Posted in: Comics | Tagged: eisner awards, gofundme, san diego, san diego comic con, sdcc

Eisner Award Nominee Launches GoFundMe to Get Her to the Ceremony

Bex Ollerton has been nominated for the Best Anthology Eisner Award for Sensory: Life on the Spectrum. But can she get to the ceremony?

Bex Ollerton has been nominated for the Eisner Award for Best Anthology for her work editing Sensory: Life on the Spectrum published by Andrews McMeel. The Eisners are the most prestigious comic book awards in the English-speaking language but are awarded at San Diego Comic-Con. But actually getting to San Diego and staying there for the Eisners can be a little tricky if you are a small press comic book creator living and working in Manchester, England. I was that once. you know, just without the nomination.

Sensory: Life on the Spectrum began as a series of webcomics, which got attention on Twitter throughout Autism Acceptance Month in April 2021. Ollerto self-published a collection via Kickstarter and raised over £45,000 to print the book, which led to US publisher Andrews McMeel, offering us a book deal. The eventual publication was nominated for a Ringo Award, A GMIC Award, Broken Frontier's Best Anthology award, which it won, and now, an Eisner nomination.

So Ollerton has started a GoFundMe to help her get to San Diego and the awards ceremony, with a goal of £2000 or around $2500. She writes;

Travel, accommodation and food costs are roughly £2000. I was on the fence about going for a long time, which has meant that a lot of the cheaper options and options close to the venue are taken. It is also roughly a 20 hour journey each way from Manchester, my home city, to San Diego, which will be a lot for me to handle due to not only my autism but also my physical disability, Guillain-Barré syndrome. I will need a rest day after flying and a rest day after the ceremony, so I'm looking at a minimum of 3 nights, most likely 4.

This is all very overwhelming and a little bit scary to me to be honest. I cannot emphasise enough how much it sucks to be nominated for such a huge award and not be able to afford to attend the ceremony, nor to even be able to watch the awards from home, as they are not livestreamed. I feel like this might be the only time I ever get nominated, and it would mean SO much to me to be able to go and be present for that moment.

As a freelance comic artist, following my dreams comes at the cost of financial security. I feel like most people would think that someone who has a published book that is nominated for such a prestigious award would be rolling in cash, but the reality is that most comic artists, including myself, are barely scraping by. Many of us have second jobs to make ends meet or rely on donations to stay afloat. The recent #ComicsBrokeMe trending tag on Twitter has done a lot to open the public's eyes to the reality of being a comic artist; the long hours, the brutal workload, the destruction of your body in the name of passion, commonly for less than minimum wage – my experience is much the same.

The GoFundMe has currently raised £1600 of the £2000. from folks like Christopher Sweetman, Molly McCracken, Anika Zetterberg and Alex Obringer. Might this article be enough to help push it over the top? She adds on Twitter "Since the fundraiser is doing better than expected (THANK YOU) I'm going to add a stretch goal where I can take someone with me instead of going alone. This would help me A LOT because of not only autistic overwhelm and anxiety but also bc of my physical disability.. I planned to go alone and just suffer hgfjhg because I couldn't even afford myself let alone anyone else. But if we overfund, it would be so so so good to have someone help me with carrying stuff, navigating, getting food so i don't have to walk, generally just helping me cope"

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