CBK – Page 4 – A Spr Sbtl Fkkya

Algorhythm – first Piracy story in years

It’s been 13 years since I last published anything in the Piracy is Liberation series. I made the two collections of books 1-11 in 2013. Since then, it’s always been my intention to continue the story directly in a third volume rather than conrinue with book 12. The problem is that, as it turns out, making one 400+ page book is much more difficult than making 5 smaller books. So now I’m going back to what I used to do; publish a chapter as a self-contained story, for example in an anthology such as CBA. Fittingly, this will be my contribution to CBA vol 50, a volume dedicated to comics by members of the past and current editorial collective of CBA. Especially since the first two stories connected to Piracy is Liberation were published back in C’est Bon #1 and 2 (in 2001).

It’s a bit like coming home now when I return to this world I haven’t visited for so long. Rumor has it that every cell in my body will have been exchanged by new ones during that time. Does that mean that I’m a copy of myself? And if so, what does that mean, since the structure of my brain or whatever it is that forms my consciousness is more or less the same?

This one will be a story of Purple, set during the fight for copy rights, probably a few chapters into vol 3. It should be no problem to read it as a stand-alone comic, but if you have read the old ones, you’ll have a much greater grasp of the context surrounding the events in this one. I think that’s all I can say about it at this point. The story is called ALGORHYTHM and CBA vol 50 is planned for release by the end of this year.

If you haven’t yet read the old ones, here’s where you’ll find them. Books 001 and 002 should also still be available for download via The Pirate Bay.

CBA vol 47 release: Jan 24

January 24 (17-22) is the opening of the release exhibition for CBA vol 47: Science/Fiction at Hybriden (Mitt Möllan, Bangatan 5, Malmö).

The latest volume of CBA where I am the main editor, and one that I am extra proud of.

A while ago I was updating the list of creators who have been published in CBA over the years, and there are some truly great creators in that list. Some of which are also participating in this issue, which is probably my last as main editor of CBA, because I’m tired and need to focus on other things for the forseeable future.

So if you’re in the vicinity, drop by the exhibition opening at Hybriden and I’ll see you there for an evening of comics and drunk in celebration of the Future and the ongoing fictionalization of our reality. Check out comic samples on the walls, featuring these great artists:

Danijel Žeželj [HR/US], Radovan Popović [RS], Korin(a) Hunjak [HR], Ivana Filipović [RS/CA], Avi Heikkinen [FI], Francisco Sousa Lobo [PT], Oskar Aspman [SE], Kinga Dukaj [SE] and me…

About CBA vol 47:
Science/Fiction

Science and fiction rule our lives. The laws of physics seem set in stone while the laws of man are arbitrary mirrors of the morality of the times. Gods and spirits are creations of the mind but also the explanation when comprehension fails. What lies beyond our understanding? Is it more science or something else? What dark forces lurk outside our field of vision? What machineries of death and destruction are we yet to invent in the name of money (which used to be metal and paper but is now to a great extent nothing but speculation and expectations)? What (or who) else meet in the intersection between science fiction and real science? What came first? The egg or the hatching machine?

If you can’t make it to Hybriden, you can order the book at the Hybriden webshop.

Feel free to invite people to the Facebook event.

2019 pt2/3: collectives

First, here’s a reminder that our big winter sale is still going on at Hybriden, where you can get lots of my stuff really cheap until Jan 1.

Fanzineverkstaden is still going strong. Lots of workshops, members using it for their own self-publishing (you can do it too), lots of administration, planning, meetings, day-to-day work and an ongoing exhibition at Hybriden which will soon be updated with some new stuff.

Managed to squeeze in some time to actually use the equipment myself a few times, as you can see in my last post.

Tusen Serier is still in a low-activity period if you don’t count Fanzineverkstaden. Mostly trying to get by, gearing up for some new projects in the future. But we managed to have an exhibition at the Gothenburg City Library in November, and some other stuff. No new books, though, which I know is what we all really want. But we have a few coming up as soon as we find some money for it, and we have a few exciting international exhibitions in the winter/spring of 2020 that we just got funding for. More on that in the post about the future, coming soon.

CBK is an interesting animal. It makes me tired because I can’t give it as much attention as I think it deserves. At the same time, I’m immensely proud of, and excited about, the upcoming CBA vol 47: Science / Fiction. It’s the last volume of 2019 but will be officially released in January.

I’m the main editor, probably for the last time, and it’s a mix of some returning classic CBA creators, along with some we haven’t published before. All great art, interesting stories etc.

More on this in a separate post, coming soon, but you read more about it and pre-order it here.

I also had some comics published in vol 44 and 46 and drew part of the cover for vol 45.

And we did some exhibitions: Lore, Qtopia and Deep.

Wormgod published one book this year, but it has some great stuff in it. After the ends of the world 2 is a stand-alone follow-up to the first book of the same name. This time, Susanne Johansson made 3 stories about women who were brutally murdered. She wanted to focus on the victims, try to imagine how they ended up where they did, what they might have been thinking. Gruesome stuff, but everything can’t be shallow and well-behaved all the time. This is also a big inspiration for her music as TRAUMA COMMAND.

My stuff in the book is a bit more up-beat. One-image short stories about the different ways the world might end, told from a future perspective after it’s too late. Like I said; up-beat. Because you can read them and remember that it’s not too late yet, as long as we get our shit together. So good luck, us! yaay.

There’s a magnificent soundtrack by SYSTEMET, NIMAM SPREGLEDA, FACTORY FARMING, TRAUMA COMMAND, FEBERDRÖM, KOEFF. If any of these names ring a noisy bell, you’ll have some idea of what to expect.

I also included my time machine story: Why you (maybe) shouldn’t kill Hitler. That’s also a fun story.

You’ve seen some of mine before, so here’s one of Suss‘ pages:

You can order it here.

Speaking of Wormgod and SYSTEMET, we were interviewd in COdA #15. Check it out!

No AltCom this year. No AltCom next year. AltCom the year after that. You’ll see.

I made a map of the whole Hybriden complex, which is where most of my life has taken place creatively for as long as I can remember. Because burn-out affects your memory, haha.

But I’ve also managed to have some time to play/read/watch stuff, as you’ll see in pt3 of my 2019 story. Coming right up…

Skimming the Deep

The new issue of CBA is out! Vol 46: Deep is now available at the Hybriden webshop.

In spite of everything, I managed to make a comic for it, one that I called Skimming the deep.

Here are a few samples:

CBAvol47 – Science/fiction: call for submissions

It’s time for me to be main editor of CBA again (last time was CBA vol 36|37: In the Pits of Madness). So send us your most interesting comics and/or texts on the following theme:

CBA vol 47 – Science/Fiction

In CBA vol 47 – Science/Fiction, we explore the borderlands between science and fiction, in comics and text articles.

Main Editor: Mattias Elftorp
Deadline: November 1
—SUBMISSION GUIDELINES—
Please read and follow these guidelines:
Number of pages: We prefer comics that are about 5-30 pages, but any number is welcome.
Format: 20x26cm
Color: Color / Black and white
Language: English
File format: .TIF
Resolution: 1200 dpi line art or 300 dpi CMYK
Length (texts): A good size for a text is ca 7500 characters (including spaces), but it can also be longer or shorter.
Bleed: 5mm. Think you know how to handle bleed? Read this to make sure you know what we mean.
Within this space, there are no limits.

Delivery: We prefer download links that do NOT require us to login anywhere (wetransfer usually works fine, for example).
Request: Please don’t use Comic Sans. We don’t like it and will ask you to change to another font.
And again; Please check our guidelines for bleed.

Please send us high-resolution files from the start.
Include a short presentation text about yourself, with one URL (if you have a website or similar).
Please ask us if you are unsure about formats, resolution, bleed, etc. We prefer stupid questions to bad files. And there are no stupid questions!

Unfortunately we cannot offer you any payment for participating. If we publish your submission you will receive 10 free copies of the issue. That’s all we can offer at this time. Hopefully you will find being in CBA an enjoyable experience. Naturally, copyright for your material stays with you.

–ARTICLES AND COMICS GENERAL GUIDELINES–
What we are looking for is comics which rely on artistic ambitions and a will to experiment rather than what has been done a thousand times before. We want to expand the boundaries of what is possible to achieve in the comics medium. We are looking for the same thing in texts; articles, essays, exploratory texts, etc. Use your imagination, and have fun! : – )

Send your comics to: submissions [at] cbkcomics [dot] com

CBK: Qtopia

Right now, Hybriden is showing an exhibition of the latest volume of CBA.

The theme is Qtopia:

So many LGBTQ narratives end in tragedy as a consequence of the LGBTQ-hood of the characters. Those stories are important because LGBTQ people are still being targeted by prejudice, discrimination and violence, but in this volume of CBA we encouraged artists to do something different. To tell queer stories where the queerness isn’t a narrative catalyst for bad things, but rathera source for joy or love or just one characteristic among others.

Queer tales about situations involving LGBTQ characters. Utopian queer tales in the sense that everything might not be perfect, but at least the horrible things that happen don’t have anything to do with the characters’ sexual orientation.

My contribution to this volume is the left-hand side of the cover spread, which was a collaboration by a bunch of us in the CBK crew: Kinga Dukaj (idea + coloring), Luddvig Melin, Lisa Örtlund, Henrik Rogowski and me.

Go check out the exhibition at Hybriden, and/or buy the book at our webshop!

CRACK! 2019 + some recent stuff

I’m soon going on vacation, this weird concept that you get when you have employment, where you spend some time not working at all. Employment is rare for me, so it still feels like some kind of novelty. And it won’t be completely without work since we have a CBA release/exhibition on July19 (work being defined as when you do things with a purpose other than pleasure/relaxation, not to be confused with employment where you also get paid).

So I thought I should make some small summation of what I’ve beem doing lately. I should say ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ since most of what I do is done in the context of one or more of the collectives I’m part of within the Hybriden constellation…

—

Let’s start at the chronological end, with this year’s CRACK! festival (June 20-23) where I was with Kinga Dukaj and Luddvig Melin to represent AltCom/Hybriden/Wormgod/CBK/Tusen Serier and ourselves as artists. If you don’t know, this is one that I’ve been going to every year for the last decade or so, except last year. Which was probably good, because this time it felt better than it has for a while. Less people than usual, but I got some of that magic back, where you meet new people who do interesting stuff, old friends that you only see once or a few times a year (depending on which festivals you go to) who also do interesting stuff, you see lots of cool art, you make some yourself, you’re in this small piece of a possible future/squat paradise on earth called Forte Prenestino to share in the evolution of the comics/printed art underground. It’s a source of inspiration for AltCom and for a lot of what I do and how I do it.

Idyllic breakfast with background reminder…

Our cell:

The theme for this year was APERTO (OPEN), similar to the NO BORDERS theme of AltCom 2012, so that fit us well considering what we’re usually publishing.

On June 22 there was also a huge demonstration against evictions of squats as well as against raised rents in general. CRACK! has a natural connection to this since Forte Prenestino is a squat since 1986. I didn’t go to the demo myself because I can’t handle being out in the Italian heat for that long, but rumor says it was a manifestation of around 100 000 people.

I was asked to make a sticker or something for the demo, but I found this and couldn’t imagine doing it any better.

I also have to say, without going into details, that the crisis management from the festival organizers is very commendable. They managed to turn an incident into an assembly of around a hundred artists to discuss what had happened. In the end some people disrupted the meeting and I’m not sure where they will go from where it ended, but I fully trust them to handle it in an intelligent way that is respectful to many different aspects of the whole situation.

—

A while ago, we opened a new permanent exhibition at Hybriden, with works that have been produced at Fanzineverkstaden by its members and/or workshop participants. It was also, finally, the official release event for Fosfor, our zine distribution system.

The Lore exhibition is still up, with material related to the theme of the latest issue of CBA. The best bet if you still haven’t seen it is to go this week (Wed-Fri 11-15 + Sun 12-15). After that, Hybriden will close for the summer except for the opening of the Qtopia exhibition on July 19 (at Hybriden). As I write this, we’re actually in the final stages of finishing to files for CBA vol 45: Qtopia to send off to the printer.

—

We’ll be back in August at Fanzineverkstaden, open weekdays between 15-21, with lots of new workshops coming up during the fall, so keep an eye open for that. And do use the place, because it’s a great opportunity to print stuff and try some new ways for self-publishing, and you never know how long it’ll last (except we know we’ll be here for at least another year). We also brought home some examples from CRACK! to use for inspiration.

—

And speaking of things that are being printed as we speak… My contributions to the upcoming Wormgod book, After the ends of the world 2 by me and Susanne Johansson, have largely been produced at Fanzineverkstaden in between my regular working hours. More on that later, but here are a few of the pages from the book that I also showed as prints at CRACK!

LORE

Right now at Hybriden, CBK is showing the release exhibition for CBA vol 44: Lore.

I made a bunch of new works for it, inspired by some stories I heard as a child, and some I’ve heard later. Fairy tales and similar concepts that inspired me in one way or another.

You may recognise the symbol in the background from Berserk or Nameless or the upcoming Brightburn. I wish I could tell you its true origins, but… Also, if you haven’t seen The Witch, that’s maybe something you should think about doing?

Dhagdheer, a long-eared vampire(?) from a Somali folktale…

Yeah, I know, this last one doesn’t really fit into the whole fairytale theme, but what the hell. Dune was a great influence on me while growing up, and now when I’m rereading it I’m really enjoying it, so I think it fits anyway.

Hybriden webshop

The old CBK webshop will soon be taken down, so some links in this blog may be broken.

My books are now available at the new and improved HYBRIDEN webshop.

You’ll also find books from Wormgod, Tusen Serier, CBK and our new zine distro Fosfor.

Enjoy!

New stuff

To begin with, I tried Detroit: Become Human (PS4) last night and it feels new and exciting. So far, it’s more about storytelling than gameplay, but that’s fine and the story is interesting, and storytelling is usually my main interest in games anyway. So yeah, give it a try!

I also look forward to trying out the newly released Coolpaintr VR…

Right now, I’m at Fanzineverkstaden, making plans for when we open to the public, which will hapen soon…

The upcoming CBA vol 40|41: Worst Case Scenario is being prepared for the printer as I write this, and it’s going to be a great volume. Black/white to fit the theme, which it really does. I made a comic for it, called Why you (maybe) shouldn’t kill Hitler, a time travel story about a worst case scenario and about misconceptions about historical events.Here’s the cover by Kinga Dukaj:

Today (starting an hour ago), there’s an exhibition at Hybriden, featuring the comics students from Fridhems folkhögskola.

Next weekend (June 2), we’ll open the second part of the Best of CBK exhibition (also at Hybriden). So see you there, maybe, one of these days.

Speaking of exhibitions, right now I’m part of the exhibition Pow – Historier i kvadrat at Det gamla tryckeriet in Eskilstuna. My contribution is the artist book I made a while ago: A Subtle Fuck You 2: Antidote.

I would have liked to make something new for the next volume of CBA as well: CBA vol 42: Subversive Superhero Stories, but I doubt I’ll have the time for it, so I’ll probably just write a text I’ve been wanting to do, and if I participate with a comic, it’ll be something old but relevant.

Also planning to make a short ranting comic för the AltCom 2018: HOW TO SURVIVE A DICTATORSHIP anthology. Probably an Angry Animal story, which I haven’t done for some time now. They don’t take me a lot of time and I think it’ll fit the theme.

This is an old one, used in the exhibition MUS, MOUSE, MAUS, shown at the Holocaust Museum in Paris a bunch of years ago, and possibly in other places after that (Click for bigger version)…

In general, the political climate in Sweden is rapidly deteriorating it seems, since it’s an election year and all the big parties compete in who can be the best at copying the neonationalists to prevent them from getting too strong. With the result, obviously, that the neonationalist part gets stronger and can push their politics even further. Now they’re even talking about throwing out people who are already Swedish citizens on the grounds that they or their parents weren’t born here (most of my closest friends) or that they don’t have the “correct” Swedish values (me and most of the people I know, I assume). No one will be safe unless something turns around soon.

I’m calling them neonationalists now because it seems that they’re in the forefront of a new(ish) nationalist movement. They could also be called “neofascists” or “racist” or “islamophobic rightwing” or “kind of normal party but with lots of nazis in their not-so-distant past”. But those words seem to make people uncomfortable, so I’ll stick with “neonationalist”, at least for this blogpost..