Print Express launch Comic Printing Competition

The folk at British online printers Print Express love designers, writers, artists and anything creative and they've been running a number of competitions to help support interesting, creative people. Now they've decided to do something a little bit special - and if you create comics (but haven't yet had any professionally published), then this competition is for you.

If you send Print Express a e-copy of your comic, they'll pick a winner from their favourite entries and produce a small number of professionally printed books of it (enough copies for you to give to some friends, or you can use the extra copies as portfolios).

"We've run some competitions for writers in the past," a spokesperson told us, "but this is the first time we've ever run a competition for comic artists so we're not quite sure how to get the word out. If you think the readers of downthetubes would be interested in entering our competition, we'd love it if you'd be kind enough to mention our competition on your site."

We're happy to oblige. To enter, please email your comic as a PDF to: comics@printexpress.co.uk - or, if you find it easier, email them the link to your comic on your site or blog.

The full details of the competition are here on their blog, but the rules are as follows:

• Please, nothing stronger than a PG rating
• The comic must have been created by you, and you must have the rights to it
• You keep the full rights to your work
• Print Express would like to post a few images from your comic on their blog, so only enter if you're happy with them granting them that right (they won't publish it anywhere else, other than in the books they send you).
• There's no entry fee and the competition is open to everyone
• Only one entry per person, so please only send us your favourite
• Deadline is 8th August 2012