Piracy013 release tour 2024

My new book just came from the printer the other day, and I’ve just confirmed that there will be a release exhibition! So the 2024 release tour will be as follows:

Jönköping, April 26: The Old World Is Dying
Stockholm, May 25-26: SIS
Malmö, June 7: Release exhibition @ Rum för Serier

The Old World Is Dying (Insikten, Kulturhuset, Jönköping)
This is a noise event where I will have a Wormgod table along side Dice Dominion, Vertigo förlag.
Performing acts:
IDIOT CHILD (MALMÖ)
Violent sludgy noise rock from the dirty south.
TRAUMA COMMAND (MALMÖ)
Radical Feminist Power Electronics with a straight razor from Crime City.
FACTORY FARMING (GÖTEBORG)
Red Power electronics from the foggy Volvograd.
Both TRAUMA COMMAND and FACTORY FARMING are familiar faces from earlier events (and soundtracks) from Wormgod, and TRAUMA COMMAND is of course the other half of Wormgod and the cover artist for most of the Piracy books, including the new one.
If there’s space, I may bring a couple of books from CBK and Tusen Serier as well…
Check the facebook event for times, address and more updated info.

SIS 2024 (Kulturhuset, Stockholm)
The new edition of Stockholms Internationella Seriefestival. We will be there as usual with Wormgod, CBK and Tusen Serier, this time in the company of Dice Dominion. There’s not stage appearance by me planned this time, as I did that last year, but we’ll be there with a whole lot of books, prints and dice. See you there!
Facebook event

Release exhibition (Rum för Serier, Malmö)
And finally, there will be an official release party with en exhibition in Malmö.

A mix of classic cyberpunk elements in a dystopian future with a glimmer of postapocalyptic hope and a pinch of metamagic.

I haven’t made all the plans for this yet, but I will have all three rooms so I’ll probably also put up some of my older stuff as well as pages from the new book.
Maybe I’ll talk about the book, maybe I’ll discuss it with someone? Maybe there will just be a pile of books, some prints on the wall and a bunch of wine? Who knows?
In any case, I’m sure it’ll be great!
Event and stuff will come later.


I may also be going to the CRACK! festival again this year, since I haven’t been there for a few years and I miss it, but it’s not yet decided so we’ll see if the tour will be extended to include a trip to Rome and Forte Prenestino

I recently made an Arg Kanin comic about/against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza for an exhibition by Seriefraämjandet, also at Rum för Serier. I’m trying to get it published somewhere as well, but nothing confirmed yet. I’m not even sure exactly when the exhibition will be shown, just that it’ll happen soon, but I’ll post some info on that when I know more.

And I was invited to have some art in the exhibition at Balkanska Smotra Mladih Strip Autora (The Balkans Festival of Young Comics Creators) (June 28-30), so that’s another place where I’ll be showing some Piracy works.

Some CBA short stories…

Sometimes I submit comics for CBA (the international comics anthology from CBK) or other anthologies that are actually chapters from Piracy is Liberation. Usually, I rewrite or otherwise modify them a bit to make sure they can stand on their own, without the context they were originally made for. Right now, I have two such stories, in the latest and in the upcoming issues of CBA.

CBA vol 61: SPYWARE
This one is pretty old. I made it originally for the Morning International comics competition in Japan in 2010, where it actually came in among the top 8. Which is super cool and better than I had expected. It also somehow validates my manga-esque storytelling even though my visuals don’t really fit into what is regularly seen as the manga style…

Since it was set in the world of Piracy is Liberation, I included it in book 009 and actually built the rest of that book around this story, at least in part.

Then, when Caroline Ulvros (main editor of CBA vol 61) chose the theme FINGERS AND TEETH, I realized that this story would fit. There’s a scene in the story where the main character takes a rock and bashes out her own teeth, which was in turn inspired by a scene in 12 Monkeys, where Bruce Willis’ character locks himself in a bathroom with a hammer to take care of surveillance equipment he believes have been planted in his teeth. As I recall, he looks happy and satisfied more than anything else when he comes out with the bloody smile of a successful operation.

CBA vol 62|63: UNTIL DEATH
Oskar Aspman
‘s theme for this issue was LIMINAL SPACE. I had just written a chapter for the new Piracy book where I tried to get into the mind of an AI smart-missile and follow it on its short lifespan from being fired to its final detonation. Which made perfect sense for a cyberpunk concept, but I also tried to model it after phases in a human life, from birth/youth to self-discovery, through a philosophical phase, interpersonal interactions and so on, until death.

For the version in the Piracy book, I had to make some tiny adjustments in the text as well as adding a few pages to integrate it into the story in rest of the book. I also changed the title to DEATHDRIVE SENTIENCE.

Ignoring any parallels to real life (Sweden joining NATO, Israel bombing Gaza again), there were some external inspirations behind this story as well. In Karin Boye‘s Kallocain, a Swedish sci fi novel from 1940 (same era and dystopian subgenre as George Orwell‘s 1984 and Aldous Huxley‘s Brave New World), the main character lives in one of a few megastates that seem to have divided the world amongst each other and who wage endless war against each other. It’s actually much the same setting as in 1984 and in Katsuhiro Otomo‘s short story CANNON FODDER (not included in the manga collection Memories as I first misremembered, but it’s in the anime of the same name).

That image stuck with me since reading these stories some 20-30 years ago, of a nation waging a never-ending war, routinely and perpetually firing rockets from cannons operated by peoplo who don’t really know who the enemy is, they just know that they’re at war and have a job to do. And since the current storyline, started in Piracy book 012, is about the City going to war against an unknown enemy, it was something I couldn’t help but include. Both as a reference to those great works of dystopian sci fi from the mid-1900s and to the feeling of living in a world where there’s always some war going on, performed by people who have no say in how the war is waged, or why, or when it might end.

CBA vol 61 came a couple of month ago and CBA vol 62|63 will arrive a few weeks from now, together with Piracy 013. They can all be found at Hybriden.se

Coming very soon: Piracy is Liberation 013 + CBA vol 62|63

Last week, I finally managed to send my new book, Piracy is Liberation 013: Missile Crisis to print, and it’ll arrive around April 20.

You can order it now, from Hybriden and it’ll be shipped as soon as we have it from the printer!

The City is firing sentient smart-missiles against terrorists hiding in the previously unknown desert. But who is this outer enemy?
Using metamagic, Purple learns how to fly and takes Information and Erica on an expedition to find out, but the truth comes with unexpected dangers.

At 236 pages, this is my thickest book yet (not counting the massive collections) and, if I dare say so myself, the best one so far!

I will also have it for sale at a noise event in Jönköping, April 26: The Old World Is Dying. As you can see, not only will the music be great but it will also be the first official appearance by Dice Dominion! And if you didn’t know, TRAUMA COMMAND is Susanne Johansson who made most of the Piracy covers, including the new one. FACTORY FARMING also contributed to the soundtrack for After the Ends of the World 2 (and a bunch of Wormgod events, sometimes under different names). This is not to be missed!

Coming from print at the same time is also the new CBA vol 62|63: Liminal Space, where I also have a comic. It’s actually the first chapter from Piracy 013, but a slightly different version. It’s rewritten to work as a stand-alone story, but I’ve also handled post-production of the images differently…

You can pre-order CBA vol 62|63 from Hybriden.

Cover by Oskar Aspman, who was also the main editor of this issue

Getting closer…

I just drew the first page of the last chapter of Piracy is Liberation 013: Missile Crisis.

In total, this book is going to be about 228 pages and I haven’t checked, but I think that during this book I’ve passed the 1000 page mark of Piracy is Liberation as a whole!

I just re-read what I’ve done so far, to check that I’m on the right track, and the book’s shaping up to be pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Here’s the page, sans text to avoid spoiling anything, but at least you get to see the chapter title:

Inktober Piracy…

For the first time, I actually managed to stay disciplined enough to post a new drawing each day during October. I cheated of course, posting stuff I didn’t make for that day, but who can stay interested enough in Instagram for that long unless you cheat (I know people like it and that’s ok, I just can’t make myself do the same)?

Anyway, here are some of the pics:

And one that I never used:

New stuff at Magasinet Konkret

My newspeak dictionary, which I first made for CBA vol 58 (also included in the (Anti)rasism exhibition last year) and have since translated and expanded a bit, is now up at Magasinet Konkret.

It’s an attempt to figure out the new meanings of words after some years of degradation and erosion where some words now seem to mean the opposite of what they used to and some simply don’t really mean anything anymore. At least if you are to trust how the words are used in the news and on social media…

Magasinet Konkret is publishing one word/day on their start page, with a link to the complete list. I like that this gets some attention, since CBA often goes under the radar for a lot of people.

Seriefest i Väst & Fijuk + Tank Girl

There are a few things happening this week…

Tonight, starting at 1930, I’ll be at Hypnos Theatre in Malmö (Norra Grängesbergsgatan 15). I was invited by the Swedish Comics Association to talk about the postapocalypse of Piracy is Liberation, and probably a bit about After the Ends of the World and The Troll as well, as an introduction to Film i Malmö‘s screening of the 1995 Tank Girl movie.
Facebook event (it’s free but you need to become a member of Film i Malmö, see info in the event)

And this weekend I’ll be in Gothenburg for Seriefest i Väst and Fijuk @ Longest Night. It’ll be me and Leviathan from CBK and we’ll also have books from Tusen Serier and Wormgod. Here’s the schedule:

Friday (Oct 27)
17-23 at Frilagret (Heurlins plats 1, near Järntorget): the Seriefest i Väst market. Facebook event

Saturday (Oct 28)
11-18 at Frilagret (Heurlins plats 1, near Järntorget): the Seriefest i Väst market. Facebook event
15-23 at Longest Night (Dagjämningsgatan 14, Kortedala industriområde): Fijuk market + live music: Facenag (Sthlm) and Kadonnut Manner (Rovaniemi). Facebook event

See you there!

Edit: I missed the Fijuk because I finally got Covid and had to go home. 2 weeks later I’m almost all right again, just tired…

Contradictory views

Another illustration I made for Magasinet Konkret a while ago.

The text is about how the far right in the US has two images of Sweden that serve to present us as both a role model and an example of how bad things can get. None of which are true. We’re neither the heroes who successfully ignored COVID nor overrun by queers and foreign criminals. We’re not even a Socialist paradise. Which any thinking person could figure out, but truth went out the window a long time ago in this stupid propaganda war…

We’re just as Capitalist as any other country, complete with racist migration policies and everything, even if we don’t currently shoot queers in the streets and we still have some sensible things like public health care etc, but who knows how long that’ll last…

Anyway, here’s the article, by Lisa Bjurvald (it’s in Swedish and you need to subscribe, but if you know the language, this is a subscription you should get anyway).

Seriefest 2023

This weekend (Sep 2-3) it’s Seriefest in Malmö (in Ridhuset, Folkts Park).

We’ll be there with a selection of books, along with Tusen Serier/Wormgod/Hybriden (the policy is to only sell things made by creators who is present. Luckily, Mattias Elftorp will be there and he’s been involved in lots of books)…

There will also be 2 Hybriden-related items in the program:

Tusen Serier: Jorge Varas Varilla
(Saturday 1630-1650)
Jorge Varas Varilla from Tusen Serier talks about his career as a satire illustrator and how graphic humor was used as a tool for wishing for social change in the 1960s Chile. He tells about Allende’s government, about the military coup and also about his own arrest and exile.
www.varilla.se

CBK/Wormgod: Mattias Elftorp
(Sunday 1300-1320)
Talk with Mattias Elftorp about the international comics anthology CBA and about the cyberpunk postapocalypse of his Piracy is Liberation. War mania in a future where Capitalism is the only religion.
www.elftorp.com

See you there!

Coming soon(ish)

I’m now 53 pages into the story, so still a bit left but it feels good!


EDIT (a week or so later): I’m now thinking of maybe moving some chapters around, which would basically dividing this book into two. But we’ll see.

This is the exciting part of writing things more or less on the fly, especially when each book is part of a larger story. You’re never completely sure what’s going to happen. I mean it’ll all fit together and make sense in the end, but what script I do have isn’t so strict that there’s no room for changes depending on what will, in the end, be the best reading experience (I guess you’ll be the final judge on that when you read it). Anyway, nothing set in stone yet. I had some interesting ideas yesterday, so I’ll try to fot them into the over all plotline. I’m sure it’ll be fine 🙂