It’s not a stretch to say that 2020 has been a tough year for the indie comics scene. With conventions going digital or simply being outright cancelled, many creators have been investigating new and creative ways to raise funds for their projects, and Cloudscape is no exception.
To help creatives get through this strange time in history, the BC Arts Council announced a series of grants and awards to help reinvigorate the local arts community.
From the BC Arts Council website:
The Resilience Supplement is designed as a quick-response to help arts and culture organizations with the short-term, adverse economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s with great honor and excitement that we announce that Cloudscape is a recipient of The BC Arts Council’s Arts and Culture Resilience Supplement Award.
What this award means for Cloudscape
As a non-profit publisher, we rely largely on continued book sales from our amazing readership base to keep us afloat each year. With the funds gained from the award, Cloudscape will be able to continue our many comics projects this year, including:
- Continuing to publishing, print, and distribute Canadian graphic novels and anthologies through 2020, 2021 and beyond (and if you’re a local comics artist or team with a story you’re looking to publish, we’d love to have you apply!)
- Hosting digital community events such as Cloudshops, where our members run a large variety of comic making tutorials including how to make a comic script, writing long form comics, laying out comic pages, Clip Studio tips, lettering how-tos, and more!
- Launching our new Creator Spotlight series where we interview some of the biggest names in Canadian comics including Johnnie Christmas, Ian Boothby, Renee Nault, and Doug Savage!
- The TradeWaiters podcast where our members discuss and analyze various graphic novels, manga, trade paperbacks, comic strip collections. We’ve now also begun posting episodes to our YouTube channel.
We want to thank the BC Arts Council for supporting Cloudscape and the Vancouver comics community during these troubled times.
For more information on the Arts and Culture Resilience Supplement Award, as well as any other grants the BC Arts Council is offering, check out their FAQ page.