So, 2025. What a fucking year.
This is my creative summation of the year, I just have some things to get off my chest first…
Even after more and more people, and countries, and international courts confirm what most of us already knew, that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, because they’re no longer satisfied by taking one piece of land at a time through their settler colonialism, now they want it all, and their racism towards and dehumanization of Palestinians have gone far enough that they don’t even pretend to care anymore. Anyone who is against it is an antisemite, so that word has lost all relevance. If being anti genocide is antisemitic, then you’re saying that committing genocide is part of Jewish culture, which makes it either bullshit or an actual justification for being antisemitic. But it’s Israel who says this, and a lot of Jews don’t agree, so it has to be counted as bullshit or Israel is right. And Israel is committing genocide, so why should we pretend they’re right about anything? They’ve even drained the word “ceasefire” of meaning, because since the latest (still officially ongoing, I think?) ceasefire began, they haven’t ceased fire for even a moment. Their business as usual is apartheid and bombs and weaponized starvation and murdering children and we just can’t let them get away with that. Or with defining it as a part of Jewish culture that is beyond reproach.
Then there’s the US, where ICE death squads are roaming the streets, vanishing people to merch-selling concentration camps. They’re dismantling democracy, pretending that the president can do whatever he wants, and the (also nationalist right-wing but sometimes a little bit liberal right-wing) “opposition” is proving them right by letting them do it. Their democracy wasn’t much to be proud of even before Trump took over, but now it’s completely over.
And the Swedish right-wing, fascist-collaborating government seems to want nothing more than to copy the US in both rhetoric and practical politics. While our (liberal) socialdemocratic “opposition” also wants to attract racist voters and be hard on both crime and immigration (even pretending they’re the same thing).
And here I am trying to write dystopian sci fi and I just don’t have the imagination to make it worse than reality. So I guess I’m just making sci fi, with a utopian twist because there’s a pretty strong anarchist resistance movement in my Piracy is Liberation books.
And I know there are things I didn’t mention here that are also bad (Sudan, Ukraine, growing fascism/homophobia/racism and the fact that we decided to skip the climate goals and started doing AI instead etc)…
I’m [not] sorry for that rant. This is the end of the year post and I’m supposed to summarize what I’ve been up to. It’s supposed to be creative and fun and help me remember that I’m not as worthless as my level of income, my monthly lack of salary, would suggest. And also to just remember what I’ve done because I tend to forget. So here we go!
COMICS:
I got him! –CBA vol 69 (CBK)
My lesbian/feminist erotica/time travel/assassination story…
Spärrarna -Vi har gjort ett zine om köpcentret Entré (zine, Siri Nuottaniemi)
Shopping dystopia…
Angry Animal about a genocide and a ceasefire zine (Tusen Serier)
Zine collection of 4 stories commenting on the Israel/Palestine situation. Also in Swedish…
Angry Animal about a Cease-fire –Cartoonists for Palestine + Proletären #20/2025
Angry Animal about a Genocide –Cartoonists for Palestine + Proletären #24/2024
Let’s go to the stars –CBA vol 68 (CBK)
A series of full-page illustrations, including the cover, that sort of form a story…
Solen -Galago #166 (Ordfront)
This old story (CBA vol 17, A Subtle Fuck You) became my debut in Galago. Does this finally make me a Swedish comics creator?
Sannolikhetsdrift: en rymdoperett (CBK & Ruokangas Guitars)
Originally from CBA vol 64, but with a few pages redrawn, available in Swedish & English version…
ILLUSTRATIONS:
Kulturkanonen 2026 (CBK)
One of three illustrations for a calendar made as protest against the official Swedish culture canon…
Asylkalendern 2026 (Asylgruppen Malmö)
CBA vol 68 cover
CBA vol 68 illustrations
Brand #1.2025
This is one of four 2-color remakes of old painting I made with Susanne Johansson
TEXTS:
11 Stories About the Ends of the World (CBA vol 68)
Sexy Women with Big Guns: Feminist Evolution of Female Characters in the Sausage Party of Superhero Comics (CBA vol 69)
EDITORIAL WORK:
I was main editor of CBA vol 68 (see above) and co-editor of:
CBA vol 69
Cover by Kinga Dukaj
Kulturkanonen
Cover by Oskar Aspman
A Perfect Place to Call Home by Julia Nascimento
EXHIBITIONS:
69 Rum för Serier, Malmö 2025 (Oct/Nov)
Vi har gjort ett Zine om Köpcentret entré (release exhibition) Rum för Serier, Malmö 2025 (Oct)
Release för Portal #8 & #9 Rum för Serier, Malmö 2025 (Jan)
For 2026, my plans include:
Finishing a novelization of Piracy is Liberation that I’ve been working on for about a year but with long breaks inbetween, because I believe in the story but I have a feeling that a lot of people have a problem with my art style. I’ve also been reading a lot more books lately (the kind where all the pictures are in your head) and it seemed interesting so I wanted to try it out.
Starting book 014 in the comic version of Piracy is Liberation, because I still love making comics and I can’t help myself. At least if I get the grant I’ve applied for to do it, because then I can afford printing it. It’ll tie up the story I started in books 012 and 013 and I’m looking forward to it. Would it be wrong to change the format to a bigger size med-series? I know some of my readers’s eyes aren’t what they used to be, and I’m starting to get that myself as well. The current format is a bit small…
We’re starting a new anthology magazine with Tusen Serier, called ParaVox. The first round of calls for submissions is out now and we’re planning to release the first issue in a few months.
Fanzineverkstaden will keep existing as a space for selfpublishing comic creators and artists in Malmö.
And we have a couple of exhibitions coming up this year: group exhibitions from both CBK and Tusen Serier, but more on those later…
And CBA is going strong, with a couple of editorial additions (Marie Tillman and Aiden Kvarnström). I’m editing the first issue of the year (CBA vol 72: Weird Forest) and we have a call for submissions for Aiden’s first issue (CBA vol 73: Bugs).
Not sure what else, but maybe those things are enough, for now?
I haven’t managed to do the Things I’ve read/watched/played lists, with short reviews/thoughts etc, for the past few years and I don’t think I will be able to do that properly this year either, so I’ll simply give you a couple of lists of uncommented recommendations. If you like some of them, chances are you’d like whatever you haven’t tried, so check them out? And if you want more than this you can always go back and check the ones I’ve done before, because art is actually timeless and those lists are mostly still valid. So here you go, some of the things I’ve enjoyed for escapism since 2022 when I did this last time:
COMICS
War on Gaza (Joe Sacco)
World War 3 Illustrated: The Right to Live in Peace
Palestinaboken
Cartoonists for Palestine
Berlin (Jason Lutes)
Friday (Ed Brubaker & Marcos Martín)
Reckless (Ed Brubaker & Sean Phiilips)
Houses of the Unholy (Ed Brubaker & Sean Phiilips)
Icon & Rocket (Reginald Hudlin & Doug Braithwaite, Andrew Currie)
Blood Syndicate (Geoffrey Thorne & ChrisCross, Juan Castro)
X-men & related titles: Krakoa era (long story)
Deer Chief (Danijel Žeželj)
Time Before Time (Declan Shalvey & Rory McConville, Joe Palmer etc)
Partiets Själ (Max Gustafsson & Lars Krantz)
Den Svarta Jorden (Lars Krantz)
Hundra År i Samma Klass (Mats Källblad)
Polly (Mats Källblad)
Scarlet (Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev)
Night Eaters (Marjorie Liu)
Monstress (Marjorie Liu)
Stages of Rot (Linnea Sterte)
World Heist (Linnea Sterte)
Vit Volvo (Erik Svetoft)
BTTM FDRS (Ezra Clayton Daniels & Ben Passmore)
Upgrade Soul (Ezra Clayton Daniels)
BOOKS
Patternmaster serier (including Survivor) (Octavia E Butler)
Kindred (Octavia E Butler)
Unexpected Stories (Octavia E Butler)
Lilith’s Brood series (Octavia E Butler)
De Ska Drunkna I Sina Mödrars Tårar (Johannes Anyuru)
Ixelles (Johannes Anyuru)
Jag och Min Son (Sara Lidman)
Jag Ringer Mina Bröder (Jonas Hassen Khemiri)
Göra Rätt (Simon Felix Adler)
Deltagänget (Salka Sandén)
Brev från en Cell (Henrik Johansson)
Succubus series (Richelle Mead)
The Peripheral (William Gibson)
Stories of your life and others (Ted Chiang)
The Tangleroot Palace (Marjorie M Liu)
Book Thirteen (Jamie Delano)
Leepus: Dizzy (Jamie Delano)
Leepus: The River (Jamie Delano)
Hellstrom’s Hive (Frank Herbert)
and I’m rereading the Dune books (also Frank Herbert)
Babel-17 (Samuel R Delany)
Empire Star (Samuel R Delany)
The Word for World is Forest (Ursula K LeGuin)
Autonomous (Annalee Newitz)
Embassytown (China Miéville)
Voidwitch series (Corey J White)
A Pretty Mouth (Molly Tanzer)
Escape From Incel Island (Margaret Killjoy)
MOVIES
Perfect Days – Wim Wenders
The Shrouds – David Cronenberg
Honey Don’t! – Ethan Coen
The Battery – Jeremy Gardner
The Fifth Seal (Az Ötödik Pecsét) – Zoltán Fábri
Kinds of Kindness – Giorgos Lanthimos
A Samurai in Time (Samurai Taimu Surippā) – Jun’ichi Yasuda
Blue Ruin – Jeremy Saulnier
Green Room – Jeremy Saulnier
The Brutalist – Brady Corbet
Ned Rifle – Hal Hartley
The Empty Man – David Prior
Before We Vanish (Sanpo suru shinryakusha) – Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Clash (Eshtebak) – Mohamed Diab
Cosmos – Elliot Weaver & Zander Weaver
I’m Thinking of Ending Things – Charlie Kaufman
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – George Miller
Deadpool & Wolverine – Shawn Levy
RRR – SS Rajamouli
Cure (Kyua) – Kiyoshi Kurosawa
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – Ana Lily Amirpour
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon – Ana Lily Amirpour
The Bad Batch – Ana Lily Amirpour
Silverton Siege – Mandla Dube
Titane – Julia Ducournau
The Zone of Interest – Jonathan Glazer
Wife of a Spy – Kiyoshi Kurosawa
The Show – Mitch Jenkins
Severance – Christopher Smith
Prey – Dan Trachtenberg
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – James Gunn
Passing – Rebecca Hall
Infinity Pool – Brandon Cronenberg
The Menu – Mark Mylod
Nope – Jordan Peele
Crimes of the Future – David Cronenberg
1945 – Ferenc Török
The Princess – Le-Van Kiet
Det vita folket – Lisa Aschan
TV & SIMILAR
Critical Role currently campaign 4 (best starting points: campaign 2 or 4)
Legend of Vox Machina (animated version of CR campaign 1)
The Mighty Nein (animated version of CR campaign 2)
I’ve of course seen a lot more, but right now nothing specific comes to mind so I’m afraid I’ll have to suggest you do your own research here… Although, now that i think about it, I should also mention these two animated high points:
Scavengers Reign
Common Side Effects
GAMES
Black Myth: Wukong
Humanity
Sword of the Sea
Cocoon
Flintlock
And now I’m playing Alan Wake II…
Guess that’s it for this year, then. See you next time!