For those of you who are thinking about submitting to the next issue of Knock Knock, or even if you are a past contributor just looking for a reminder, we have set up this handy guide to hopefully answer any queries you might have about the submission process and guidelines.

What is Knock Knock?

Knock Knock is an open submission horror zine that has been running since 2016 seeking to feature the best up-and-coming independent artists and writers working in the horror genre. We started as a quarterly publication but now have settled into an annual schedule with each issue releasing in October in time for Halloween and to debut at London MCM and ThoughtBubble when possible. For each issue we set a different theme of horror and endeavour to feature the work which best shows the diverse breadth of talent working in this genre we love so much.

What kind of work are you looking for?

In short – anything! We predominantly feature Comics, Illustrations and short stories, however we are open to featuring anything that suits the printed format such as poetry, articles and interviews. The only requirement would be that the submission is directly related to the horror genre and fits into the the theme that has been set for the issue in question.

When is the deadline?

We run the submission period at the same time each year. We begin accepting submissions when the call out launches on the 1st of March. We stop taking submissions on the deadline of the 1st of September so that we can ensure the book is out in time for Halloween.

How long should my submission be?

We have no hard and fast rules about how long submissions should be, however our advice would be to stick to the following guidelines as closely as possible. If you would like to do more than the following amounts please get in contact with us and we will be happy to discuss it:

• Comics – up to a maximum of 6 pages per piece (we are willing to give more flexibility to creative teams with multiple people working on them)
• Short Stories/ Prose – up up to around 1500 words per piece.
• Illustrations – generally single pages though multiple may be submitted and featured. We are willing to consider double page spreads but bear in mind that the issues are quite thick nowadays and details might get lost in the centrefold!

What format/ dimensions should artwork be in?

The zine is printed in A5 format (148 x 210mm or 5.8 x 8.3 inches).

If you have any preference of whether a comic or image should be or start on either a left or right hand page please let us know and we will try our best to honour your request.

We are required by our printer to have a 5mm bleed around the edge of each page meaning that up to 5mm of each side of an image could be lost when the book is cut during the printing process. It is important to remember this if you wish for your artwork to extend to the edge of the page. If you don’t want any of your artwork to be cut off during the printing we advise to put your artwork within a border so it can be sized as necessary to avoid this.

Any crucial parts of an image or important text should be AT LEAST 10mm from the edges of the page.

Below is a handy .png template for you to work to!

And below is a submission example courtesy of comic artist Bec Grieveson that exemplifies all of these things done correctly!

Now let’s look at his page with the template applied to see what Bec has done well:

Do you have any content policy? (Can I make it sexy and violent?)

We welcome all kinds of approach to the themes of the issues submissions, horror can be many things; scary, sad, tender, violent, funny, happy or erotic. Thus we have no specific content policy we can point to other than our own personal taste of what we feel is acceptable. Our zine is aimed at an adult audience and we encourage our contributors to be as wild as they like with their submissions. The main two point we would stress though are that:

• We wouldn’t accept anything that we would consider being, in itself, bigoted or hateful.
• We will never feature anything we can identify as AI ‘art’.

How do you choose which pieces are included?

This is the hardest part about making the zine, in an ideal world we would love to give everyone a chance to have their work featured in the zine, but ultimately we can only have a certain number of pages to fill.

OK that’s all well and good but how do you actually pick?

The main two criteria we use when picking pieces is:

• Does this fit the theme?
• Does this stand out for its uniqueness in some way? Is it interesting?

We generally do not pick primarily according to technical ability and try to feature artists and writers who are in different stages of their artistic development. We try to feature work that is diverse in style and content so that it contrasts well with the other work in the zine but also that the contributions hang together well through their adherence to the theme of the current issue.

Is this a paid opportunity? What do you offer your contributors?

At the moment this is not a paid opportunity, this is the direction we would ultimately like to go in one day if finances permit, but at the moment it is not feasible for us.

Instead we attempt to offer an equal partnership in each zine issue for each contributor. Anyone who is credited in a zine issue has the permission and access to the .pdf print-ready file so that they can print copies for themselves to sell and get the full profit for them. We are more than willing to provide help on getting copies printed if you need it.

If anyone cannot afford a full print run we offer copies at the printers unit price from our own print run so contributors can still get the full profit from each book they sell if they choose to do so.

Every credited contributor also receives a free copy of the zine too.

Will I retain all the rights to my work?

Yes 100%. You retain all of the rights to your work all of the time and we only seek permission to showcase it in the zine issue alongside all of the other work.

Where should I submit my piece to?

Submissions should be sent to frissoncomics@gmail.com accompanied by 2 social media links so that you can be credited in the zine if your piece is chosen. Also to make your piece easier to find it would be helpful if your e-mail is labelled as ‘Knock Knock Zine Submission’ in the subject heading just so your piece is easier to find!