The Creators for Creators grant was announced at the last Image Expo in 2016; a bunch of Image creators pooled some money for a publishing grant to a new creator who has not been published by a third party previously – think of it as a Xeric Grant for 2017.

The first winner was announced at ECCC: Florida cartoonist M. Dean who submitted a work called I Am Young which she explains thusly:

Since college I’ve been tossing around short stories about young people from a long time ago in my head and I went through various titles to find one that could both tie these short stories but remain universal. Ultimately, I want to tell stories about the foibles of youth, the mistakes and nuances, the people, places, and things that feel important. I realized a title like I Am Young reveals both naïveté and an acknowledgement that everyone grows older and changes. These stories take place beginning in the mid-century, go throughout the remaining 20th-century and end in the 2000s. By the end all the characters that were seen as teens would be middle aged or older, they have changed as the world has changed. And we as individuals and the world around us continues to.

It definitely looks promising. The Xeric Grant helped countless cartoonists claw out a foothold in the comics world; looks like the Creators for Creators grant can follow in that tradition. And it’s off to a strong start.

