If you’re considering sending a submission to The Phoenix Comic – great! Here are some guidelines to help you…

We LOVE receiving new material, but we’re a very small team and producing a weekly comic is relentlessly time-hungry. We look very carefully at every submission but sometimes we can’t get to things as quickly as we’d like. That means you may have to wait a long time for a response. Sometimes a very long time. So please accept our apologies in advance.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR…
The Phoenix Comic is looking for strips with heart – stories that are open and engaging, whether they are told across three panels, three pages, or episodically over several months.

We’re always open for new submissions of self-contained (ie conclusive within one issue).
 We consider pitches from makers working alone, or from writer/illustrator teams and are interested in strips in the following forms:

* Single panel to single page (fiction, non-fiction and puzzles), self-contained

* Mini-stories that conclude within a maximum of four pages

* Visually dynamic non-fiction spreads

WHAT WE’RE NOT LOOKING FOR…
If your material is really for very young children, or teenagers, or adults, or is bulging with counter-culture angst then we won’t be a good home for you. Sorry!

At present we are not accepting material from authors with a script but no illustrator on board. This isn’t because we have a vendetta against writers, just that we don’t have time to consider, and edit, lengthy story texts.

WHAT TO SEND…
Please include the following in your submission:

* a brief outline of the concept and, if not stand-alone, short detail on the proposed story arc and intended number of episodes.
* a script for the first episode
* style sheets showing key characters, a sample page layout and indication of finished colour work.

Tech info: detail on paper finish TBC but please assume a sheet-size of 211×297 (A4).

You can email your submission to: submissions@thephoenixcomic.co.uk or send by post to: The Phoenix Comic, 29 Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2NP (please enclose an SAE if you would like your material returned).

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT…
If we think your submission has potential we’ll contact you to arrange a meeting to discuss the material in more depth.

If your submission isn’t right for us we will write to let you know the bad news. Unfortunately this is likely to be the dreaded ‘standard rejection letter’. We’re very sorry that we can’t offer detailed comments on why the work isn’t suited, and that we can’t engage in correspondence about rejected work – but with such limited time and staff we have to focus on the strips that we are able to publish.

If we do say no, please don’t give up hope – there are many other potential homes for great content out in the world.

Thanks very much for reading, and best of luck with your submission. Please help us spread the word about The Phoenix Comic and point parents, teachers, librarians and everyone else to www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk