BURNOUT

Right now, you can go see the BURNOUT exhibition at Hybriden.
It’s the release exhibition for the latest issue of CBA, which you can order here.

I’m the main editor of this issue, and I think there’s some great stuff in there.

Burnout has become an increasingly normal part of everyday life for many of us since the term was getting widespread use in the late 1900s. From hospital staff to comic creators to basically any job in the gig economy. Anyone who doesn’t have a steady income, or who is expected to do more work in less time than is reasonable, can feel it. So who or what is to blame? Could we create a situation, a systemic change, to avoid the conditions that cause burnout?

Of course, I’ve been working on my own burnout for about 20 years. I haven’t quite broken down yet, but who knows how long that can last? So when it was my turn to helm a new issue of CBA, I thought this theme must be one with a high recognition factor, not least among comics creators. We didn’t mean for the deadline to be extra short, but when it turned out that way it was tragically fitting.
In the end, I’m quite happy with the result.

Comics by: Steve Nyberg [SE], Mattias Elftorp [SE], Henna Räsänen [FI], Iso Sling Lindh [SE], Tom Mortimer [UK], Radovan Popović [RS], Aleksandar Opačić [RS], Manuel Rodriguez Navarro [DE], Felipe Kolb Bernardes [BR/DE], Korina Hunjak [HR], Julia Nascimento [BR], Aiden Kvarnström [SE]. Texts: Kinga Dukaj [SE], anonymous [SE], Lisa Weibull [SE]. Illustrations: Rasmus Gran [SE]. Cover & main editor: Mattias Elftorp [SE].

My own contribution, apart from the cover and editing, is a comic called BurnOut Boy. An attempt at comedy/semi-autobiography. Here’s a page:

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