NCS Silver Reubens Call for Submissions!

It’s that time of year again, the National Cartoonists Society’s annual Divisional Awards aka the “Silver Reubens” are gearing up, and they need your submissions for consideration. Each division has specific sets of eligibility criteria, but the following are universal:

• Must be professionally published between Dec 1, 2014 and Dec 31, 2015
• Creator need not be an NCS member, but must be eligible for NCS membership (i.e. a professional cartoonist)

Last year the NCS broke new ground by having it’s entire membership vote for most divisional categories online, which proved pretty time consuming considering some divisions had up to 50 entries. This year the process has changed to include a first round of jurying by either an NCS chapter or a specialty jury, and the resulting maximum of 12 nominees will go online for membership to have the final vote on the winners.

Here’s the details from the NCS website:

The National Cartoonists Society is starting it’s annual call for entries for consideration for their NCS Divisional Reuben Awards recognizing excellence in professional cartooning. As always, you DO NOT have to be a member of the NCS to have your work considered for a divisional award… all that is required is that the work be eligible as detailed below.

Last year’s online voting was a success.  Having the membership vote on the division awards was a great addition to the process.  To all who turned out to vote, you’ll remember that it tended to be a very long and arduous process, as some categories had upwards of 50 nominees to sift through.  Because of this, we’ve decided to make a minor tweak to the voting process.  This year, the initial submissions will be sent to various chapters for a jurying process.  These juries will whittle the nominees down to 12.

These 12 nominees will then be posted online for the general membership to vote on.

This makes the voting process by the membership a much more manageable task, and places some of the burden back into the hands of the chapters.

The following divisions will their final 12 nominees voted for online by the entire membership: Newspaper Illustration, Gag Cartoons, Greeting Cards, Newspaper Comic Strips, Newspaper Panels, Editorial Cartoons, Magazine Illustration/Magazine Feature, Advertising/Product Illustration, Online Comics- Short Form, Online Comics- Long Form. The following will be juried by specialty juries due to the length and complexity of the work being considered: Book Illustration, Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Feature Animation, Television Animation.

Below you will find a list of the juries which will judge the categories, the jury chair and the address to which you will send your entry.  EMAIL SUBMISSIONS ARE ENCOURAGED for most divisions unless specified below, as long as they adhere to the submission guidelines and contain proper verification of eligibility. Here are the basic electronic submissions guidelines:

• Include Entry Form and Bio Sheet
• Each example of art as a separate JPEG, 800 x 800px maximum.
• If providing a digital file also provide a tearsheet scan or other proof of publication date (scan of magazine table of contents with feature circled, dated product art or ad scanned from print, documentation of print date from client, publisher or syndicate) for each example
• Resolution suitable for web viewing, 800 x 800px max.
• Combine all included elements as separate JPEGs, clearly labeled.

Below is a short recap of several rules and guidelines, which govern the awards:

Please remember only recent work can be considered. This means work published between the dates of December 1, 2014 and December 31, 2015. Submitted work must be accompanied by verification of the date of first publication. If the work submitted is not accompanied by verification that it was professionally published during the eligible time frame, it will not be considered.

Please submit published tear sheets when possible and document when and where the work was published. Online Comics should provide links for verification of first publication date.

If your syndicated cartoon runs in both strip and panel format you can submit to one of those divisions, not both (your choice).

Your submissions must be submitted to their respective locations by February 7, 2016.

Cartoonists are invited to submit their work (or the work of another professional) no later than February 15, 2015, for consideration for one or more of the following Division Awards:

• NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION– Submit up to 6 samples of 2015 published work via mail or as (preferred) digital files with bio/entry form to: Sean Parkes, 16647 E. Ashbrook Drive Unit #A, Fountain Hills, AZ 85268 (sean@seanparkes.com)
• GAG CARTOONS– Submit up to 12 samples of 2015 published work via mail or as (preferred) digital files with bio/entry form to: Hilary Price, 221 Pine Street Suite 414, Florence MA 01062-1267 (hilarybprice@gmail.com).
• GREETING CARDS– Submit up to 6 samples of 2015 published work via mail or as (preferred) digital files with bio/entry form to: Ed Steckley, 4302 39th Place, Sunnyside, NY 11104 (ed@edsteckley.com)
• NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS– Submit exactly 12 samples of 2015 published work via mail or as (preferred) digital files with bio/entry form to: Hilary Price, 221 Pine Street Suite 414, Florence MA 01062-1267 (hilarybprice@gmail.com)
• NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS– Submit exactly 12 samples of 2015 published work via mail or as (preferred) digital files with bio/entry form to: Jason Chatfield,292 East 3rd St., Apt 2A  New York, NY  10009 (jason@jasonchatfield.com)
• MAGAZINE FEATURE/MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION– Submit up to 6 samples of 2015 published work via mail or as (preferred) digital files with bio/entry form to: Jason Chatfield, 292 East 3rd St. Apt 2A  New York, NY  10009 (jason@jasonchatfield.com)
• BOOK ILLUSTRATION– Send up to 6 samples (which could be from one or multiple books) of 2015 published work via mail (physical only, no email please) to: John Kovaleski, 42 South Street, Gettysburg, PA 17325 (john@kovaleski.com)
• EDITORIAL CARTOONS– Submit exactly 12 samples of 2015 published work (published in print or online by a third party client with proof of date of posting via link) via mail or as (preferred) digital files with bio/entry form to: John Kovaleski, 42 South Street, Gettysburg, PA 17325 (john@kovaleski.com)
• ADVERTISING and PRODUCT ILLUSTRATION– Submit up to 6 samples of 2015 published and marketed work via mail or as (preferred) digital files (all 3-D entries MUST be photographed… please do not send 3-D samples) with bio/entry form to: John Hambrock, 7214 7th Avenue, Kenosha, WI 53143. (john@edisonlee.net)
• COMIC BOOKS– Submit up to 3 samples of 2015 published work (physical only, no email please) to: Bill Morrison, 786 Twillin Ct., Simi Valley, CA 93065 (roswell2@earthlink.net) Judging will be done by a specialty jury.
• GRAPHIC NOVELS– Submit book(s) published in 2015 (physical only, no email please) to: Bill Morrison, 786 Twillin Ct., Simi Valley, CA 93065 (roswell2@earthlink.net) Judging will be done by a specialty jury.

ANIMATION DIVISIONS

Both animation categories are accepting submissions of individual artists’ work for consideration. Submissions may be submitted by the artists themselves, or by the studios or other colleagues on the artists’ behalf. There is no charge for awards submissions.

Production designers, art directors, character designers, layout artists, background painters, character painters, and all other still art creators must submit five to ten samples of their work from a single production for each application. Samples may be physical prints or as JPEG files on a CD-R. If the samples contain work by anyone else, please include a detailed written breakdown of which art is attributed to the applicant.

Animators, storyboard artists, visual effects artists, and anyone else involved in creating moving or continuity art, please submit a reel of your work on a DVD or CD-R. (Storyboards will only be considered in animatic form.) If the samples contain work by anyone else, please include a detailed
written breakdown of which art is attributed to the applicant.

• TELEVISION ANIMATION– All entries must be work created for episodes of a television series that aired for the first time during the 2015 calendar year. Submit one or more samples as explained above to: Chad Frye, 518 E. Cypress Ave. #C, Burbank, CA 91501 (chad@chadfrye.com)
• FEATURE ANIMATION– All entries must be work created for a fully animated feature length movie released theatrically in the 2015 calendar year. Submit one or more samples as explained above to: Frank Gladstone, 1119 Moncado Dr.  Glendale, CA 91207 (fgladstone@pacbell.net)
• ON-LINE COMICS DIVISIONS

All Online Comics submissions must adhere to the following:

– Must be web only publication (any syndication in print should submit to proper print division above)
– Must have shown consistent timely publication over the course of the 2015 calendar year (weekly, bi-weekly, multiple times a week, daily, etc.)
– Creator must earn the greater part of their living directly from cartooning/comic art in order to meet the requirement that they be eligible for professional NCS membership

• ON-LINE COMICS- SHORT FORM
  • Additional specific requirements:
  • Can be strip, single panel, single or partial page format
  • Must be mainly self-contained gag, story, or narrative in each short comic, even if also part of ongoing narrative
  • Must document date of first posting/release

Submit 12 samples, submitted via mail, as PDF/digital files with bio/entry form to: Ed Steckley, (ed@edsteckley.com)

• ON-LINE COMICS- LONG FORM
  • Additional specific requirements:
  • Can be posted in single or multiple page format
  • Must be ongoing narrative in serial form i.e. continuing comic book/graphic novel storyline
  • Must document date of first posting/release of each episode/page/segment
  • Minimum monthly or twelve times per year release schedule

Submit 12 samples, submitted via email, PDF/digital files with bio/entry form to:  Tom Richmond, (tom@tomrichmond.com)

Submissions should include Bio Sheet and Entry Form.

All winners will be announced at the 70th Annual Reuben Awards Dinner in Memphis on May 28th, 2016.