senior in the cartooning program at the School of Visual Arts. She is already quite an accomplished cartoonist, and also happens to be a special friend of The Strumpet -- in addition to the comic she drew for this issue, Casandra worked extensively on layouts and provided us with some outrageously adorable end paper illustrations (see below).

And in case you're in need of yet more excitement, we've also got a preview of Casandra's Strumpet piece!

Casandra is currently in the process of finishing her degree. If you're interested in seeing more of her excellent work, be sure to look her up at Fresh Meat, SVA's annual in-house comics convention, this April.  Or check out her Tumblr, full of beautifully done short stories. 

Intrigued?  Pre-order your copy of The Strumpet on Kickstarter, today! 

Introducing the artists of Strumpet 4: Zavka

The Strumpet 4 release date is rapidly approaching, and that can only mean one thing -- it's time to highlight all of the wonderful talented artists who have contributed work for this newest lady comix venture!

Today's artist highlight is Zavka, a first-time Strumpet hailing all the way from Poland.  Zavka's delightfully odd, distinctively angular comics have appeared in publications all over the world. We are delighted to have her on board!  Observe this exciting colorful ghost drawing:

 

Intense.

And for your further viewing pleasure, here is a sample page from Zavka's strumpet contribution!

For more Zavka -- and many other fine, fine artists -- be sure to head over to our Kickstarter and pick up your own copy of Strumpet 4 today!

The Strumpet 4 - Now on Kickstarter!

Get ready for the thrilling fourth issue of The Strumpet!

We are so pleased to introduce our artists for this issue:

Anna Bas Backer

Audrey Weber

Becky Hawkins

Casandra Grullon

Cliodhna Lyons

Colleen Frakes

Dre Grigoropol

Ellen Lindner

Evie Fridel

Francesca Cassavetti

Glynnis Fawkes

Hayley Gold

Katie Fricas

Lara Antal

Noel Franklin

Patrice Aggs

Rachel Yelding
ZAVKA

This latest installment is all about lady friends -- from best friends forever to friend with a question mark. Our fourth issue explores the highs, the lows, the joys, the sorrows, the awesomeness and the awkwardness of female friendship.  Come for the sexual tensions, sibling rivalries, and other miscellaneous dramatics! Stay for the heartwarming resolutions, and for the sharing of fried foodstuffs.

Grab your copy now on Kickstarter!

Friend of the Strumpet? Submit a Story For Our Next Issue!

Welcome to The Strumpet Issue 4!  

Submissions Guidelines

About:
The Strumpet is a transatlantic ladies' comic focusing on artists from the US and UK, edited by Ellen Lindner (as well as, in prior issues, Jeremy Day and Kripa Joshi). 

Despite ENORMOUS progress made by women in comics in the last two decades, we still feel that there’s a bit of a lag between the number of women we know who are doing comics (a lot) and those who are getting published regularly (not always a lot). We think that the existence of more avenues for ladies to publish their comics can only be a good thing.  Over the last three issues, The Strumpet has further defined her mission: in addition to printing work from some of the best established lady cartoonists out there, she has dedicated herself to encouraging the next generation whenever possible - hence our policy of open submissions. 

We're pretty loose on where our contributors come from - it's always fun to have special guests from all over the world - but exceedingly strict on the fact that we publish women only. Sorry, gents! 

Theme:
The theme for this issue is Female Friendship (working title: The BFF Issue). We're looking for stories that bring female friendships to life, as lived by women (as opposed to the guys who write 95% of romantic comedies!)  Fiction, non-fiction, we want it all, 1-3 pages for newbies, 1-6 pages for folks we've published in the past.  When you have a page count, please shoot The Strumpet an email at strumpetcomic at gmail dot com so I can get a sense of how many pages we're looking at.

Deadline:
September 1.  No exceptions! (Seriously, anyone who's been in The Strumpet before can tell you - we are an annual publication, and the only way to stay that way is to enforce the deadline.)

Proportions:
The Strumpet publishes simultaneously in Britain and America. The sizes are:
British: B5, 176 x 250 mm
American: 7 x 10 in
When you're designing your pages, just pick the measurement you prefer - they're close enough so that they're pretty much interchangeable.

Medium:
Black & White or Greyscale.
If you are shading digitally, please use only one tone of 40% grey. This will give the issue a nifty unified look! Folks who use watercolor, gouache, etc. - don't worry, just do your thing.

There is also a spot available for a full-color comic for the back cover, a spot filled in the past by such luminaries as Megan Kelso, Kripa Joshi and Kristyna Baczynski. Please let us know if you are particularly interested in submitting back cover work.

Bleed: 
Yes, you can do a bleed. The size of the page in InDesign is 7.25 x
10.25" (including the printer's trim space - that's the .25" extra),
with an approximately  margin of .5" all the way round (within that
measurement - so the non-margin area is 6.75 x 9.75".  Please keep any
vital information - text or drawing - within the non-margin portion of
the page.

IMPORTANT: when you deliver your files, please name them with your last name in the file name, plus the page number: ie, quimby_1.jpg   We receive a lot of files called things like "1.jpg" or "strumpet_1.jpg"  If you want your files to be considered, please make them easy for us to download and find.

Format:
For this issue, the maximum page count is 6 pages. We want to be able to squeeze in as many Strumpets as possible!
For those contributing for the first time, the maximum page count will be 3 pages.

We strongly prefer that stories submitted be lettered by hand - we make exceptions, as you’ll see from prior issues, but it’s also the biggest thing we give our artists grief over.

Submission:
Files should be a minimum of 400 dpi (anything up to 600 dpi greyscale or 1200 dpi bitmap lineart is excellent)
When you first submit, please send legible jpg's only. We will request for hi-res files only once we have reviewed and chosen the artwork. You can send submissions to strumpetcomic at gmail dot com

The Strumpet requests that any stories be new material, and that we are able to publish it in exclusivity for six months from the date of this issue's publication. If you have a pre-existing story that you feel is just perfect and has not appeared in another anthology, please get in touch - we may be able to work something out.

Please note:
As noted above,  The Strumpet's policy is open submissions.  Therefore, it is possible that we will receive more stories than we can print.
We apologize in advance for any disappointment this may cause. We may also decline to publish stories because we don’t feel that they fit with this issue. It’s a Strumpet’s prerogative to choose, but we will do our best to be fair.

Compensation for stories of 1-3 pages in length will be two copies of the finished comic; for stories 4-6 pages in length artists will receive three copies of the finished comic.

If all of this sounds good, please get in touch with us at strumpetcomic at gmail.com and pitch us an idea! Or ask a question. We look forward to hearing from you.  (Also, don't forget our nifty FAQ!)

See you Strumpetland!

The Strumpets' Calendar Issue: July

Hey everyone, July is here!
Check out this cool illustration Issue 3 co-editor Kripa Joshi did for this month in The Strumpet 2014 calendar!  This calendar was one of the sweet rewards doled out to our Kickstarter supporters in our last campaign.

The Strumpet calendar features some pretty cool new holidays we should really celebrate!

For example, did you know that today is Get to Know a Cartoonist Day?!

Get ready for July 18th, which in Strumpetland is Florence Cestac Day.  It is so named in honor of a truly amazing French cartoonist: Madame Cestac helped to found the incredibly influential Futuropolis publishing house, and was the first ever female President of the Angoulême Comics Festival, an enormous honor.   We live for the day that her history of Futuropolis, La Veritable Histoire de Futuropolis, appears in English.

Studio visit from Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg!

Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg came all the way from Portland, Oregon to visit The Hypothetical Island, editor Ellen's comics and illustration studio in Brooklyn!

Lisa has been in all three issues of The Strumpet! She has been in two other comic anthologies; Papercutter and Bird Hurdler. Lisa currently self-publishes her comic series I Cut My Hair. She also teaches comics creation to children and teens in the Portland area! 

Here is an example of Lisa's illustration! For more of Lisa's work check out her website!

The Strumpet Loves the Feminist Zine Fair NYC at Barnard College!

Editrix Ellen here! This past weekend I had a blast at the Feminist Zine Fair at Barnard College, a great show organized by Barnard students and library personnel. I LOVE zines - the first comics I made were IN zines - and I was so pleased to see the great stuff that's out there in all its photocopied glory.

Repping for The Strumpet is always a pleasure, and I met lots of cool folks like Jennifer Camper, Edith Carron, Barnard librarian Jenna Freedman, Annie Mok and the ladies behind Happiness Comix.

I was gutted to miss the zine library tour (gotta tend the table!), but better luck next year! :)

The folks behind this great fair are trying to raise some cash to bring a zine librarian of color to an upcoming conference, The Zine Librarian Unconference. If you want to support the great work the zine librarians of Barnard College are doing to keep this amazing artform documented and available for scholarly research (not to mention artistic inspiration!), drop some dollars in their collection box - there's a whole blog post about the initiative here.

I hope to see you next year, Barnardians! Thanks for a great day.

Strumpet Hayley Gold in the New World War 3 Illustrated!

Strumpet Hayley Gold is in the new issue of World War 3 Illustrated!

This issue, "Before and After", includes Hayley's brilliant memoir Nervosa, about her hospitalization for anorexia.  

This is must-read stuff - a wrenching story of a near death experience told with Hayley's trademark interwoven page design and total honesty.

Visit World War 3 to buy this new issue - or grab your own copy of the original minicomic of Nervosa, from Hayley's Etsy.  Highly recommended!  

We're Blushing! Thanks, Autostraddle!

Artwork for Autostraddle's Drawn to Comics column, by the amazing Rory Midhani

Thanks so much to Mey Rude and Autostraddle for a Drawn to Comics review of Strumpet 3 that made us blush!  On behalf of our artists, thanks for spreading the word! 

An excerpt:

"I’m really a fan of what The Strumpet is accomplishing. In a time when DC and Marvel comics each have less than 15% of their artist and writer positions filled by women, it’s extremely refreshing and necessary for a collection of comics like this to exist. Not only does it give readers a place where we can find creative and talented ladies who make comics, but it also gives those ladies a chance to be published and get their names out there....this is really an excellent collection, and I’m looking forward to purchasing and reading the previous volumes and any future ones that they put out."

 Like I said, blush-worthy!

Well, a Strumpet's work is never done.  Believe it or not, we've already got our thinking caps on for issue 4!  Dig Strumpet 3?  Fancy maybe contributing something yourself next time?  "Like" our Facebook page and you'll be up to date on all the submission info as soon as it's announced.