THIS YEAR WE’RE OFFERING TWO AWARDS!

Thanks to a grant from the Awesome Foundation, we are able to offer two Cupcake Awards for 2026 - just in time for our 10th award cycle! Thank you to the Awesome Foundation for their support of and enthusiasm for the Chicago creative community.

Eligibility

Applicants must be:

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

• available to exhibit at CAKE 2027

• available to attend and perform a comic reading (or enlist a reader) at CAKE 2027

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

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 above by 11:59 PM CDT on April 11, 2026. 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 (1,000 words or less - roughly one single-spaced page):

• Artist statement: as part of this statement, consider sharing the content and direction of the comics work you have made to date

• Short pitch: describe the minicomic you plan to make with the support of the Cupcake Award

• Physical description: anticipated size, number of copies, color/non-color, etc.

• Rough budget: describe how you plan to use the prize money 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!

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).

2026 Timeline

• 3/24 - 4/11: Application window

• Mid-April: Jurors review applications, submit their top three candidates to the mentors, and the mentors selects the winners

• 5/1: Winners Announced at the Cupcake Release Party

• CAKE 2027: Winner exhibits at CAKE / performs at the Cupcake Release Party

2026 Cupcake Mentors

AWARD HISTORY

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

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

2025 - Mili St. John