Once again at this point in the year I am going to repeat the sentiments of twelve months before. Every time we make our Broken Frontier Six to Watch announcement I say it was the hardest year yet to whittle it down to just half a dozen names. And it really never does get any easier. This time around it was frankly agonising to reduce this from my final shortlist of fifteen names. We have such a vibrant self-publishing and indie scene in the UK which is, after those awful pandemic years, proving itself resurgent in terms of both events and practice. That, I firmly believe, is reflected in this year’s intake.
Our annual Six to Watch intro is our most-read article on the site each year but, before we launch into it properly, a little reminder as to the aims of the initiative for those coming to it for the first time. So, as ever, here’s the usual cut-and-paste from previous years. Skip this paragraph if it seems too familiar! Every year since 2015 we have given a spotlight to half a dozen UK-based creative voices. We look to provide regular review, interview and feature coverage of what they work on at Broken Frontier during that time, as well as mentoring should they request it, and opportunities to be part of BF events, panels and festival appearances. There’s also a ‘Six to Watch’ Discord server where artists from all twelve intakes can check out news about relevant events, anthologies/publishers looking for submissions, competitions to apply to, and get advice and support from BF and their predecessors on the programme.
Over the years our Six to Watch artists have gone on to be picked up by noted publishers in the field. These have included 2000 AD/Rebellion, Avery Hill Publishing, BOOM! Studios, Dark Horse Comics, Faber, Fantagraphics, Graphic Universe, Icon Books, Image Comics, Jonathan Cape, Koguchi Press, kus! comics, Myriad Editions, SelfMadeHero, Seven Stories Press, Street Noise Books, Titan Books and Z2 Comics.
We are incredibly good at predicting tomorrow’s stars today. So take heed at the names on this year’s intake!
This year’s Six came to my attention through a number of different routes. Some through my traditional practice of attending grassroots comics fairs and shows. But other ways my attention was piqued came through university tutors pushing people in my direction, current Six to Watch artists recommending their peers, participation in small press anthologies, attending one of our Broken Frontier mentoring call sessions for Small Press Day, and good old-fashioned submissions to the site.
This may be a year where a number of the names are unfamiliar to you. They won’t be by this time in 2027, trust me. As ever, it’s a real mix of styles, genres and approaches on offer. Abstract comics, work that adopts an alt comics leaning, experimental comics (of course!), visual metaphor, and even a foray into the peripheries of super-heroes. Simply put, these are creators who get comics. They understand its language and its unique possibilities, whatever area of visual storytelling they are working in.
Meet the Broken Frontier Six to Watch for 2026. They are outstanding additions to our creative community and it’s a pleasure and a privilege to be able to bring their work to you this year.
Daisy Crouch
There can be advantages to applying for one of our free Broken Frontier emerging creator sessions on Zoom that go beyond a short mentoring session. This was the route by which I discovered the work of Daisy Crouch (@starspilli on social media) last year and on the strength of that pencilled her in as a possible for this year’s ‘Six to Watch’ contingent.
On the subject of advantages, one that I often have at BF is being able to see a wider body of work than that which is obviously publicly available. And, when preparing for that call (offered to tie in with last year’s Small Press Day) I was immediately impressed by Daisy’s use of perspective, panel-to-panel visual storytelling, and inventive page structures across different subject matter in the samples she provided. Yes, two paragraphs into the artist intros and I am going to use the phrase “language of comics” because it’s a vital part of the selection criteria for this process and it’s something Daisy definitely understands.
Daisy’s very first public comics work was recently crowdfunded here on Kickstarter. Very Hungry Women #1 (sample pages shown here) is described as “a queer horror comic about cannibals, superheroes, and being bad at letting go.” At a time when it has become increasingly difficult for crowdfunding campaigns to get traction this Kickstarter, for a debut project from an artist yet to become a fixture in the wider community, managed to attract four times its funding target. An astonishing achievement and an early signifier of Daisy’s potential as a creator.
You can find out more about Very Hungry Women from the Kickstarter page here. Follow Daisy on Bluesky here and Instagram here.
Francis Todd
Francis Todd’s Caribou series embodies that true alt comics vibe that we love to cover here at BF. I picked up the three issues to date at Small Press Day at Gosh! Comics this year when the Camberwell Comic Club (from Camberwell College of Arts) were the fixture for the day. A few weeks later at the Zinezilla fair in Bristol I also snagged a copy of Help!, his comics collaboration with Ethan Llewellyn. Tabling is cool, folks. You never know who might be lurking looking for new talents to promote.
We will be covering Caribou in due course at BF but its off-centre approach to oddball characters, darkly enticing comics shorts, and unashamed experimental storytelling made Francis a definite pick for this year’s list. An artist with a distinct voice, working in a narrative space that seems to have rapidly declined in recent years in UK self-publishing circles.
Francis’s work has also appeared in Filth, Esotera #0, Liver & Lights Annual 2026 ( in a strip inspired by the work of Leo Baxendale ) and Camberwell Comic Club’s Figure anthology. Upcoming work from him includes the zine Unit X, a vampire comic called Love on Top and a bumper Caribou special issue set in Liverpool in 1906. The latter two will be published by his new micropublishing venture.
You can visit Francis’s store here for Caribou and buy Help! here. Follow him on Instagram here.
Jua OK!
Thought Bubble is always a time for discovery. For you as punters that’s on the floors of the Harrogate Convention Centre. For us at Broken Frontier it’s in the absolute deluge of coverage requests we get in the weeks and months beforehand from creators eager to be a part of our annual Thought Bubble Month of reviews, interviews and features. Jua OK! was one such artist whose multi-media comic Road to Chimera was reviewed here pre-TB at BF last year.
They describe Road to Chimera as a book that “explores themes of otherness and trans identity as a spiritual pathway.” It’s remarkably confident early work, again displaying an innate understanding of the things that comics and only comics can do. I said of this fantasy-styled allegory in the aforementioned review: “Couching the major developments in an otherworldly encounter with a seemingly supernatural entity gives Road to Chimera an elevated sense of the spiritual that makes its truths feel all the more profound. OK!’s art, with its beautifully considered colour choices and irregular page layouts, emphasises this quality with a sequential storytelling structure that eschews the predictable for something more dreamlike and mystical in presentation.”
Of current work he tells me: “I’m currently working on a comics project funded by the Wellcome Trust, between Bath Spa University’s ‘We Are The People’ team and CIC Queer Out Loud. The comic depicts the findings of research conducted to explore the experiences of queer disabled people living in South West England regarding their sexual expression. It will be freely distributed upon completion!” Jua is also working on a coming-of-age queer horror comic with co-writer Lu Fallon-Madden for later in the year.
You can visit Jua’s website here and store here for print and here for digital. Follow him on Instagram here.
Shri Gunasekara
Getting involved with anthologies is, as I always say, a crucially important step for emerging creators looking to increase their audiences. That’s where I first discovered the work of Shri Gunasekara in the pages of the second issue of ThirdBear Press’s vitally important Boxes anthology. I said of her short ‘When I Say I Love You’ in that volume that “[this] is a beautiful piece of graphic poetry; a sumptuous journey into individual moments of love and appreciation, gorgeously illustrated to bring us into discrete moments in time with warmth and empathy.”
Shri also submitted her first graphic novel Runner for review for Thought Bubble. This experimentally formatted book uses its narrow landscape format to great effect in a powerful piece of extended visual metaphor described by micropublisher Inky Fruit Co. in the following terms: “Danger constantly one step behind, ‘Runner’ follows a girl who has been doing just that all her life. Following in her mother’s footsteps, with her siblings on her shoulders, she is pushed to the limit and forced to confront the fear that has been chasing her family this whole time.” I described it as “a powerful etaphorical examination of responsibility and generational trauma” when I reviewed it here at BF last year.
Shri’s ability to embed emotional truths into her work with such quiet power and to ensure the audience’s empathetic connection to her narrative is a major reason why she is part of the ‘Six to Watch’ for 2026. She is currently working on some new prints for upcoming fairs and “a new shiny 30-page comic scheduled to be launched at Plymouth Comic and Zine fair (PCZF).
You can visit Shri’s website here and buy Runner here and Boxes #2 here. Follow her on Instagram here.
Skai Campbell AKA Skhoshbell
Skai Campbell’s comics came to me by recommendation at Thought Bubble and I was quickly impressed by the vibrant energy of his cartooning. Speak up for your peers, folks. You never know where it may lead. Skai describes his work as engaging with the natural world, springing from his background in biology and natural history.
Skai’s comics to date include the quirky hedgehog-themed anthology Hog Hog that looks at how disconnected we can become from nature in big cities and Jungul-Manthology Plus, a humorous collection of strips “inspired in equal parts by Calvin and Hobbes and my travels in Côte d’Ivoire.” Skai is another of this year’s ‘Six to Watch’ to have had work published in Camberwell Comic Club’s Figure anthology.
Skai is currently working on a new comic about “birdwatching, belonging, and heritage.” It’s his combination of the comedic with ecological themes, using the one to highlight the other, that really pulled me into Skai’s comics, alongside his engagingly frenetic cartooning style.
You can visit Skai’s website here. Follow him on Bluesky here and Instagram here.
Yu-Ching Chiu
It was just after we were coming out of the final UK lockdown that I first reviewed Yu-Ching Chiu’s work as part of 2021’s online Hackney Comic + Zine Fair. That comic was Lulu’s Flight, a beautifully told pandemic story with a twist – its star was a a dog named Lulu, determined to be reunited with her owner, trapped overseas by global events. “This is an accomplished piece of silent storytelling that mixes gentle humour with carefully measured panel-to-panel pacing, and an undeniably endearing protagonist” is how I summed it up at the time.
Last summer, as part of the LDComics Online Fair I returned to her work for the first time in some years to review The Wall and the Uncharted Land, a powerful piece of metaphor about creative block, and knew instantly that Yu-Ching would be among this year’s ‘Six to Watch’ numbers. I was effusive in my praise for the comic (sample pages shown here) saying: “The Wall and the Uncharted Land isn’t simply one of the best short comics I am going to review from this year’s LDComics Fair. I suspect it’s likely to be one of the very best short comics I review this entire year at Broken Frontier. And that, my friends, is high praise indeed. An absolute must-buy.”
And I am certainly not the only one to see the potential in her work as Yu-Ching is one of the finalists for the First Graphic Novel Award this year for her work-in-progress A Sleigh No-One Knows. The winner will be announced at the FGNA event in London next week with the winner getting a contract with SelfMadeHero. As is to be expected that book is the main focus for her right now and she describes it as “a story of philosophical concepts in the strangest of contexts.” Gorgeous, detailed art and an ability to impart message purely through the visuals made Yu-Ching the first name on 2026’s BF ‘Six to Watch’.
You can visit Yu-Ching’s website here and digital comics store here. Follow her on Instagram here.
Article by Andy Oliver
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