Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition Longlist
– Click on artwork thumbnail to read the first page of each submission –
This Woman’s Work Lesley MacNiven and Heather Charters 
How the workplace was not designed for women, how women’s lives have been affected. Documentary comic designed to inspire action and drive change in furthering gender equality.
Cyberman Veronika Muchitsch
Ari lives in a small town in Finland, streaming his life online twenty-four hours, seven days a week. Non-fiction graphic novel about the transgressive act of online voyeurism.
Chillout Ed Firth
What promises to be an indulgent orgy of hedonism turns into an uncomfortable confrontation. Interconnected queer stories taking place in London.
True to their Salt Tim Catherall
The pressures on Indian and particularly Muslim soldiers fighting for ‘freedom and democracy’ in WWI. The modern questions of what it is to be Muslim and British and where loyalty lies are echoed in the story.
Our Glittering Future Angelina Olkhovskaya and Anita Bruvere
Spanning the period between 1985 and 1992, a young child’s perspective on the falling apart of her family and her country, the Soviet Union.
So My Body Pretty Much Hates Me Now John Miers
The experience of living with multiple sclerosis channelled through the multiple visual styles of other artists: those with the disease and without.
Grounded Kim L Pace 
Exploration of how making art and creativity allows the author’s experience of coercive control while growing up to be understood, transmuted and used as a means to share with others.
Patterns and Portents Teresa Robertson
How the death of Teresa’s twin brother affected family, friends and future generations, as, 30 years on, she looks after her twin grandsons.
Life Hurdling Michael Parker and Cecily Salt
Ex-Olympic hurdler looks back at a life of boarding schools, military service, competitive sport and business through his relationships and the commentary from his granddaughter.
Black Tobias Taitt and Anthony Smith
A dysfunctional family life, and a childhood spent mostly in care. Touches on themes of class and race as adolescent Tobias gravitates from care to crime.
The Visitor Mathew Jackson
Donnie was larger than life, shocking, funny, with ‘an absolute beauty to the way he rebelled against the system and lived his life his way’. A tribute to a friend who ‘was not of this earth’.
Everything I ever knew is on earth Pietro Soldi
You walk into a bar and accidentally meet a stranger who tells you something unexpected: the deal is done, the Earth has been sold, and change is coming soon.
The Fine Art of Destruction Alex Moore
Seb Eskine is out to salvage his father’s failing art gallery: he sets the fragmented remains of his family on a devastating collision course and puts his relationship with his girlfriend to the test.
Satin and Tat Myfanwy Tristram
Ella returns to the fishing village where the tragic events that shaped her teen years had unfolded 30 years before. Is she any better at processing the emotional fallout that followed her boyfriend’s suicide?
This is the Word of the Lord Gary McKeever
Novel inspired by the disappearance of Maura Lyons who converted from Catholicism to Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church in the late 50s.
The Mum Architect CA Humphreys
A story about towers, redundancy and finding a voice, the author is a third generation female architect and an activist against skyscrapers and the twentieth century theory and practise that encouraged them.
The Ghost Carp Part 2 Jane Porter
A comic re-telling of Moby Dick, set on a 21st century urban river, with facts and fiction based on the author’s own experiences of volunteering to restore the Wandle in South West London.
Polar Vortex Denise Dorrance
An adult daughter escorts her dementia-ridden mother across the USA’s Midwest during a harsh snowstorm, while placating her estranged sister and unwanted visits from The Grim Reaper.
Local Andrej Aleesha Nandhra
An exploration of identity in travelogue form as Nandhra escapes the family script to travel around India and discover how she truly feels about her culture, family, and inability to speak Punjabi.
Missing People Pete Shearn
If it wasn’t for Gran, and the need for a new job, Brian would love to move from Morecambe. Becky, a successful professional, thinks otherwise. The couple rebuild their lives in the wake of a traumatising incident.