SAW Micro-grant awardees for April 2013

We here at the Sequential Artists Workshop are extremely happy to announce our two awardees for the SAW Micro-grant for April 2013.

The two awardees, decided upon by our five judges from a pool of several dozen applicants are Alabaster and Asher Z. Craw. 

Each will receive a check for $250 from SAW for their projects.

Alabaster

Alabaster has wowed readers since her days at School of Visual Arts, and especially with her last collection, Talamaroo, a gorgeously packaged collection that wowed everyone who saw it.

She wins for her project-in-progress, Mimi and the Wolves. Where Talamaroo was a delightful, fuzzy primal romp through body, ego and desire, Mimi and the Wolves shows Alabaster pushing her storytelling into deeper territory, using both symbolic and clean child-like imagery to explore a story of a girl haunted by dreams of... well, she'd rather not say. Alabaster plans on releasing Mimi for TCAF. Look for it.

Asher Z Craw

Asher wins for Zebadiah, "An alternative reality autobiography....It chronicles the soul of Zebadiah Howard before and after it is possessed by the devil, then placed in the body of Asher Z Craw fifteen years later."

In a time when it seems hard to be original, the best route to originality seems to be: keep your heart open and use what tools you can to try to see what's it telling you. Asher Craw seems to be on this path. Zebadiah is a strange, quiet work, a personal myth about losing one's soul, and trying to stay connected to the ones you love. He has studied at the IPRC in Portland, Oregon and has recently been awarded something or other at that city's Gridlords event (sorry- we're on the East Coast so transmissions are hazy.) On top of that, his ancillary work, Dream Guide and Take a Picture demonstrate a desire to experiment, and tune the dials of his existence until something comes into focus. Look for issues two and three, out soon.

Honorable Mentions

Ingrid Rios : for her story-in-progress, "Bare Bones" about living with an eating disorder. While the subject matter perks the ears, it's Ingrid's drawings that compel the reader to understand more. This is brave, raw work, and we are interested to see more.

Aaron $hunga - Cabeza : Clearly influenced by Tsuge and other alternative manga. Interesting, odd and eerie.

Mara Sternberg is editing a book - On Nights Like This, an anthology by survivors of sexual abuse, assault, or rape.

Jared Morgan - True Kvlt: "It's a love-letter to everything that was taboo when I was younger: heavy metal, horror movies, indie comics, etc."

Mari Naomi's memoir called "Turning Japanese", a proposed 250-page book about living in Japan and being a Japanese "hostess" is something to look for when it comes out.

We were all fans of the visual material, seen here in Keren Katz' The Night Poetry Class in Room 1001 but couldn't get a handle yet on the story material, so we are eager to see more.

The same is true of Craig Marshall's work, seen here.

Lara Antal  Tales of the Night Watchman

We also received interesting work by Dre Grigoropol, Jenna Brager, Bob Oxman,  and Sophia Wiedeman.

To our applicants not listed above. Thank you for submitting, and your exclusion could be because we didn't understand your package (a large number of submissions were surprisingly difficult to parse, or we didn't see the value that you see in it, yet (note the emphasis on yet), or that we are just a bunch of jerks. Know that if you follow your and honor your muse, if you are open and generous to your work and revolutionary in your observations, then you are bettering the world and we support that.

Congratulations to all the awardees and honorable mentions above.

Next round will feature an August 15 2013 deadline for a Sept 15 review. Applicants listed above will not be eligible until our April 2014 round.