KCU Annual Report 2025

Below is our Annual Report reflecting on what happened in 2025. I was hoping to publish this a few months ago… but better late than never. 😝

Executive Summary 

Kids Comics Unite is an online community offering career development for comics creators working in children’s publishing, founded in 2020. Our flagship programs include KCU Pitchfest (a juried competition) and courses such as KCU Graphic Novel Bootcamp and How to Launch Your Graphic Novel. 

KCU exists to:

• Support creators of graphic novels for kids and teens
• Provide professional education and career development
• Build a collaborative community
• Improve transparency in graphic novel publishing, and access to knowledge, opportunities, and industry professionals

The report below shares how Kids Comics Unite served creators in 2025, how we are sustaining the community financially, and where we are headed in 2026.

A Note from Janna

We’re living in difficult times, to put it mildly. The economy is shaky, politics are completely polarized, the US government is at war, and AI is upending the labor market across the board (while also being called a catastrophic threat to humankind’s very existence). 

During times like these, it’s more important than ever that we connect with people we trust, who inspire us, who keep us going. Against a backdrop of negativity and economic upheaval, we’re trying to build something different: a warm, supportive community grounded in constructive creativity.

A long time ago, I joked that our motto is “move slowly and nurture things.” (In other words, the opposite of a certain other company’s infamous “move fast and break things.”)

Instead of tearing things down, we’re planting green shoots. We’d like KCU to act as a gardener in the field of visual storytelling for kids: finding ways to care for the ecosystem as a whole, making it as healthy and resilient as we can.

To me, community matters now more than ever. We all owe immense gratitude to the members who put in extra time and energy to host events, respond to questions, cheer others on, share ideas, and all the other little (and big) actions that make KCU what it is.

I’d like to give special shout-outs to:

• Roger McMullan and Joe Mandia for launching the Zine Club
• Eli Perez and Deborah Tyson for launching the Video Club
• Jeff Larkin for launching/hosting ClipStudio Cafe
• Sarah Giles for starting the Early Birds group
• Alondra Araujo, Bailey Culver, Gibson Twist, Rori de Rien, and Stan Yan for hosting Co-Working sessions
• Jeff Larkin, Patrick Lugo, and Anne-Marie Perks for chairing the Editorial, Marketing, and Design committees for the Let’s Go anthology
• Sarah Steinberg for creating and maintaining the anthology webpages on KCU’s website
• All 34 of the Let’s Go! contributors for their tireless efforts
• Roger McMullen, Teresa Robeson, Bob Thibeault, Patrick Lugo, Jeff Larkin, Edna Cabcabin Moran, Eli Perez, Johnell DeWitt, César Lador, and Erin Siska for being the top 10 highest contributors to our community forum discussions! 
• Bert Tzeng, Marie Ventura, Jeff Larkin, Hollie Michaels, David Quinn, and Katie Risor for helping us with the KCU table at MoCCA Fest.
• The wonderful, stalwart, always-thoughtful KCU team: Jade Vaughan, Lisa Lowry, and Bailey Culver.

And finally, I’d like to give a shout-out to everyone in the community who’s shared their work, asked a question, posted a useful link, or helped others out! Which is a lot of people!

Yay, you!

2025 Highlights: what happened

At the start of 2025, our main goal was financial stability. We mapped out a plan for the year that started with KCU Pitchfest in February, followed by the Let’s Go! Kickstarter in April, and concluded with the relaunch of our popular 3-month course Kids Comics Intensive in the fall.

The 2025 Pitchfest competition was a big success. We had about 125 submissions and hosted a wonderful event with guest speakers Samia Fakih (First Second/Macmillan), Mike Marts (Papercutz/Mad Cave Studios), and Maria Vicente (PS Literary). Several of the top submitters ended up with agents and book deals.

The Kickstarter and ultimate print production of the Let’s Go! anthology went really well and we are incredibly proud of the final product! We had 264 backers and almost tripled our funding goal, ending up with total pledges of $9672. (Check it out here and here!!) But it was not a money maker for KCU as a whole, and pouring so much time and energy into that project may have hurt our primary goal of financial stability. 

Then, due to scheduling conflicts, we weren’t able to offer Kids Comics Intensive (our biggest money-maker) after all. So we pivoted, and instead, I offered a course aimed at more advanced creators called “How to Launch Your Graphic Novel.”

Teaching How to Launch Your Graphic Novel resulted in two wonderful things: first, it forced me to clarify and organize my ideas around effective book marketing – and anything that forces you to clarify and organize your thoughts is almost always good! And second, it brought me a lot of joy. I honestly love teaching branding and marketing to creators.

Conclusions

2025 was a good year for KCU in terms of projects, community engagement, and furthering our mission. But alas, we didn’t reach our primary goal of financial stability.

I reflected a lot at the end of the year, and came to the decision that we needed to sunset the Studio program, our ongoing subscription membership. 

This was honestly a difficult, emotional decision, because Studio played a huge role in shaping the culture of KCU. Many of the strongest friendships, collaborations, critique groups, co-working sessions, and creative experiments in our community grew out of Studio. It was an ongoing program with almost weekly events, and having those regular touchpoints was key to helping us develop a strong core community at the heart of KCU. 

The Let’s Go! anthology itself is a perfect example. That project only happened because Studio members cared enough to organize committees, volunteer their time, and build something quite ambitious together.

But over time, I realized we had drifted into a model where a tremendous amount of our organizational energy was going toward maintaining an ongoing subscription program that, financially, was not sustainable relative to the amount of work involved.

So rather than continuing to divide our attention across too many moving parts, we decided to focus KCU around a smaller number of high-impact flagship programs and community-wide events. Hopefully, over time, this will result in a healthier and more sustainable organization overall.

I still care deeply about the kind of close-knit creative community that Studio fostered. I don’t want to lose that spirit. My hope is that by simplifying the structure of KCU, we can create more opportunities for meaningful connection, while also building a financial model that allows us to keep going for the long term.

So, for 2026, financial stability remains our primary goal, but we have a quite different plan to get there. See the “Priorities for 2026” section below for more information about this year’s plan.

2025 Programs Overview At-a-Glance 

Community Reach

• Member Growth: Grew from 2,301 to 2,558 members over the course of the year
• Active Members: 875 active members, with 558 of those being active contributors
• Countries Represented: 35+ countries across the globe

Education / Programming

• Pitchfest 2025:
  • 126 pitch entries submitted
  • 49 creators had one-on-one critique sessions with industry professionals
  • For the first time, hired one of our Pitchfest winners, the creative team of Sarah Thomas and Tzook Har-Paz, to design promo art for next year’s Pitchfest
• How to Launch Your Graphic Novel
  • New course offered for first time in 2025
  • 38 students enrolled in the full 6-week intensive
• Let’s Go! A Kids Comics Anthology
  • A project spearheaded by members of our Kids Comics Studio program
  • Showcased the work of 31 international creators (with 34 total contributors) from the KCU Studio community 
  • Entirely member-driven, with creators organizing into dedicated volunteer committees (Publishing, Editorial, Design, Marketing, and Documentary) to handle every aspect of the book’s production
  • Successfully crowdfunded via Kickstarter
  • Raised $9,547 from 259 backers 
• An incredible lineup of Guest Speakers throughout the year, including:
  • Kazu Kibuishi
  • John Hendrix
  • Mike Lowery
  • Colleen AF Venable 
  • Melissa Taylor 
  • Linette Kim 
  • James Powell
  • Robyn Chapman
  • Kon Tan
  • Royden Lepp
  • Mika Song
  • Joe Latham
  • César Lador
  • and more…
• “Feedback with a Pro” Studio sessions
  • January Mini-pitch Feedback with a Pro with Executive Editor Chris Duffy (Union Square Press)
  • May Online Portfolio Feedback with a Pro with Art Directors Rae Crawford (Scholastic) and Sunny Lee (First Second)
  • October Synopsis Feedback with a Pro with Literary Agent Britt Siess
• The launch of two new member-run groups, Zine Club and Video Club
  • Members collaborated to form a dedicated Zine Club and Video Club, meeting regularly throughout the year to share resources and work together
  • The Zine Club’s collaborative goal is to push members to experiment by creating one single-sheet folded zine every month, culminating in a year-end zine exchange among contributors
  • The Video Club meets to discuss specific videos from KCU’s Studio Library, talking about highlights, what they learned, and their own experiences relating to the video’s topic.

Financial Overview 

Financial Snapshot

• Total Revenue: $60,952.35.
  • Pitchfest represented about 23% of our total revenue.
  • The Studio program represented about 32% of our total revenue.
  • How to Launch Your Graphic Novel (HTLYGN) represented about 34% of our total revenue.
  • The Let’s Go! Kickstarter represented about 11% of our total revenue.
• Scholarships & Discounts Provided: 42% of all Pitchfest ticket sales were discounted to ensure accessibility. This included 53 total discounts: 30 student/hardship pricing tickets, 17 Studio member discounts, and 6 heavily discounted/sliding-scale entry fees.
• Major Expense Categories:
  • Contract Labor: $22,192.31 (paying the KCU team and community contributors).
  • Cost of Goods Sold: $12,427.83 (includes $3,605.37 in software, $3,211.39 in speaker fees, $2,275.07 in fulfillment, and $1,850.00 in printing).
  • Professional Services: $5,219.00 (primarily bookkeeper, accountant, and web developer).
  • Taxes and Licenses: $4,860.50.
  • Advertising: $3,040.04 (primarily newsletter software)
• Net Income: $10,708.76.
  • Since I am the owner of KCU, my pay doesn’t count as “Contract Labor,” so I took my pay from the net income. Last year, I paid myself $4,400. 

Challenges + Risks 

Our mandate is career development for aspiring and experienced kids comics creators. We try to fulfill that mission in a few different ways, as described above: through cohort-based courses; opportunities for creators to pitch work and receive feedback from industry pros; spaces where creators can connect and support each other; and interviews, blog posts, and YouTube videos featuring established creators.

But the honest truth is that we’re still trying to figure out how to make all of this sustainable.

We are operating on a shoestring budget. Our membership is price-conscious, which makes complete sense given both the state of the economy and the financial realities of creative work. We want to keep KCU accessible, but balancing accessibility with financial sustainability is an ongoing challenge.

At the same time, the publishing industry itself is undergoing massive shifts. The economics of graphic novels have changed significantly over the last few years. Social media platforms are unstable, and AI is creating uncertainty throughout creative fields. Our attention is fragmented, which makes discovery harder. We’re all understandably anxious about what the future holds.

Operationally, we also had some setbacks last year. We had planned to offer Kids Comics Intensive, which is typically our largest revenue-generating program, in fall 2025. But scheduling conflicts ultimately prevented us from running it. That had a major ripple effect on our finances for the year.

And then there’s me. I’m aware that I am a bottleneck in certain parts of KCU’s operations. A lot of the organization still depends heavily on my own energy, decision-making bandwidth, schedule, and ability to juggle competing priorities. When I’m overwhelmed or stretched too thin, KCU tends to feel it too.

I think this is a common challenge for mission-driven organizations that grow organically from a single founder’s ideas, relationships, and enthusiasm. But if KCU is going to become more stable and resilient long-term, I know we need stronger systems, clearer processes, and a structure that distributes responsibility (and financial support) more sustainably across the team.

I haven’t solved that problem yet. But I am thinking about it a lot, and I hope the changes we’re making in 2026 will move us in a healthier direction.

Priorities for 2026 

We have three main goals for this year:

First, that we stay focused on our 3 core programs and make them as transformative for students as possible: 

• the KCU Pitchfest competition
• the How to Launch Your Graphic Novel course
• our brand-new KCU Graphic Novel Bootcamp course

Second, that we make the most of the best type of marketing: word of mouth! With everything we do, try to foster a community and create educational experiences that people talk about.

Third, that we actually hit our financial goals! Primarily that we make enough money to pay myself and our team at the level we’re aiming for this year. As you saw in the Financial Overview above, we didn’t make enough money last year to pay our team (or me) more than a very, very low part-time wage.

I’ll tell you a little bit about our core programs, and then I’ll explain how we’re hoping to achieve our marketing and financial goals.

KCU Pitchfest is a high-profile showcase of graphic novel mini-pitches, featuring a curated online gallery of winning submissions handpicked by a jury of agents and editors. We reveal the winners in late spring at a live Showcase Event with panel discussions, and offer submitters the opportunity to book a one-on-one pitch session with an agent or editor who’s already reviewed their work. After the main event, we promote the Pitchfest Gallery to hundreds of agents, editors, and art directors across the industry.

How to Launch Your Graphic Novel is a live, cohort-based course taught over five weekends in July & August, where we’ll focus on how to build a book marketing plan. The course is aimed at more advanced creators who have a book launching within the next 1-2 years, and covers how to:

• Build an audience without relying on social media alone
• Reach book-buying decision-makers like teachers, librarians, and parents
• Grow your newsletter list and know what to say
• Get online reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations
• Make the most of your personal strengths, schedule, and budget

By the end of the course, you’ll be well on your way to getting your book out into the world.

KCU Graphic Novel Bootcamp is a cohort-based, graphic novel fundamentals course that will run from mid-September until mid-December. We’re designing it as a hands-on, start-to-finish experience designed to help you create a complete, polished comic you can be proud of. Over 13 weeks, you’ll move from idea to execution with guidance at every stage:

• developing your story
• strengthening your characters
• understanding and practicing the core principles of sequential art
• translating your ideas into completed visual narrative

The course includes hands-on lessons, structure, and accountability to keep you moving forward, plus direct feedback from working professionals who understand both the craft and the realities of publishing.

One aspect of this course that we’re most excited about is the outcome: by the end of the course, you’ll have have the opportunity for your 4-6 page comic to be published in a professionally produced, printed anthology! You’ll walk away with a tangible, real-world piece you can share with readers, collaborators, and industry pros. 

Our Marketing Plan

For right now, we are keeping our focus on a few core channels, and adding one new one. 

Email. Our primary marketing channel is email. We send a weekly email newsletter to about 2000 recipients. I’m a HUGE fan of email marketing because it allows you to communicate directly with the people who want to hear from you, rather than being mediated by a social media algorithm. In a world that’s increasingly fragmented (and filled with AI slop), simply being human is a good way to stand out.

Social media. Our fearless social media manager is Bailey Culver. She handles our Instagram and Bluesky accounts, along with writing blogs, creating zines, hand-painting our mascots, and all kinds of other creative stuff!

YouTube. We post workshop replays and interviews on our YouTube channel. I love YouTube because it’s such a great way to show your personality and communicate in the most direct possible way with your audience. But we don’t currently have the bandwidth to develop a dedicated YouTube strategy. Therefore, for right now, we’re treating YouTube as a nice bonus when we have video content to upload, but not as a central component of our marketing strategy.

Events. The new marketing channel that we’re excited about this year is LIVE EVENTS! We just wrapped up tabling at MoCCA Fest in NYC for the first time, where we gained 100 new newsletter subscribers and had countless wonderful conversations with creators, industry pros, and graphic novel-loving families!

I also had a table at the Bologna Book Fair in April, representing both my agency (Janna Co.) as well as KCU. I did portfolio reviews at the Illustrators Survival Corner, moderated a panel on “The Author as Entrepreneur,” and hosted a KCU meetup.

In late June, I’ll be at the ALA Annual Convention. We initially thought about paying for a table at ALA, but decided that we don’t yet have the financial resources for it. However, I’ll be moderating a panel on “High Demand for Kid-Friendly Manga” there (with authors Misako Rocks! and Briana Lawrence, and librarian Sara Smith), and will definitely organize a KCU meetup at ALA!

And finally, we just found out that we were accepted for a table at SPX in September. We’re very excited to attend SPX and hang out with local KCU members there.

Our 2026 Financial Plan

Our goal for 2026 is straightforward: we want KCU to become financially stable enough to keep doing this work without constantly running on fumes.

Our target revenue for this year is about $132,000. That would come primarily from three core programs:

• KCU Pitchfest: about $13,000
• How to Launch Your Graphic Novel: about $27,000
• KCU Graphic Novel Bootcamp: about $92,000

As is starkly obvious here, the big bet this year is KCU Graphic Novel Bootcamp.

This makes sense for a few reasons. First, it is closely aligned with KCU’s mission: helping creators build real skills, find community, and move their work forward in a concrete way. 

Second, it has a clear, exciting outcome that will hopefully have strong appeal: students will create a short comic and have the opportunity to be included in a printed anthology. 

And third, it is the kind of program that could become a reliable annual flagship program for KCU, rather than something we have to reinvent from scratch every year.

If we hit this projection, the budget would break down roughly like this:

• 35% for the KCU team
• 15% for my own pay
• 13% for instructors and speakers
• 10% for operations
• 10% for professional services
• 12% for taxes
• 5% profit / cushion

The most important shift in this plan is that we are trying to move KCU toward a more sustainable relationship between effort and income. In 2025, we did a lot of meaningful work, but too much of it depended on volunteer energy, underpaid labor, and sheer force of will. 

Sheer force of will is powerful…. But it is not, alas, a business model.

So in 2026, we are trying to be more focused, with fewer core programs, better systems, and more effective reuse of recorded materials. And most importantly, a stronger connection between the programs that take the most work and the revenue that allows us to keep offering them.

This does not mean we are abandoning accessibility. We will continue offering discounted rates for students, financial hardship, and international parity pricing. But we also have to be honest that accessibility is only possible if the organization itself is healthy enough to keep going.

In an ideal world, KCU would be able to do all of the following:

• Pay our team as well as instructors and speakers fairly
• Keep programs accessible to creators with limited budgets
• Build a modest financial cushion
• Continue experimenting with new models for supporting kids comics creators

We are not there yet. But I’m hoping this year’s plan gives us a realistic path to achieve those goals.

Looking Toward the Future

Even amidst all the uncertainty surrounding media, technology, geopolitics, and the economy, I still feel incredibly optimistic about the future of visual storytelling for kids.

Partly because every year, I continue meeting people who care deeply about making meaningful, funny, heartfelt, beautiful work for young readers. And partly because comics are such a powerful medium. We need stories to help us navigate an uncertain world and find our way to a better future.

So in the big picture sense, KCU’s mission feels more important than ever. 

At the same time, in a more practical way, there is so much that KCU could do to help the kids comics ecosystem. Things like:

• An annual industry survey that shares useful data about pay rates, production schedules, and working conditions
• A talent directory highlighting KCU creators and industry specialists like colorists, letterers, designers, and freelance editors
• More anthologies and collaborative publishing projects
• An in-person kids comics festival that connects creators directly with families and young readers
• A “Manben”-style documentary series focused on the creative processes of great graphic novel creators
• Even a webcomics platform designed specifically for kids

We’re not currently in a position to make these things happen. Right now, our attention needs to remain laser-focused on becoming financially stable.

But at the same time, these dreams for the future matter.

They remind us that we’re not simply trying to maintain a website or run a few classes. We’re trying to help nurture an ecosystem that is healthier, more connected, more transparent, more collaborative, and more resilient. If we can do that within the microcosm of kids comics publishing, we are contributing in our own way to a much broader, better future for all of us.