About OZU

    OZU is the new community platform for comic creators, artists and writers where the members have the power: the best contributors from the community get rewarded.

    Our ultimate goal is to help comic creators to publish their own stories and make money introducing new distribution models.

    We believe that the digital comic format needs innovation and inclusiveness and OZU's mission is to provide a springboard for aspiring professional storytellers to publish a new generation of stories.

    For this reason, we are launching the first series of comic challenges, with the goal of discovering the best storytellers and supporting them to publish and promote their original stories.

    OZU is founded by Roberto Ceresia, an entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience in the art and tech industries, and backed by institutional investors like Prosus and Animocabrands.

    Challenge Season 1

    In November 7 2023, the first one of five challenges will begin.

    These 5 challenges make up our first Challenge Season, dedicated to the genres of horror, mystery, thriller and anything that makes your skin goose-bumpy. Check out the Challenges page to get updates.

    Challenges offer creators grants and awards designed for comic creators and writers. The most talented and dedicated storytellers will receive rewards, and their work will be published and promoted on our platform.

    Profile Verification

    Challenges are free to join and open to anyone who is truly passionate about the art of creating comics. However since the creator grants offer real money, we require a profile verification to ensure that the account holder is a genuine comic creator. While you verify your profile, let us know as much as possible about you: connect the social media accounts that you usually use to promote yourself, and submit the profile verification. We will send you an email soon to let you know that the profile is good to go. Remember that the challenges are open to anyone.

    We do not mind if you are famous or a beginner. What matters to us is that you have a strong desire to tell great stories and get published.

    Challenge rules

    Every comic challenge is designed to encourage creators to publish SHORT STORIES. You do not need to create a long form story with hundreds of panels and tons of episodes.

    Each challenge has their own rules and most of them requires few uploads with 10/15 panels each.

    Make sure to follow the requirements in terms of genre, themes, number of uploads and minimum or maximum number of panels per episode. OZU accepts any medium and method Remember that only original stories will be accepted.

    Creator Grants and other awards

    Creator grants are different from publishing contracts: the creator who receives the grant will retain all the copyrights and Intellectual Property over their stories.