Lester Sanchez, who has been making his own comic books for a long as he can remember, has entered a web-based comic contest. He hopes to win $30,000 grand prize that will allow him to continue his education as the New York School of Visual Arts.
The 19-year-old, is 2014 graduate of McNair Academic High School, Sanchez is in his second year of college, but needs the funds to help continue his education.
An honors student his first year in the college, Sanchez is majoring in cartooning. In high school, he completed two graphic novels that were featured for several weeks at the Montclair Museum.
His entry called “A.I.” is competing in the science fiction category on Webtoons website.
It has several rounds: A preliminary round (June 7 – July 7), three rounds before finals (July 8 – July 14), (July 15 – July 21), (July 22 – July 28), and then a final round from July 29 – August 4.
Each round narrows down the contestants. There are more than 400 contestants and each round after the preliminaries narrows down to the top 16, top 8, top 4, and finally the top webcomic.
The prizes for the top 4 include an opportunity to become a featured artist on the site and get paid (for all finalists), $10,000 (2nd place), and $30,000 (1st place).
“So far, my ranking — which is determined by popularity — is within the top 50, but my rank shifts and actually drops significantly with each update for the comic until that chapter gains popularity,” he said.
Popularity is determined by the rating of the comic as well as the amount of likes and comments on each chapter.
“I need the readers to like and comment on each chapter, which updates on Thursdays. However, they only need to rate once. The name of my comic is called “A.I.”
Here is the link: http://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/ai/list?title_no=6577
Jersey City resident needs votes to win comic contest
