2023/2024 Dandelion Comics Residency
Presented by Lion’s Tooth in partnership with BearBear and MILK Comic Fest
Mentorship by Quinn Blackshere, Cris Siqueira and Shelly McClone-Carriere

Application period: September 10 to October 10 2023

The Dandelion Comics Residency is a juried program for cartoonists based on the Greater Milwaukee area. Our goal is to support the local comics community while promoting work produced here to well-respected professionals active in the industry today.

Guidelines for the 2023/24 cycle

DESCRIPTION
The 2023/2024 cycle of the Dandelion Comics Residency will feature one artist-in-residence to be chosen from an open pool of applicants by a jury of three industry professionals. The one-month submission period will launch on Sunday, September 10, 2023, coinciding with the 2023 MILK Comic Fest at the Cooperage, and will close on Tuesday, October 10, 2023. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. During the winter the artist-in-residence will work to produce an original mini comic, supported by regular mentorship and progress check meetings with Milwaukee cartoonist Quinn Blackshere and Lion’s Tooth owners Cris Siqueira and Shelly McClone-Carriere, including online and/or in-person events open to the public. The Residency will produce a mini comic and promotional risographed materials by BearBear.
AWARD AND BENEFITS OF APPLYING
The artist-in-residence will receive:

  • A number (TBD) of copies of the first edition of the mini comic produced during the Residency, to be given away or sold/distributed as they see fit
  • Constructive critique and mentorship on self-publishing and distribution through sessions with Milwaukee artist Quinn Blackshere and Lion’s Tooth owners Cris Siqueira and Shelly McClone-Carriere
  • ​10% discount in books, comics and zines purchased at Lion’s Tooth during the period of the Residency
  • Option to share a table with Lion’s Tooth at the 2024 MILK Comic Fest
  • Opportunity to have their work seen by a jury of comics industry professionals. Though the initial review will be anonymous, once the winner is chosen the jurors will receive the names and basic contact information of all applicants
  • All applicants from 2022 and 2023 will also get an early invitation to participate in an anthology of Milwaukee comics to be published by Lion's Tooth and MILK
About the mini comic produced during the Residency
The artist-in-residence will be asked to produce an original mini comic from beginning to end during the period of the Residency. This may be part of a larger project, but the piece must be self-contained, meaning readers shouldn’t need any additional context to enjoy it. The project must also be small enough to be completed in three months: a good analogy is a story in a comics anthology, but that exists as a separate booklet.

The artist will receive copies of the first edition of the mini comic produced during the Residency, which they will be free to give away or sell after the official release. The three Residency jurors will also receive copies of the mini comic. The remaining copies will be sold by Lion’s Tooth online, at the store or during other events. They may also be distributed along with Lion’s Tooth book and graphic novel subscriptions or sent to industry professionals.
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The artist will retain all rights to the work and the Residency organizers will not be allowed to make new copies of the mini comic without their authorization.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
All applicants must:

  • Be committed to comics as artistic expression. The Residency will consider both emerging and established cartoonists
  • Produce comics/sequential art during the residency (i.e. no text, illustration or photography zines)
  • Be the sole originator of the work in the application samples and produced during the Residency (writing and drawing their own original comics, no team collabs or writer/illustrator partnerships)
  • Currently reside in the Milwaukee metropolitan area (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee or Washington counties) 
  • Be able to attend progress check meetings and events at Lion's Tooth during the Residency months (November 2023 to February 2024)
APPLICATION PROCESS
An online form will be made available on this page on Sunday, September 10, 2023. No applications will be accepted after Tuesday, October 10, 2023. 

In the form applicants will be asked to:

  • Provide basic contact information
  • Answer eligibility questions
  • Upload 3-5 work samples. These should be JPG or PDF images saved at 72 ppi (max. size = 10 MB each). At least one of the samples must be a comic or illustrated sequential narrative. Please don’t include more than one piece or page per file. The applicant must be the sole originator of the art: no team collaborations or writer/illustrator partnerships accepted
  • Provide a brief artist statement with no more than 1000 characters. This will be entered into a text box on the form. Your statement can be anything you want. It may contextualize your work samples, describe your relationship to making comics (even if you’re just starting) or how you believe the Residency will help advance your practice as a cartoonist. You don’t need to include plans for the work you will produce during the Residency, but are welcome to give a general idea of what kind of comics you want to make in the future

Important: The applications will be reviewed anonymously. Applicants will be disqualified if they include information identifying themselves in the work samples or artist statement. Please don’t reveal your name in the artist statement and omit or blur any mention of it in the images, including your signature. Also be careful not to name the work sample files in a way that identifies you.
JURORS
The Dandelion artist-in-residence will be selected by three comics professionals working outside the greater Milwaukee area, and consisting of one established cartoonist, one publisher and one comics retailer. The idea is to expose the work of all participants to active members of the industry and provide the jurors with a showcase of the comics community in Milwaukee.
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The identity of our jurors will be kept confidential until the chosen artist-in-residence is announced.
SELECTION PROCESS
The applicants will be judged mostly on the quality of their work samples, but other aspects expressed by their artist statements may be taken into consideration, such as commitment to the comics media, perceived ability to complete a mini comic during the period of the Residency and impact this experience will have on their practice. 

The jurors will receive a digital package with anonymous and numbered applications and be asked to rate them using a five-point scale on an online form. They will have the choice to provide feedback to the artists, but this isn’t expected or mandatory. Any such feedback will be passed on to the applicants once the selection process is concluded.

The jurors will have two weeks to fill out the rating forms. The Residency team will then compile the results. If there is a tie the Residency team (Lion's Tooth, Quinn Blackshere, MILK and BearBear) will vote on the best-rated applications to choose the winner and two runner-ups.
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Once the artist-in-residence and runner-ups are announced, the identity of the jurors will be revealed to the public. The jurors will also receive a new PDF file with the name and basic contact info of all applicants and a copy of the mini comic produced by the artist-in-residence.
TIMELINE

Sunday September 10 2023
The application form will go live at midnight
Official launch of the 2023/2024 cycle of the Dandelion Comics Residency at MILK 
Start of the 1-month application period
 
Tuesday October 10 2023
Final deadline to apply
The application form will be taken offline at midnight
 
Friday October 13 2023
Qualifying applications sent to the jury

Monday October 30 2023
Jury deadline to deliver 1-5 ratings for the applications

Tuesday November 7 2023
Notification emails sent to participants who were not chosen
The winner and two runner ups were announced to the public, as well as the identity of the jurors

November 2023
The mentorship team will work together with the artist-in-residence to establish a schedule of progress check meetings and events at Lion’s Tooth and/or online

Date TBD - March/April 2024
The resident cartoonist will deliver the comic for production

Date TBD - April/May 2024
The comic will be launched at an event at Lion's Tooth and made available to the public

2024 MILK Comic Fest
The artist-in-residence will have the choice to share a table with Lion’s Tooth
Official launch of the 2024/2025 cycle of the Dandelion Comics Residency
Application period: September 10 to October 10 2023
Our 2022/23 Dandelion artist-in-residence was Casey "KC" Harrison AKA DARK AGE online 🔥
From their application: "My body of work consists primarily of printmaking: often narrative; always illustrative and symbolic. The stories are what move me; the illustrations draw in the reader. In this way they are symbiotic; and these passions are what brought me to the Dandelion Residency."
How a Flower is Born is the very first mini comic completed as part of the Dandelion Residency, produced by our Artist-in-Residence Casey "KC" Harrison. It is an imaginative and poetic story told in a meticulously planned 12-page booklet bound by hand by KC, including translucent vellum pages and a 3-color riso cover printed by BearBear.
THE SELECTION PROCESS
We had 31 applicants that were rated by a DREAM TEAM panel of industry professionals, representing a fellow cartoonist, publisher and retailer:
JOHN PORCELLINO has been making comics for over thirty years. His celebrated self-published series King-Cat Comics has inspired a generation of cartoonists since it began 1989 and has been translated into multiple languages. He lives in Beloit, WI.
ERIC REYNOLDS is the VP and Associate Publisher of Fantagraphics Books (as well as excellent cartoonist and artist). He has curated well over 4,000 pages of comics anthologies and lives in Seattle, WA, with his wife and daughter.
LIZ MASON is manager and curator of Quimby’s Bookstore, home of wild and weird reading material in Chicago, where she has worked since 2001. Liz is also a prolific zinester and has been self-publishing for over twenty years.
The choice was unanimous, so the Dandelion Residency team did NOT need to vote to resolve a tie. We can only offer this opportunity to only one person, but we're working on other ways to promote comics made in Milwaukee. Meanwhile we would like to congratulate the two runner-ups: Kevin McCarthy and Jasper Bellerose.
And THANK YOU to all applicants for taking a chance with the Residency, especially this being our very first year. We know comics are a labor of love, and we are so glad you have chosen to use your talent to produce work in our favorite art form.
Application period: September 10 to October 10 2023

Questions?
Contact us here or at lionstoothmke@gmail.com

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