The final round of Xeric Grant winners have been announced, and as usual it’s a great line-up. Nothing like going out with a bang. $74,510 was awarded to these cartoonists to publish and market their work.

Tiny Bangs
We’ll update later today with more art but as usual it’s a very diverse group—and we can’t help but notice the preponderance of female cartoonists.
The Xeric Grants were founded in 1992 by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Peter Laird as a way to foster independent cartoonists. Winners must submit a proposal and are given money to physically print a project and market it. Yeah it’s a primitive Kickstarter with a single rich patron, although every year a distinguished panel would evaluate submissions, perhaps accounting for the very high level of winners over the years. Cartoonists like Tom Hart, Megan Kelso, Sam Hiti, Lauren Weinstein, Derek Kirk Kim, Nate Neal and dozens more were given a helping hand by the Xerics, and the tag has always stood for quality.
Their end was announced earlier this year due to the many more opportunities available for self publishing these days. With the web all the rage, self publishing is within anyone’s grasp, and Kickstarter and Indiegogo have made crowdfunding incredibly viable.
So yeah, maybe they were an anachronism. We still think the idea of actual curation has some value though…and we’ll miss the Xerics. Congrats to this final batch of winners.
Congratulations to all the recipients this year!
Thanks so much for the feature, guys. Here’s a bigger cover for Polterguys so it’s not all stretched out like that. :) http://bit.ly/Ovv1a1
I am honoured (and quite flabbergasted) to receive a Xeric!! Congrats to everyone, and I wholeheartedly agree it’s nice to see so many female cartoonists. :)
congrats to you all. You’re in company with some great winners of the past and the last recipients too! Excellent job and I look forward to finding these books!