Welcome to The Strumpet Issue 4!
Submissions Guidelines
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!
