Accepting 1-8 Page Finished Short Comics
SHORTS COMPETITION IS CLOSED

Let’s see your finished short comics!

This competition is open to fully finished short comics of all genres. Individual creators or full creative teams are welcome to submit their projects.

The grand prize winner will receive 1-hour mentorship call from a mentor hand-picked for your needs as a creator or creative team, and 1 runner-up will receive a mentorship call with the Negative Space Co-Founders.

The winner and the finalists will all be featured in a digital anthology presented for everyone to enjoy!

Submission Windows & Cost

  • SUBMISSION COST: $35

  • SUBMISSION w/ NOTES: $85

  • Shorts Competition Will Return in 2026!

Announcements

  • October 2025

Benefits

1 Grand Prize Winner

  • 1-hour mentoring sessions with hand-picked mentor

  • Featured story in digital anthology!

1 Runner-Up & 8 Finalists

  • 1 Runner-Up: Mentoring session with Negative Space

  • All Finalists: Featured in Digital Anthology

Submission Windows & Cost

  • SUBMISSION COST: $35

  • SUBMISSION w/ NOTES: $85

  • Shorts Competition Will Return in 2026!

1 Grand Prize Winner

  • 1-hour mentoring sessions with hand-picked mentor

  • Featured story in digital anthology!

1 Runner-Up & 8 Finalists

  • 1 Runner-Up: Mentoring session with Negative Space

  • All Finalists: Featured in Digital Anthology

2025 Judges

Josh Sippie
Editor at HarperAlley

Josh Sippie is an editor of comics and manga at HarperAlley. He is the creator of MangaCraft, a weekly Substack celebrating storytelling in manga, a writer of comics, both fiction and nonfiction, and he holds his MFA in Children’s Literature from Hamline University.

Brittany Matter
Writer & Editor

Brittany Matter (she/her) is a comics editor and writer who contributes to Marvel.com and Second Rocket. She loves helping creators polish their work and has edited published comics, such as Amelia Sky, Super Best Friend, Hellbent, and Miranda in the Maelstrom. Find her via linktr.ee/brittanymatter.

Ricardo Serrano
Comic Book Journalist

Ricky is a Social Studies teacher with a Master’s Degree in Comics from the University of Dundee in Scotland. He’s the Horror Beat and Turnbuckle BEATdown editor. He was born in Puerto Rico.

Curtis Clow
Comic Book Writer

Curtis is the writer/co-creator of the comics Beastlands, Slightly Exaggerated, and The Wild Cosmos. He founded and self-publishes through his own imprint To Infinity Studios using crowdfunding, where he’s had over 15 successful Kickstarters with over 4,000 total backers. Curtis is always looking for new writing challenges and opportunities!

SHORT COMICS MENTOR

Mentoring for this competition works differently. Once we establish our winner, we will connect with the creative team to learn about where they are professionally. Then we will find a mentor that best fits the genre, next career steps, and overall career needs. We have a large circle of editors, professional writers and artists, agents, publishers, and more — we know that not every mentor is the best fit for every writer and/or creative team.

We hope that this format can lead to the best connections and career growth for our winner!

Rules

  • This finished short comics competition is open to all creators in any genre. But we ask that all stories be aimed at young adult to adult audiences — no excessive adult situations or mature comics will be considered.

  • Applicants will submit an original 1-8 page fully drawn and lettered short comics. The comics can be color, black & white, or grayscale.

  • Comics must be the original work of the author and cannot be adapted from existing property. Comics must be created by humans — we do not accept AI work in either the written work or artists work. You must have rights to the work, characters, and story. The rights to the short comics will remain with the original creators, we at Negative Space Comics LLC take zero control over your story other than publishing it within our digital anthology for online distribution only.

  • You can submit multiple scripts. Each new submission requires a new application and fee.

  • Writers from all over the world can enter the competition, but scripts must be submitted in English.

  • Cover pages are not necessary for your submission — but if you do include a cover page it will NOT be counted towards your 4-8 page submission count. If you do not include a cover page, please include creators names and titles within the comic somewhere.

  • Scripts that have been picked up by a publisher, produced for a profit, or are currently under option are not eligible. Comics do not need to be produced specifically for this competition, they can be previously self-published, but nothing that has been published in another anthology or collection of any kind.

  • Creative teams can submit together, but they should only submit once for each story. You will need to note on the submission form each creator on the project and their title/involvement, and if the story advances, you will need to specify who will be present at the mentoring session should you win the contest.