SLICE Local Best In Show Award
Presented by WashU’s MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program
About:
The St. Louis Independent Comics Expo is excited to award one local artist a $500 prize thanks to matching support from WashU’s MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program. The SLICE Local Best in Show Award, presented by WashU’s MFA-IVC program, provides independent artists in the St. Louis area with funding to support their creative pursuits. While providing free programming for budding artists is our goal, being able to financially support an artist aligns with our mission to make the arts accessible. Our goal is to uplift, celebrate, and platform a local emerging artist.
Judging Process:
The SLICE board nominated a shortlist of ten SLICE exhibitors from the Greater St. Louis and Metro East regions, and selected nine judges—seven local tastemakers and two special guests—to review the shortlist and select a grand prize winner and two runner-ups on the basis of quality, uniqueness, and resonance. The grand prize winner receives a prize of $500, first runner up receives $300, and the second runner up receives $200. Work being considered during the judging process was completed in 2024 and 2025. The winners of the Local Best in Show Award will be announced at SLICE’s Opening Night Ceremony on Friday, October 17, 2025 at the Sheldon Concert Hall and Galleries.
MFA IVC:
Chaired by New York Times bestselling author and illustrator John Hendrix, the MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program at WashU’s Sam Fox School combines studio practice in illustration and writing with the study of visual and material culture. With a focus on illustrator authorship, this two-year, fully residential program is made for illustrators, comic artists, and designers who are interested in popular visual matters of the modern and contemporary periods. We draw on the vast resources of WashU, including the Dowd Illustration Research Archive.
2025 Shortlist
Apotheosis Arts Magazine
The Lindbergh Arts Magazine, Apotheosis, is a student-run publication that has been giving Lindbergh High School students a voice since the 1990s. Published twice a year, the magazine features writing and visual art that showcase the diverse perspectives, styles, and creativity of our student community. For more than three decades, Apotheosis has provided a space for students to share their stories, explore new ideas, and celebrate the arts together.
Cleonique Hilsaca
Cleonique Hilsaca is an artist from Honduras based in St. Louis, MO. Her creative process is inspired by folklore and nostalgia, fueled by research and idea exploration to bring whimsical stories to life. Her professional work can be found in picture books, newspapers, magazines, board games, and galleries. Clients include Penguin Random House, MTA Arts & Design, Sesame Workshop, and Renegade Game Studios. Cleonique’s work has been honored by Spectrum: Fantastic Art, The Society of Illustrators of NY and LA, 3X3, and La Bienal de Ilustración de México.
Dee Cea
Dee Cea is a St. Louis based illustrator and comic artist in love with terracotta red. They explore monstrous emotion in their comic work with a focus on queer becoming and otherness. Dee is currently conducting research for a long-form graphic novel detailing an isolated community in the Andes during Pinochet-era Chile.
Manimanjari Sengupta
Manimanjari Sengupta is an illustrator and comics artist, originally from Kolkata, India.
They make non-fiction work, taking the form of zines, comics and graphic narratives. In
her practice she explores questions of female desire and sexuality, identity and body
image, and women’s participation in public space. They draw from their own lived
experience, to tell stories that challenge the narrative of shame and fear surrounding
femme bodies. They graduated with an MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture
from Washington University in St Louis, in 2025.
Melon Press
Melon Press is a Risograph press and publisher based in Saint Louis, MO founded in 2020 by Sophia Malone (Sofa Melon) and Dan Madrigal. Melon Press is best known for community inclusive magazines such as Froot Punch, a yearly publication featuring queer identifying Midwest artists, as well as a variety of comics and zines made by MP’s in-house printer and lead designer, Sophia Malone. We offer on demand Risograph printing for artists, authors and small businesses around the Midwest as well as hosting workshops for those that want to be hands on. For more information on workshops, printing services, or getting involved, please visit our website!
Phoebe Santalla
Phoebe Santalla is a Saint Louis based cartoonist and comic crafter who is a little too into cars for her own good. She combines queer history, personal introspection, and chaotic imagined realities to craft tales exploring genderqueer identities. An avid zine maker, she believes there’s an urgent need for community survival through publication and sharing printed ephemera.
Saba Saif Ur Rehman
Saba Saif Ur Rehman is a recent MFA/ IVC graduate from Lahore, Pakistan. Her multidisciplinary art and research practice addresses themes such as spirituality, mysticism, and the divine within transient, weaving elements of ancient wisdom into contemporary narratives to encourage connection, reflection, and tolerance. Her work is motivated by the belief that cultivating understanding of shared human experience can build bridges and help communities see their own interconnectedness. By using love as methodology, her work recontextualizes heartbreak to healing by using creative tools to not just to document culture but to actively rewrite divisive histories.
sister hag
sister hag is a Black queer reader, writer, crafter, lover, and fiber artist with her hands in the
metaphorical air and her foot on the proverbial gas. A student of Black women writers who
preceded her, she studies folklore and ancestral storytelling through fiber art. She began making
zines as a cathartic response to rampant individualism with hopes to deepen her community
and encourage others to do the same. sister hag values physical history, sisterhood, deep and
vast emotion, intentional rest, and the oxford comma.
Past Winners
2024 – Alain McAlister
Alain McAlister is a nonbinary artist and illustrator from STL with a passion for graphic novels, comics, fiber arts, and community work. They graduated from Webster University with a BFA in Illustration in December 2023. They currently work as an illustrator, bookseller, and print shop assistant. When not adventuring around, Alain can be found knitting while watching a movie or drawing at a coffee shop.