Submission Guidelines

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SUBMISSIONS ARE ALWAYS OPEN! 

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ON STORIES AND ART:

We prefer stories that are realistic, mature and aimed at an adult readership. Genre fiction is welcome. We’re also interested in comics adaptations of Indian literature, preferably 20th century and recent work. Visual narratives using black & white photographs (photo comic, photo-roman) are also accepted.

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ON LANGUAGE:

All story ideas and rough draft submissions must be made in English. For final artwork, you can use bilingual text. That is, in addition to English text, which is mandatory, you can add translated text in any one language other than English within the same text box. There is no restriction on the secondary language. However, it is the artist’s responsibility to make sure there are no errors in the other language. The editor can only help with English text.

Note: Sound effects can be drawn in any language without translation.

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ON SEXUAL CONTENT:

We love erotic content and it is a part of our focus on realistic fiction. When it comes to final published artwork, we believe that with imagination and creativity, we can ensure that the artist’s intentions are conveyed clearly yet cleverly. However, the editor reserves the right to decide on what to publish and what to exclude.

Please read Indian laws on this – India Penal Code Sections 292, 293, 294.

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ON PRINTING, PUBLISHING AND ROYALTIES:

Vérité is a magazine published by Studio Ekonte under the Comix India label. For more on the background of Comix India, see the About section. Artists are free to publish the works submitted to Vérité anywhere they like.

The artists featured in the anthology will share any profits generated by the sale of the book. It is the editor’s responsibility to distribute any of the profits generated.

Having said that, only those artists who contribute a minimum of 20 pages per volume are entitled to a share in profits. If it is an author/artist team, then the team gets the share.

However, there are plans to turn Vérité into a regular periodical. Whenever that happens, there will be proper contracts and artists will be paid for their contributions, and so will everyone else working for the magazine. But until then, we remain a non-profit voluntary effort.

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ON DEADLINES:

Currently there are no specific deadlines. The editor will work with each artist individually and some deadlines may be agreed upon mutually, depending on the situation. However, deadlines will come into force whenever we shift to a regular monthly magazine format.

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SUBMISSION PROCESS: 

1. SEND IDEAS & SKETCHES– Send in a synopsis and a few rough sketches of the main characters and setting of your story via email to the editor. Don’t write an elaborate story. Just describe the characters and plot briefly. If you have more than one idea, it’s even better.
2. DRAW ROUGH DRAFT – After a discussion with the artist, the editor will request you to draw a rough draft and send it for comments and suggestions. A rough draft is done (either in pencil on paper or drawn digitally using pen tablet) to decide on the layout of panels and text on pages. So draw this very roughly, indicating the positions of important visual elements like characters, foreground and background elements, sound effects and dialogues. The editor will suggest changes to the draft, and only after both artist and editor are satisfied with the rough draft will we move to the next step.
3. FINAL ARTWORK– Final artwork is based on the agreed upon rough draft. There may be minor corrections at this stage.

Rough drafts must be drawn in double-page layouts as shown below. This is to ensure that there is no confusion on ordering of pages, while also allowing us to see overall print layout.

Example of rough draft by comics artist Kaoru Mori:

Draw final art on A4 or A3 size paper with the panel border dimensions below. Kindly adhere to these dimensions in the interest of easier magazine design.

DOWNLOAD comic page templates to check your art. 

Scan final art in 300 DPI, TIFF format, grey scale.

Add text in Photoshop and send individual PSD files for each page. 

 

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TECHNICAL DETAILS:

No. of pages: Between 20-40 pages, if you want to be included in the profit-sharing. This includes space for titles. Lesser than that is fine, but you won’t be part of the profit-sharing.

Files to send:  1- Artwork in individual Adobe Photoshop PSD files in zipped folder.  

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Artwork at the edges of the page should extend into the edge of the page.
• Draw final artwork on at least A4 size or ideally A3 size with the panel dimensions given above.
• All artwork will be printed in greyscale.
• Sound effects are to be drawn as part of the artwork. Only dialogue and other narrative text are separate from the artwork.
• Choice of fonts is up to the artist. However, make sure they are readable and leave some breathing space within speech bubbles. Please do not use proprietary fonts. Use only freeware fonts.
• Title of the story can either be a separate page or on the top of the first page.
• Submissions may be rejected at any stage.

Send all files to editor@comixindia.org.

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