Museum of the Uncanny
On the edge of town, down a quiet road, is a museum. You park your car and grab your ticket, which you received mysteriously in the post several days ago, inviting you to the Grand Opening.
As you ascend the stone front steps, a chill runs down your spine. Maybe it’s the austere architecture, the way dark shadows seem to move in the dimly lit windows, or the prickling sensation that you are being watched from inside the museum as you approach.
There is no queue. Someone takes your ticket and gestures, wordlessly, that you should enter, and against your better judgment, you do.
Welcome to the Museum of the Uncanny, a place full of unusual items and the stories behind them. Haunted dolls, cursed paintings, magic relics, vorpal swords, infinity gems, hope diamonds… The museum brochure promises all of these, and more.
What objects are on display within the walls of this strange place?
Read and find out.
Museum of the Uncanny is a comics anthology collecting the tales and legends of the intriguing items in its galleries. It is a book of speculative history at its finest and we are challenging creators to imagine and bring to life the strange history behind each of the objects on display.
Each story will be about an item in the Museum of the Uncanny’s permanent collection. In each 8-page comic, you’ll learn about a weird and wondrous object: its mysterious origins, what it was used for, the people it came in contact with. What can an item say about us as a species, or our communities around the world and over the centuries? Or, what odd otherworldly circumstances resulted in a worthless object gaining importance or notoriety?
We hope to bring you tales that will frighten, inspire, fill you with wonder and make you laugh, from talented creators.
Call for Submissions is Now Closed
14 June, 2024
Memo from the Curator
Submissions to the Museum of the Uncanny are officially closed. We saw a much bigger turnout of applicants than for any of our previous anthologies, and the talent pool looks to be very deep. Please bear with us as our dedicated team carefully catalogues all of the mysterious items now in our collection; it will take some time to choose which ones to display in our galleries for the Grand Opening.
Publication Details
Our goal is to crowdfund this project. The team at Very Big Comics has successfully crowdfunded five books and is continuing to grow our catalogue. The co-owner of Very Big Comics, editor of this anthology, and curator of the Museum, Jamieson Alcorn, published Pub Crawl Anthology and The White Ravens, then co-edited and co-published Fairytales from Mars with VBC co-owner Kristi McDowell.
If you’re interested in this project, please keep in touch via our socials on Twitter or Instagram!
Thank you for your submissions!
The submissions window is now closed.
Museum of the Uncanny will be published by Very Big Comics. Very Big Comics is committed to giving underrepresented voices a platform in our anthologies. No form of discrimination in content or interactions with other creators, editors and members of the VBC/MotU team will be tolerated. We do not accept submissions containing or created using artificial intelligence (AI) generation, or creators planning to use AI at any stage of production.
Frequently Asked Questions
We’re aiming for PG-13.
We expect to let applicants know within weeks of submissions closing, and will take some time to sort out contracts with the creative teams. We’re aiming for this book’s Kickstarter campaign to run this fall, with production of the comics wrapping up by the end of the year.