Script2Comic Contest Gives ‘Heard’ Top Honor

The Script2Comic Contest has found its winners for 2021. The contest, which gives screenwriters the opportunity to turn their work into a comic book or graphic novel and also helps their scripts become optioned for film or TV, has given Heard the top honor.

Heard took the grand prize, and a screen adaptation is now in development from Mosaic Media, the management and production company that has worked on The Stand, Bad Teacher and Talladega Nights. Heard is from writer Alex George Pickering and is described as a love letter to his son.

“It is a story about a child with non-verbal autism and a struggling father learning how to truly hear his son — how the bonds of love can withstand even the most torrential of storms,” Pickering said in a statement. “Drawing from my real-life experience with my amazing son Ethan, Heard is a story of survival, a family caught in a crisis situation that pushes their relationship like never before and challenges them to grow.”

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First-prize winner Kronos, by Alain Soussokho, will be picked up by Motor Content. Second-prize winner Joyless, from sibling writing duo Ryan and Jocelyn Manns, will be published by Scout Comics. Third-prize winner Kingdom of God, from writer Travis J. Opgenorth, and special jury prize winners Deadfellows by Kody Hamilton and Little Criminals by Caitlin Amans, will be picked up by Thunder Comics and be published as part of a Scout Comics anthology.

Find the full list of winners below.

Grand prize – Heard by Alex George PickeringA young boy with non-verbal autism must use his savant skills to escape his kidnappers and journey across a deadly wilderness—all while his desperate father searches for him and discovers what it truly means to hear his son.

1st prize – Kronos by Alain Soussokho
Five strangers awaken with no memory on a large space station orbiting Earth. As they explore the massive facility in search of their identities, they discover that the station can throw them into increasingly dangerous situations involving the present, the past and the future.  

2nd prize – Joyless by Ryan & Jocelyn Manns 
The galaxy’s most dangerous criminal is pursued across the stars by a bounty hunter she’s hopelessly in love with. Both were victims of a new kind of crime: the theft of memories. He thinks she’s wronged him and is out for revenge, but Jane’s searching for the truth about their relationship, and her own mysterious past.

3rd prize – Kingdom of God by Travis J. Opgenorth
Before Jesus of Nazareth became the Messiah, other zealots waged war against their Roman occupiers and Jewish countrymen. In the midst of this bloody holy war, Christianity came into being… Kingdom of God is its origin story.

Special jury prize (tie)
Deadfellows by Kody Hamilton
After a harsh breakup, a depressed man moves into his new apartment with express intent to kill himself, until a group of ghosts haunting the residence stop him because they can’t spare the space of having another spectral roommate.

Little Criminals by Caitlin Amans
When three jailbirds are given a second chance at life by testing a cure for cancer they regress into 12 year olds with their adult minds intact.