Author: elftorp

En Andra Chans – now available!

Now you can order my new book, En Andra Chans (scripted by me and drawn by Shko Askari), at the CBK webshop or the usual internet bookstores in Scandinavia (Adlibris, Bokus, etc if you prefer, but it’s cheaper at CBK and all the money will go directly to Tusen Serier, which is a lot nicer)!

Not sure why I write this in English since the book is in Swedish & Arabic, but now it is the way it is and we will all just have to live with it.

Here’s a page from the book:

More info + samples at the Tusen Serier site!

Coming soon: En Andra Chans!

My first book in Arabic (& Swedish) is officially released by Tusen Serier next week, April 12!

I wrote the story a few years ago, and it’s finally finished and printed and ready for reading.

The whole thing started when one of the artists associated with Tusen Serier, Yousif Akar, asked if I’d want to write a script for him to draw. I thought it sounded fun, but all I knew was that it was supposed to be in Swedish and Arabic, and I just had no idea what it was going to be about. Until one day, on the train between Stockholm/Malmö(?), when I realised that I’d have to deal with the fact that you read the two languages from different directions.

From that point, the story more or less wrote itself. It turned into two stories, told in each direction, revolving around the same situation but with different main characters, that meet in the middle.

Then Yousif dropped out of the project because of reasons, and through the help of magician (etc) Stefan Eriksson, I got in contact with Shko Askari, who became the new artist of the book, which turned out really nicely. And here it is, now.

An Iraqi doctor is on his way to work in Baghdad when a car bomb is detonated just outside the hospital. He starts treating the victims, but there are some people who think that certain victims are less deserving than others.
/
A Swedish student gets an email from a long lost migrated relative in the US. He wants to come visit her in Malmö.

Those are the starts of the two stories. I don’t want to risk spoiling anything by telling you more than that.

Anyway, you can order the book through the CBK webshop.

Crowdfunding! CBA vol 36

The other day i finished lettering the comic I don’t want to dream by Spyros Verykios. We normally don’t do that but he needed help and I liked the story so much that it was worth it.

It’s a beautifully painted and quite disturbing comic of 43 pages that will be included in the upcoming CBA vol 36. A while ago we changed the structure for how we work with the editorial stuff in CBK. Instead of having big meetings that decide the contents of each issue (well, we still have those big meetings to discuss the comics), we have one person that is the main editor. This is because the new crew that took over CBK 2 years ago is a bit more diverse that earlier ones when it comes to taste. Which is a good thing in general, but it also meant that for each new volume, no one was completely happy with the contents. Having a rotating main editorship made a change in that; now everyone can at least be completely happy with one issue once in a while, and it’s ok to not be 100% satisfied the rest of the time. To be clear: I’m not saying that I don’t normally like the comics in CBA, but you always have your favorites. There’s a Swedish proverb to explain this. Taste is like the ass: divided.

So CBA vol 36 is my volume. I got to use my absolute favorites of the material that has come in from the last calls for submissions (Spyros Verykios, Akab & Elena Guidolin), and also headhunted some other stuff (Serena Schinaia & the cover by Radovan Popović), and I’m really happy with it.

The problem is that CBK is currently out of money. Tusen Serier is letting us wait a bit with paying our part of the rent for Hybriden, but it’s not a good situation since our funding from the Swedish Arts Council was cut off. So we decided to try crowdfunding via Indiegogo.

HERE’S THE CAMPAIGN PAGE. Please help us by donating some money and/or share the link and spread the word (if you prefer, it’s also possible to donate directly to us via PayPal: info [at] cbkcomics [.] com). It would really mean a lot to us (and to me, since this volume is a personal matter) and you’ll also get some perks as thank you. The really big spenders will get our entire back catalogue of what we still have in print, which is a massive pile.

Also check out this really cool promo video with art from the book, made by Víctor Expolio, with music by Feberdröm.

Let’s plunge together into the pits of madness. Let’s watch the dissolution of reality, let’s dance with clear heads and see where it takes us. Let’s travel the river hiding in the desert sands until the wind rises and we reach the final collapse. Let’s look deep into the eye of the tiger. And see afterwards if we dare to dream.

Noise against fascism

Sound Disturbance is coming up this weekend (Feb 10-12). I will represent Wormgod in a collaboration with Noise Against Fascism in a harsh noise/visual performance on Saturday. There’s a bunch of gigs/sound art performances that start 1930. We are part of that schedule but I don’t know what exact time it’ll be, so you should come for the whole thing.

noiseagainstfascism_postr

The Wormgod exhibition After the ends of the world (from AltCom 2014 + the book of the same name) will also be shown at the event, including the soundtrack (in some form or another) by Dekoder, Nimam Spregleda, Feberdröm, Knullkraft and Concrete Threat.

wormgod067herfierybreath

…

I think I’m just drawing now because I should really work on some applications and/or a few different books and/or a crowdfunding campaign and/or an information folder and all of it is unpaid work but it needs to be done and no one else is doing it (because they can’t or won’t or just don’t) and I just need to smell the pens and I want to have lunch (yeah I know it’s 7 in what I think some of you call “morning” but I’ve only been up for 12 hours and isn’t that when you’re supposed to have lunch and watch a movie?) and continue watching Kurosawa movies or play Limbo or Inside on the PS4 but I still have too much to do and I guess this blog post may be some kind of cry for help or just a moment’s distraction.

And it’s still too early to turn up the volume because the neighbors may still be asleep and I know it’s not nice to wake them.

And I actually feel quite ok and not too stressed-out if it wasn’t for my nagging suspicion that I will have to get out of bed around noon tomorrow and that’s around the time when I usually fall asleep these days.

stressrelease_pensmelling

Edit: It turns out I won’t have to be anywhere until 17 on Thursday, so I can relax a bit after all. Yaay.