CBA vol 72: WEIRD FOREST is out soon! This is the latest issue I’ve done work on as main editor, and it’s a good one if I may say so. And who’s going to stop me?
So we didn’t make an open call for this issue, because we had some material from earlier that hadn’t fit into previous issues. So WEIRD FOREST is actually a theme constructed to work for those comics. And then I headhunted a couple more artists I liked that I thought would fit for the issue.
And I made a comic myself, because a story came to me and I had these photos of the woods just next to Angered from an earlier project, and I thought it all fit together.
Here’s a small sample:
It’s set up as a dialogue between three persons (does that make it a trialogue?) but you don’t see any of them, you just hear them talking. So it’s the opposite of the talking head-comic I’ve made for CBA vol 73 (more about that later because I don’t even know if it’ll be accepted). Maybe influenced by me currently writing a (non-comics) book (more on that later as well)?
I also wrote a text, which deals with the Dark Forest theory of why aliens haven’t contacted us (as far as we know), as presented by Cixin Liu in his 3 Body book series, and why I think he may be wrong.
And I made the cover, which is a photoI took in the woods just next to the school where I studied art, outside Skellefteå in the winter of 1998 (possibly 1997). I developed it myself in the school’s phot lab and I’ve always liked it but never used it for anything until now. It’s of course modified and mixed with some ink splotches and a scanned circuitboard (also found around that time, in a dump in Skellefteå, but this one I’ve used for a lot of things since then).
Here’s a scan of the original photo:
The official release date is March 3, when it’ll be available at hybriden.se and the usual retailers and online bookstores. If you order it now from Hybriden, you will get the book around the release date.
CBA vol 72: WEIRD FOREST
116 color pages
ISBN: 978-91-87825-45-3
You have entered into the weird forest. You are one of its creatures now. Welcome. You will never leave. The only path laid out before you, your only choice, is to go deeper, deeper, until you are completely and utterly lost. Not until then can you find who you are and where you’re going.
If you’re lucky.
Comics by: Tomasz Kontny [PL] & Tomxyz [PL], Mattias Elftorp [SE], Michael Elton Crye [US], Athanasía Aarniosuo [FI], Knut Larsson [SE], Susanne Johansson [SE], Svalan Sörblom [SE], Xico Santos [PT/SE]. Text & illustration by: Mattias Elftorp [SE]. Cover & main editors: Mattias Elftorp [SE].
Go to the CBK website to see sample images from all the comics at the .