Self-publishing is at the heart of the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo festival and community, and supporting emerging artists and helping them grow is central to our mission. The annual Cupcake Award is a juried prize that supports the publication of a new minicomic by an emerging artist whose work is primarily self-published. 

The winner will receive $400 USD to print a new minicomic, a free half table at CAKE 2025, the support of one Cupcake mentor, and a special Cupcake minicomic release party in fall 2025. Applications are due by 11:59 PM CDT on March 28, 2025.

The CAKE organizers will score all applications and then present a list of the highest scoring applications to our Cupcake mentors who will select the two award winners.

Eligibility

Applicants must be:

• at least 18 years of age at the time of application

• available to attend CAKE 2025 with a teaser for your minicomic

• an artist who has not had a solo work published by a publisher

• open to performing a reading of their finished minicomic in November 2025 (this can be a virtual reading if you are not local to Chicago)

Our intention is to support early-career comic artists. This is an honor-code application: we will not hunt through your CV to try to disprove your eligibility, so please use your best discretion. If you have work in comics anthologies, have had small freelance comics published in larger publications/platforms or if you have had success with a widely distributed self-published comic, you are eligible; if you have had a book published as a single author by a publisher but you still regularly publish mini-comics, you are not eligible.

While applicants may reapply every year, they are only eligible to receive the award once.

If you have questions about meeting eligibility, please email us at cupcake@cakechicago.com. 

Application Guidelines

Please fill out the form linked below by 11:59 PM CDT on March 28, 2025.

The form collects the following information:

Contact information: Name, address, phone number, email, website, and social media.

Artist statement and work plan: The artist statement and work plan should include the following information (character limit of 5,000 characters - roughly one single-spaced page):

• The content and direction of the comics work you have made to date.

• A short pitch for the minicomic you plan to make with the support of the Cupcake Award.

• A physical description of the finished comic (size, number of copies, color/non-color, etc.) including rough budget of how the prize money would be used to produce the comic.

One-page artist CV: Your CV should include your most recent creative work and accomplishments to date. Don’t worry if your artist CV is light –- this award is meant for emerging artists! (Character limit of 5,000 characters - roughly one single-spaced page).

Work samples: Applicants are required to submit at least one work sample and may submit up to a maximum of 8. We recommend that the majority of your samples are of recent work (within the past 2-3 years) that are sequential in nature, as this is an award intended specifically for the creation of comics. Please provide clickable URLs that do not require special access or passwords. If you are unable to send us URLs, please get in touch with us (cupcake@cakechicago.com).

2025 TIMELINE

• 2/28 - 3/28: Application Window

• Early April: Jurors review applications, submit their top three candidates to the mentor, and the mentor selects the winner.

• End of April: Winner Announced

• 6/28 - 6/29: Winner tables at CAKE 2025

• November: Cupcake Minicomic Release Party!

AWARD HISTORY

The Cupcake award has been awarded annually at each in-person CAKE expo since 2015.

Former winners and mentors are listed below:

Winner

2015 - Sara Drake

2016 - Goda Trakumaite

2017 - Kelly Fernandez

2018 - Adam Griffiths

2019 - Diana Chu

2020 - Joi Yao

2021 - AnneMarie Rogers

2022 - Bread Tarleton

2023/24 - Natalie 麥月明

2023/24 - Eli Estrella Perez