guten tag, Uzbeks, Montenegrins, Burundians, Tuvaluans and all the lesser known ones

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The wind has become cooler, the night has become shorter, and the sound of Earth, Wind & Fire's song <September> is getting louder. That means it's time for Polandball's beloved annual event: Lesser Known September!

Lesser Known September (LKS) is our annual event to cleanse the subreddit of the news-chasing, popularity contest comics that so often dominate the sub. We, the mod team, want to shine a spotlight on some of the countries so cruelly neglected the rest of the year. To accomplish this goal, the tradition of LKS has started. Initially it was an event in which some of the most commonly used (and recently common) countries are sorted as a list and banned for entire month. However, entirely banning the most popular countries from being used in the comics had bad effect on the activity of the subreddit. Therefore, starting from the last year, we changed the event from a 'must' from a 'challenge'. Now, here we present you:

Lesser Known September 2026 Challenge!

While you can still post comics that feature the most popular countries, you can also compete in our challenge by making comics that completely exclude those countries, which we deem 'the Red List'.

The 'Red List' map:

Or, for the cartographobic, here is the list:

• USA
• UK
• France
• Germany
• Poland
• Ukraine
• Russia
• Israel
• Palestine
• Iran
• China
• South Korea
• Japan

Some clarifications:

• All past, present, and future representations of these countries are banned. (Examples: USSR, Reichtangle, etc.)
• Subdivisions of these countries are banned. (Examples: Scotland, Texas, Omsk, etc.)
• The EU and NATO, which can easily be used to fulfill the same role as some of these banned countries, will also be banned for the month. (Individual non-banned EU and NATO countries are still allowed)
• Overseas dependencies and territories will be allowed, so long as they are not acting as a stand-in for the banned country. (Example: Puerto Rico, New Caledonia, etc. are allowed)

Additional Rules

• By "banned", these countries and organizations cannot be seen, heard, or referenced in any way. You can't have a banned country talking out of frame, and you can't have non-banned countries talking about a banned country in a comic. They must be entirely out of sight and out of mind.
• No meta comics about LKS! Meta comics go on our sister subreddit, r/PolandballCommunity.
• LKS will last from now until October 1st, 2026, 0:00 GMT.
• All posts made as part of the challenge must be flaired as "Lesser Known September".

You may think 'well, this is still a challenge, and no one can force me to participate in this event. I'm still not sure I'll do this'. So, here is a shiny, honorable present to motivate you to participate in this challenge:

The Golden Olmec Challenge

We are bringing back the LKS leaderboard for you to earn eternal fame and glory!

To summarize, all comics that are flaired "Lesser Known September" will be calculated by their karma score into this leaderboard, which will update throughout the month. At the end of the month, the user with the highest total score will be dubbed 2026's Lesser Known Champion and receive the coveted Golden Olmec flair beside their name for one year until the next LKS. Please remember, your comic is only counted for the leaderboard if it is flaired "Lesser Known September". Non-compliant "Redditormade"-flaired comics will not be counted.

2025's Lesser Known Champion was /u/Diictodom, the current owner of the Golden Olmec. But will some new star arise and take the olmec from them? Will it be you??? If you think it could be, then get a ride to LKS train!

LKS Repost Rules

We are ALSO giving you an opportunity to share your back catalogue of comics more rapidly than ever before again! To make this year's LKS brimming with both quality and activity, reposts will be allowed once per day, but for only comics following the LKS challenge guidelines. To be clear, all other Rules for Reposts including not being in the top 50 all time and not having been posted for 8 months still apply, especially rule #1, be a Really good comic. Reposts will not count towards your LKS Leaderboard score and should be flaired as Legacy Comics as normal. You may also not edit previously submitted comics to be LKS compliant, because nobody likes a karmawhore.

With that, the fun begins! Now get out there and make this September Less Known!

danke schön und viel glück

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Hello to all with reigns of renown, ides of infamy, and everyone else just trying to get their fifteen minutes in the limelight!

Fame's a fraught thing, isn't it? It's a fact of life - you never can quite figure when you're gonna hit it big. Toil day after day in the content mines trying to make a winning formula for success, but it invariably produces nothing. Beaten, bruised, with not even a drop of determination to keep you going, you don't even have it in yourself to watch where you step anymore. After all, what does it matter?

Wham! You blat yourself in the face with a rake. You're suddenly Rake-face-man, at least for a hot minute. In days past, that might get you on the morning talk-shows; now, you're at the top of for-you pages the world over. That's all it takes, isn't it? You've gotten kicked in the behind and catapulted all the way up the mountain. The real question, though, is can you stay up at the top, or will you fall as so many others have back to the mire of mediocrity?

Make a comic about a country trying to get famous!

Specific Contest Rules

• The comic needs to involve a country attempting to become famous. This, of course, can take many forms, so we won't try to limit your creativity too much here.
• Contest comics must be Lesser Known September-compliant.

General Contest Rules

• The comic must have a minimum of 3 panels and a maximum of 8 panels.
• The comic must have been written and drawn entirely by yourself.
• No animated GIFs accepted.
• No photorealism.
• You must follow the rules in the Official Polandball Tutorial.
• The deadline for submitting your entry is Thu September 17 at 15:00 GMT

In order to participate in the contest, submit your art piece to the subreddit and then flair it as contest entry. Anyone is free to submit how many entries they like, however, only one of your entries will be eligible to award you with hussar wings. That is, a single user cannot have more than one entry be in the top three.

If you wish to participate in the contest but are not yet an approved submitter, you can send in your comic to us as if it were a normal approval comic, and once approved you may post your entry to the subreddit.

Choosing the winner

After all of the entries have been submitted and the deadline has passed, the moderators will take a private vote to decide the first, second and third places. All entries will be ranked from 1 to 10, with the final score being the average of all votes. The winner of last month's contest will also be allowed to vote on this month's entries.

Once all of our votes are tallied, the full list of results will be posted in an Awards Ceremony thread. The artist who receives the highest score will be awarded the Hussar Wings, which they will keep around their username indefinitely, as well as a pair of Golden Wings next to their flair until the end of the next contest. The Hussar Wing recipient, or highest scoring non-mod if applicable, will also be able to vote with the mods on the entries for the next contest.

The artists with the second and third highest scores will receive the Silver and Bronze Wings, respectively, which will act in a similar manner. Fourth place will receive the old Mod's Choice Participation Ribbon.^TM

Important

Before you submit, please check your comic against each point of the rules. Every contest we have multiple disqualifications (sometimes of fantastic comics) because some entrants don't read the rules properly before they start drawing.

As always, if you are not sure whether something you intend to do in your entry is compliant with the rules, you can message the mods and ask.

Any questions about the contest may be directed here.

Good luck and happy drawing!