Category: Inspiration/provocation

2018 is over…

As I have somehow suddenly, I mean recently, reached the age of 40, I don’t seem able to keep up the same rythm that I used to. Combine that with an increasing hopelessness concerning the state of the world, with fascism and climate suicide-because-we-can’t-let-go-of-Capitalism, I’ve been needing more free time and escapism lately. Hopefully it will give me the energy and ideas to fight back somehow. It means that since I started to get paid I’ve been going down to only working 100% (which is kind of funny and complex and I’d like to go into it at some point). It also means that I seem to be spending more time in comics and Playstation…

So let’s get the work stuff out of the way. This year, we (me & Kinga, for Tusen Serier & CBK) started Fanzineverkstaden (the Zine Workshop). After working a lot with the preparations, we opened in July. It’s the start of a collective workshop for selfpublishing comic creators and we’re offering lots of workshops in different printing techniques and other useful things for making comics. This is now my main project and will be for (at least) 2 more years.

We (Tusen Serier & CBK) also made a new AltCom festival. Because of the depressing prognoses for the election in September, we chose the theme: HOW TO SURVIVE A DICTATORSHIP.

We (Wormgod) also arranged another TRAUMA noise festival in conjunction with AltCom, together with Noise Against Fascism. I know the connection between comics and noise isn’t obvious to everyone, but the whole thing felt really great as usual.

We also had a bunch of exhibitions: Fragments and Best of CBK by CBK. 4 Chilean satire artists and Homage to Afghan Women by Tusen Serier.

Especially the Best of CBK exhibition felt good for me personally. It was a retrospective over the 18 years since we started. Various material from many of our exhibitions, with presentations and anecdotes from the good old days, and all our almost 70 publications laid out on a table. Not so much nostalgia as recognition of all the things we did over the years. Even though I had a 5 year break, CBK really has been a big part of my life.

I did manage a few things but this year has been kind of slow when it comes to publishing my own works compared to other years.

A Subtle Fuck You vol 2 (Wormgod) came out in a glorious printrun of 10 copies, with individual linocut prints on the cover. I’ll probably make a properly printed run of it after I sell out of the first 10 copies.

I made a story for CBA vol 40|41 called Why you (maybe) shouldn’t kill Hitler. It’s a timetravel story that fits into the theme of Worst case scenario. As in: what’s the worst that could happen if you go back in time and kill Hitler. I quite like it. First complete comic I drew with a Wacom Intuos.

I also made a comic titled Fragments for CBA vol 38|39, and wrote a text about the Mandela effect and why I don’t believe in it even though I do like the multiverse theory. And for CBA vol 42: Subversive Superhero Stories I wrote a text about some interesting stuff that’s been made in the superhero genre since the 1980s. I wanted to make a comic for this issue as werll, but simply didn’t have the time. It’s always about time. I’ll probably do something in the genre in the future.

And I designed the final book in Möller/Krantz‘ Creation trilogy from CBK; Creation of a Myth. I’ve liked working on those books.

The only things that came out this year from Tusen Serier was Every Girl Is A Hero, which I had nothing to do with except proofreading. And of course the AltCom anthology, where I was editor (along with the Tusen Serier and CBK crews), designer and made the comic Angry Animal on How to Avoid a Dictatorship.

So how did the election go? Badly, but not as badly as feared. We haven’t had a government for the last months because they’ve been negotiating. For some reason everyone seem to want to be in the government even though the ones in power are pretty sure to loose the next election. Best case scenario is probably a mix of center/liberal/socialdemocrat/left, which is going to be really hard because they all kind of hate each other and won’t have it easy trying to compromise. Worst case? Conservatives/christians/fascists who seem to get along just fine, the evil motherfuckers. The conservative/christian budget was voted through, with the support of the fascists and the center (in Sweden the center is the old farmers’ party), which doesn’t exactly bode well for class equality, environment or culture.
To be continued…

Sooner or later I’m going to have to do a thing on Christianity. I have pretty good insight since I was raisd a christian, but I’m increasingly convinced that God is evil, Jesus is pretty ok and the relgion itself is more into God than Jesus, ideology-wise. Not saying that all christians are evil, mind you. We’ll see when this happens and what I arrive at. Ok, I did the Deicide story in Piracy is Liberation book 009 (which is included in v02) where Jehovah is pretty much a monstrous asshole. That was fun.

—

But enough about work and politics, let’s talk about comics and games and the occasional movie and TV show! Before I begin listing stuff I should say that everything mentioned here also comes highly recommended, unless otherwise stated.

First, YouTube – the new television, but with the added pleasure of being able to click past the ads. I’ve discovered leftist youtube this year, which was a relief. I’m just going to namedrop some stuff that I recommend, then it’s up to you to check it out: Contrapoints, Some more news, Zero books, Shaun, some more that I can’t think of now…

—COMICS—

So yeah, I’ve been reading lots of comics this year. I guess it’s one of the main ways for me to escape… Oh wait. Escaping reality seems like a bad thing. I meant: to get inspiration and a will to live through these times of unrest and stupidity and global suicidism. I’m exaggerating of course. We may yet survive. Maybe. We’ll see…

The way I choose what comics to read is usually that I go by writers whose works I know, secondarily by artists I like. At the same time I’m trying to also keep an open mind to writers/artists that seem interesting.

Warren Ellis, for example, is a writer I mostly follow. And you should probably do the same. The thing I’m currently reading by him is his reboot of the WildStorm universe (called The Wild Storm). Which gives me a weird feeling of familiarity, kind of like when I started reading X-men again a few years ago. It was like revisiting family or old friends. This is similar, but weird because I was never really into the WildStorm books, other than some samples now and then. Seems it was enough for me to recognize almost all the characters included in the reboot series. Another thing that’s interesting about it is that it’s still kind of a superhero story, except it’s more like spy fiction. No tights, lots of espionage but still superpowers. More like Planetary than old-school WildCATs/Stormwatch…

Brian Wood’s The Massive is something I’ve been aware of since it came but never read until now. Highly enjoyable environmentalist/postapocalypse story.

I once sent my first Piracy is Liberation books to Ho Che Anderson, because I wanted some quotes from artists I admired to put on my books. One of the things he remarked was that the first few pages of Piracy book 001 reminded him of the first pages of a story he’d started working on, but then he took a long break from comics so I had to wait years to see his Godhead in print. Until now. Hopefully it won’t take as long until the second part comes out.

Another artist I sent my books to is Danijel Zezelj, who recently came out with the first part of Days of Hate, written by Ales Kot. Very promising near-future dystopia kind of story…

I’ve recently been re-reading Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil run from the 80s. I’d read most of it before but never all of it. And I also read for the first time her Typhoid Mary stories from the 90s (collected in Typhoid’s Kiss). With all the talk from internet idiots about the SJWfication of Marvel and all that bullshit, it was refreshing to see how much feminism she put into the Daredevil stories all that time ago.

Don’t know how much I have to say about these, but here’s a list of comics from Image that are being published now: Bitch Planet, The Wicked + The Divine, Black Hammer, Saga, Paper Girls, Lazarus, Days of Hate, Deadly Class, Death or Glory, Monstress. By wtiters such as Rick Remender, Brian K Vaughn and Marjorie Liu. Check them out.

After reading Fatale, Velvet, Kill or be Killed and some other stuff by Ed Brubaker, I decided it was time to catch up on his stuff, often in collaboration with Sean Philips: Scene of the Crime, Sleeper, Incognito and Criminal. It’s mostly crime stories, sometimes with superpowers thrown in. All very well-written and engaging.

Wonder Woman Earth One vol 2: Grant Morrison continues doing Wonder Woman right, almost exactly the way the film version did it wrong. Re-reading the first book made me angry again at how the film failed on so many points.

Berliac was a guest at this year’s Stockholm Inernational Comics festival, where I got his Sadboi, a story dealing with alienation, migration, the art world and criminality, which it mixes together into something that was much more interesting than I expected. Not that my expectations were low, it was more that I didn’t know anything about it before I read it.

Some Manga: Sunny by Taiyo Matsumoto and Uzumaki by Junji Ito. I’m alway interested in Matsumoto’s stuff, and Uzumaki is an old one that I just hadn’t got around to reading. It’s much better as comics than the movie version was…

Then there’s the comics adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness by Catherine Anyango and Yvan Alagbe’s Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures, both dealing with the relationship between Europe and Africa but in completely different ways.

Only read two books without pictures this year: Killing Gravity by Corey J White, a pretty short sci fi story, reminiscent of Firefly, for lack of better descriptions… And then there was De kommer att drunkna i sina mödrars tårar (The will drown in their mothers’ tears) by Johannes Anyuru. Swedish sci fi, a time travel story that fit very well into the Swedish political narrative leading up to the AltCom festival (and also the election).

—GAMES—

What a year it has been for the PS4!

God of War was a great reinvention of the series and an interesting development with the theme of fatherhood/regret. Amazing in its combat system and how it seemlessly goes from gameplay to cut scene to gameplay throughout the whole story.

Spider-man captures much of the feeling from the comics (which I admittedly haven’t really followed since the early 90s) and also does a great job with the web-slinging.

Detroit Become Human: another interesting game from Quantic Dreams (my favorite along with Beyond Two Souls). Three characters in a web of multiple choice-based timelines. You play as a cop, a household slave and a revolutionary, all thre of which are androids who gain self-awareness.

I’ve been catching up on Metal Gear Solid. Watched walkthoughs of 1-2, played 3, Peace walker and Ground Zeroes. Now I’m just waiting to get the time to get into The Phantom Pain. I really like this series and am excited about the upcoming Death Stranding to see what Hideo Kojima will do when he’s completely free since leaving Konami. He’s always been on the forefront of pushing the envelope of video games and Death Stranding doesn’t seem to be an exception to that.

Call of Cthulhu: not a massive game, but a nice adaptation of the old role-playing game that was one of the very best back in my table-top RPG days. Caught the Lovecraft feeling quite well and I even played through it twice…

I also enjoyed Vampyr, even if I’m probably not going to go back to it anytime soon. And Shadow of the Tomb Raider was a bit of a disappointment, though I did manage to finish it anyway.

Yup, sometimes it’s easier to play if the screen is turned over on its side…

And I’m still ranked 16 in the world at Eptatron (Android, not PS4), which is kind of cool…

Lately it’s been mostly Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, after finishing Assassin’s Creed: Origins. While I like both of them, Odyssey somehow manages to be more or less the same but also a much better game. Probably because they handle the story elements better…

Oh! I also got my hands on enough Rage cards (the Werewolf the Apocalypse collectible card game) for at least 2-3 players. It was the best of the collectible card games we played back in the days (mid-90s) and it’s still quite enjoyable.

—TV—

Not a lot of new discoveries this year. These are the ones I have something to say about.

South Park: From school shootings to the return of the Man-bear-pig, South Park stays relevant. The last few seasons have been great.

Doctor Who: Sure, the Doctor’s personality has changed a bit, from “I am the oncoming storm” and “I’m The Doctor and you’re in the biggest library in the Universe. Look me up” to a more modest approach. Which could make sense as simply an evolution of the character, I mean she is recently regenerated and (as far as I can tell) hasn’t really travelled on her own between episodes. I just hope it isn’t a change that has to do with the gender thing and that she will grow in future episodes. Both the stories and Jodie Whitaker feel very Doctor Who otherwise so I’m enjoying it…

Castlevania: Second season came out [on Netflix], and if you didn’t watch the first one, now is a good time to see both in one sitting. It feels more Warren Ellis now. Has been deservedly extended for a third season.

Speaking of Netflix… I don’t know why they seem to be cancelling all the Marvel Netflix series. I can understand it with Iron Fist, but Luke Cage and Daredevil? Hopefully it doesn’t mean the end for them, whatever happens.

And even though the Marvel Netflix series are great (except Iron Fist), Legion is still going strong as the best Marvel TV series.

Speaking of Marvel…

—FILMS—

I’m not going to talk too much about the MCU movies. They keep not disappointing me but at the same time they’re a little bit like a high-budget TV series. I look forward to the next part and I do think they’ve made something remarkable with their shared universe storytelling (Marvel succeds almost as much as DC continues to fail with their movies). But they mostly don’t manage to reach that greatness that really great films can do. The best Marvel films are probably Deadpool and Logan, though Logan could actually do with a lot more gore which I think it would have needed. And both of those are outside of the MCU.

So here are a few I enjoyed that had something special on their own:

Mayhem: Maybe not the best in the list, but it has something…

The shape of water: Nice, semi-Lovecraftian, probably the most Guillermo del Toro film of all the Guillermo del Toro films in a long time.

The girl with all the gifts: The Last Of Us – the movie, or at least the closest thing I’ve seen. But with its own sense and sensibilities.

Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri: Oscar winners don’t always impress me, but I really liked this one.

You were never really here and A quiet place: Both low-tempo genre-ish (assassnin/alien invasion) movies.

Mandy: I think I watched this in exactly the right mindset. It hit the spot.

And finally, Baywatch. I was a bit of a sceptic at first, but I was in the right mood and after the first few minutes of over-the-top life-guarding I couldn’t help myself but like it.

—

Sooo. That was 2018. Now to figure out what to do about 2019…

2017

I recently made a post about 2018 and the increasing fictionalization of the world.
Here’s the prequel, the story of some of the fiction I’ve been living in during the past year.

First, a list of things I’ve done or been part of publishing, and links to where to buy them:

En Andra Chans (Tusen Serier) by me and Shko Askari. A bilingual story, or rather a mix of several stories, intertwined and read in different directions to create a complex story in Swedish and Arabic.

CBAvol36|37: In the pits of madness (CBK) with me as main editor and stories from some great artists from Greece and Italy. This is more or less the ultimate volume of CBA for me, probably the one that’s most aligned with my personal taste so far.

I also had a few stories in Alkom’x #9 (NEIN) from Alkbazz/Le Garage L.

There may have been more that I’ve forgotten (like perhaps some book cover or noise video backdrop), but it actually has been quite a slow year creation-wise for me. Though I should also mention that I’m part of the Dubbelmoral v2.0 group exhibition from Tusen Serier that’s still going on until next week at Hybriden.

But enough about me. There’s so much else to be interested in. Feel free to take everything mentioned in this blog post as recommended reading/playing/watching, because it’s all great!

PS4:
There are games that you really fall for because they’re beautiful or engaging or just great stories or gaming experiences, like the Uncharted series or the new generation of Tomb Raider games, or RiME for that matter. As you can see from this list, I’ve ben catching up on a lot of games this year.

Mafia III

Then there are the game worlds that really drew me in. I’m not saying that these are better than the other ones I’m mentioning, but I have special feelings for them. When I start playing them there’s a certain anticipation, maybe because they are open worlds where you really feel that you are going away for a while to spend some time in another place. Like Mafia III, Horizon Zero Dawn and, to some extent, Bloodborne (which I recently started and haven’t gotten that far into).

Horizon Zero Dawn
Bloodborne

There are also the simpler experiences, more reminiscent of the old platformers from my youth but updated with stunning graphics and intriguing stories in all their simple complexities, like Inside, Little Nightmares, Limbo, Black the Fall, Unravel and the remake of my childhood classic Shadow of the Beast.

Shadow of the Beast

And there are some games that deserve a special mention: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, with its soundscape, intense fight scenes and psychological ambitions, Journey, with its non-story story of travelling through magic landscapes and The Last of Us which is another classic that I hadn’t played until now and which surprised me with its depths of emotion and suspense.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Also Bound, which was kind of simple but worked great in VR, as did Superhot.

I also played Wolfenstein: the new order in preparation for Wolfenstein II: the new colossus which I didn’t get around to yet. FPS aren’t normally my thing, but I’m making an exception for these. Speaking of games for letting off steam, Danger Zone was a nice find for some healthy demolition fun.

RiME

I could go on but I have other things to talk about…

TV:
I don’t have a TV, but still manage to follow some TV series. Here are some of the most noteworthy new discoveries and steady classics (I think I’ll just namedrop some stuff here that you’ve probably already seen or heard of, other wise check them out):
South Park | Rick & Morty | Preacher | Defenders | Punisher | The Gifted (Little-talked-about X-men spin-off that’s actually really good) | Legion (More talked-about X-men spin-off that’s even better) | Doctor Who | Twin Peaks (of course) | Orphan Black | Agents of SHIELD | Runaways | Archer | Killjoys | The Orville | Star Trek: Discovery | Black Mirror | Show Pieces (mini series written by Alan Moore some years back that I just discovered)

FILMS:
Some films that stood out from the background noise of MCU (that I do enjoy) and… Is there anything else in the background noise anymore? Not necessarily released, but watched, in 2017:
Nobi/Fires on the plain (finally managed to see Tsukamoto’s new one, 3 years after it was first released) | Why don’t you play in Hell (one of those that make me want to watch everything by Sion Sono because they are such a delight) | Arrival (but how come they didn’t try to show them pictures?) | Get Out | Dope | Locke | Colossal.
I also caught up on some of Akira Kurosawa‘s old samurai movies, but though I liked most of them, none managed to reach the heights of Masaki Kobayashi at his best (ok, I’ve only sen two of his, but still)…

COMICS:
Some of these are one-shots, but most are stories that I’m following regularly as the collections are released, a few are old ones that I didn’t read until now:
Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash (Dave McKean) | Enhistoria (Unastoria by Gipi) | Fatale | Kill or be Killed | The Fade Out | Jessica Jones | Low | The Wicked + the Divine | Monstress | Bitch Planet | Lazarus | Saga | Injection | Trees | Deadly Class | Velvet | Starve | Jupiter’s Circle & Jupiter’s Legacy | New Lone Wolf and Cub | Seven to Eternity | Trigrammaton | Mellom Planeter | Osynliga händer | Pop Gun War 2 | Conditioner | Paper Girls | Civil War II | Inhumans vs X-men | Action Comics (new 52) | Wonder Woman: Earth One | Multiversity | All-new Wolverine | Miracleman | Frostbite | Tract | and I’m just now re-reading Claremont’s Sovereign Seven from the mid-90s.

BOOKS:
I’ve read more books (you know, the kind without pictures in them) in 2017 than I’ve managed to do in 20 years…
Kallskänken by Jenny Wrangborg | Normal by Warren Ellis | The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin | Consumed by David Cronenberg | Vurt by Jeff Noon (and I really wish I could find the sequels, Pollen and Automated Alice, but it seems hard…)

So I guess that’s it. The whole long list of things, worlds and entertainment worth indulging in last year. Kind of wondering how all of that could fit into one year…

CRACK! and other recent stuff…

So I came back from CRACK! a couple days ago and tomorrow is the first day with no meeting or things I have to do, so I will set the phone to silent and stay away from any other means of contact with the outside world.

Maybe spend the day in New Bordeaux or in space or the future.

But before I go into my 24h hibernation, here are some things from recent times that you may find interesting:

New books:

En Andra Chans (Tusen Serier) was written by me and drawn by Shko Askari. It’s written in Swedish & Arabic and consists of two interconnected stories, read in different directions, that meet in the middle. About war, racism, integrity and migration.
You can order it here.

CBA vol 36|37 (CBK) was edited by me, with stories by Akab, Spyros Verykios, Elena Guidolin and Serena Schinaia, with a cover by Radovan Popovic. I’m very happy with this latest volume of the international art comics anthology. This one is all in English.
You can order it here. Here’s another pic of the cover, this one modified during CRACK!:

Speaking of CRACK!… One of the things that happened there was a gig with Noise Against Fascism, for which I made this backdrop (which turned into a kind of cape during the gig):

And while I’m writing this I’m answering Facebook comments on this text. Some people seem to be unable to think outside the boundaries of the law, even if the law is immoral, which is kind of worrying. Others seem to have problems with texts longer than a tweet, so here’s a short summary:

When I grew up, in the 1980s/90s in a small town in Sweden, anything out of the “normal” was weird and something to stay away from (reading comics/listening to techno/being gay/being born somewhere else/watching foreign movies/being female etc).
Parallel to this, it was hard for immigrants to get asylum here (and it’s worse now, no matter what right-wing propaganda you hear). And anarchism was unheard of as a viable ideology. The mainstream ruled.
It’s all connected so what we do in CBK/CBA is antiracist by providing a printed space for what isn’t seen as normal.

Of course, it’s more elaborate in the blog post, so maybe read that…

Here’s an excerpt, which I think may be the most controversial part:

Once, a bunch of years ago, I was with a large group of people outside the refugee detention centre in Malmö. We were there to stop a deportation of a man from… I don’t even remember from where. The police came to get him. We stood in the way, blocking all entrances. After a while, the cops said: “All right, now you’ve made your statement. You’ve expressed your opinion. Now stand aside and let us do our job”. That hit me on a deep level. We were there to save someone’s life, and they thought we just wanted to express out opinion and then things could go back to repressive normality. Of course we didn’t move. We stayed there all day, hungry, getting burned by the sun, until the guy managed to break a window from the outside and get out. Within minutes he was in a car being driven away from there, to a life in hiding. Maybe eight months later, he got his permit of residency, proving us right.

People here seem to think that opinions is something everyone can have, as long as they don’t interfere with reality. Conversely, they also see them as something harmless, which is why we’re supposed to be so lenient towards racism. Because it’s just an opinion, which anyone is entitled to, and it has nothing to do with real life (and, incidentally, they won’t hurt you as long as you belong to the white mainstream (but who worth considering isn’t white mainstream?)). Except it does. Anything that today is ‘just an opinion’, may tomorrow be the new mainstream, with real-life consequences.

In other news… A while ago I made this book cover for Malvarma Bufedo (SLEA) the Esperanto version of Jenny Wrangborg‘s Kallskänken. Got my copies of the book the other day (and you can (soon anyway) order it here):

Also, if you drop by Hybriden these days (it’ll probably be closed but if you’re lucky or look through the window), you can see the Berättelser från Yunnan (Tusen Serier) exhibition by Emei Burell. Or you can order the book here.

And you will also see our banner in support of the XM24 squat in Bologna:

I’ll finish this off with two pages from Transgressions (Wormgod) that I think illustrate part of the point I wanted to make in that CBK blog post (click for bigger version):

You can, of course, order it here…

Back from CRACK!

Back from CRACKLAND, putting the preparations for AltCom 2016 into high gear (is that the expression? I never learned to drive a car and my bikes usually didn’t have any gears).

Most of the posters are finished, most of the program is set, most of the tables are booked, but there is still a lot of space for additions and changes, so it’s going to be a couple of interesting weeks until it all starts…

To start the month and also to put the festival in a bigger context, here’s a little thing I wrote on the site the other day:

crackland_fulbaileys
Feberdröm & me in the Wormgod/Tusen Serier/CBK + friends cell…

So we just came back from the CRACK! festival in Rome, which is more or less the hub/parent/sibling of the European(+) scene for underground/alternative/DIY/art comics & temporary art. The festival gathers hundreds of artists and thousands of visitors under the same roof, or actually in the tunnels under the same fort.

CRACK! is the great inspiration for AltCom and many others, even if the conditions very from country to country. For example, the squatting culture in Italy and Sweden are completely different. If you try to occupy an empty building to turn it into a social centre in Sweden, you will have to deal with a massive police assault on you almost directly. No such squat in Sweden has lasted more than a few months in recent years, and even that is extremely rare. It’s more likely that you will be back on the street within hours. Whereas Forte Prenestino (the social centre where CRACK! is held) celebrates its 30th anniversary as a squat this year.

On the other hand, Malmö is a friendly city and it’s possible to cooperate with a lot of venues (like Folkets Park, Panora, Mitt Möllan and others during the previous AltComs) without having to spend all of your budget just to find a place to have the festival’s exhibitions, comics market, etc.

On the other hand, Sweden is kind of expensive compared to other countries (though Malmö is cheap for Sweden), if not as expensive as Norway or Switzerland, so it comes with some other issues that we need to handle when organizing our event. We compensate by keeping as many parts as possible of the festival free of charge, like tables, entrance fees, festival anthology…

An important aspect of AltCom is that even if the comics fair is an important part of it, since it gives small press publishers and artists the opportunity to sell their books and the public the opportunity to buy them, we focus a lot on the social aspect.

That’s why we start the festival off with a two-day exhibition opening for several exhibitions at once, gathered in the same place. It creates a meeting ground for artists from different parts of the world, to show their stuff, to talk, to drink together and make new plans for the future, as well as meet a public that get the chance to experience something new.

The CRACK! festival is truly a seed for a future that may come, a seed that may be part of creating an atmosphere based on participation, mutual respect, creativity and boundless exchange. And that’s what we also try to be with AltCom, even if we are in Sweden and don’t have a huge squatted-since 30-years fort.

This seed is already bearing fruit. Weeds are cropping up in various places taking different forms, such as:
AFA (Autoproduzioni Fichissime Anderground) Milano (ITA)
Combat Comics Livorno (ITA)
Ratatà Macerata (ITA)
Ca.Co.FEST Bari (ITA)
BORDA Fest – Produzioni Sotterranee Lucca (ITA)
PICS Pescara Intergalactic Comics Show Pescara (ITA)
F.OFF Angoulême (FRA)
Tenderete Valencia (ESP)
Gutter Fest Barcelona (ESP)
Vendetta Marseille (FRA)
PRINTNOIZE Berlin (GER)
Ohoho Festival Zagreb (CRO)
NOVO DOBA Beograd (SRB)
ŠKVER! Art Project Mali Lošinj (CRO)
Fijuk network (Balkans/International)
and of course AltCom and probably many more…

The story behind The Troll…

If you’re into comics, you may have come across a phenomenon called the 24 hour comic challenge. The rules are that you have to make a comic of 24 pages within 24 hours, from idea to finished story. It’s a great experiment, because after you’ve done it at least once, deadlines seem less intimidating and your self-esteem gets a boost.

I’ve done it a few times, with varying results. There’s a rumor that one time I didnät have time to spend 24h, so instead I made 24 pages in 24 minutes. But I don’t remember and I can’t remember seeing the result. Stress can do that to you.

seqtrollet

Anyway. They usually do it once a year at the Comics school in Malmö, where I took my second year in 2005. I think I was done writing and drawing after 18h, and I spent the rest of the time scanning and doing halftones etc. In the end I think I had one minute to spare or something. The result was The Troll.

I was quite happy with it, so in 2008 I asked Mikke Schirén who was running Komika förlag if he wanted to publish it, which he did. Shortly after it came out, Komika was closed down. So there were a some copies (I think the print run was pretty small, possibly Print on Demand) but it didn’t even make it onto Komika’s website and there was probably no distribution at all. I got a few author’s copies, but since it was a Swedish edition and I mostly do stuff in English, so it  took me a while to get rid of them.

I always liked the story, however. It was heavily inspired by the films of Shinya Tsukamoto and their soundtracks composed by Chu Ishikawa. Tsukamoto is probably best known for the Japanese cyberpunk classic Tetsuo: the Iron man, but his other movies are also really great (best are possibly Tokyo Fist, A Snake of June, Kotoko and I could go on but I won’t). They’ve calmed down in later years, but they still manage to be really intense at the same time. If you’ve seen his Bullet Ballet, you may notice that the gun from that film made an appearance in The Troll.

troll-bulletballet-gun

So when I heard that Mikke was resurrecting Komika in 2014, I asked him if he’d be interested in republishing the story, and he said yes. So I prepared the files for a bigger size and for two editions, one in Swedish and one in English. And then nothing happened. I think I was waiting for an ISBN or something, until I got tired and thought: While I wait, why don’t I make it longer?

So I added a prequel chapter and planned to make two more chapters after the original story. I had an idea for the prequel, so I started with that, but I didn’t really know what would happen after the original story (which was now chapter 2).

When I made the first 24h story, it felt right to end it with an apocalyptic scenario and a quote paraphrasing Tetsuo, but it made it harder to continue the story afterwards. Then, one night I was watching Star Trek Voyager with Kinga Dukaj. For some reason (this probably happened during a bathroom break, because I kind of remember having a shit) I started thinking about memory. Maybe something in the Star Trek episode reminded me of something from my childhood and got me thinking about how different persons can remember the same event completely differently.

Anyway, I came back and we started talking about memory, and how it works, and how maybe memories differ because they originate in parallel timelines, and we just went on from there. I realised that I should take notes. I also realised that this might be the key to what was going to happen in the two final chapters of The Troll. And it was.
So this book that started out as a regular apocalypse story, with a manga-esque family trauma for a prequel, turned into a philosophical discussion about the nature of human consciousness, largely inspired by various youtube videos about extra dimensions,the multiverse and string theory. And when I decided to introduce a 5-dimensional character and realised that I could make that character in 3D, it got really interesting. There are also some elements about corporate logic and an evil boss and war, but I won’t spoil the ending by talking more about that.

troll_5d_sketch
Yep, this is what the beginning of a script looks like…

I finished the English version first, and got a few copies (Print on Demand) just in time for the CRACK! festival and a visit to Le Garage L in Forcalquier, France. But when I wanted more copies for the festivals of the fall, circumstances prevented Mikke from giving me more than 10 more copies and no 3D glasses. So we came to an agreement, because I’ve also had a job for a while so I had saved some money, that I would publish the English version as a Wormgod book instead. And here we are now, as the books arrived today and I couldn’t be happier about how it finally turned out!

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There will be a release party/exhibition on December 12 at Tusen Serier, and because I could be happier about a lot of things, half of what I sell for at the release will go to Kontrapunkt and their work with refugees and the local Roma people who were thrown out of their camp by the Social Democrats and the City of Malmö.

Facebook event

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It's 3D!!
It’s 3D!!

Immunology

I feel I should write something about terrorism and the need for levelheadedness in the face of these things. How it’s important to not become paranoid or racist when attacks like the one in Paris happened. How yes, our Western society and it’s media and its people tend to care more about “our own” French people than the ones in Syria or Beirut or any of the other places where atrocities happen, but it’s still about a lot of people being murdered for reasons that we can’t condone or ignore. I would write that what we do about it is important. Because what we want is peace and not more meaningless bloodshed (see now, I’m trying not to sound like some Defence Leaguer so instead I come off like a hippie, and it’s all the terrorist’s fault).

Maybe somethingabout the Swedish terrorist hunt recently and about how they caught the guy who seems to have just gone on with his life like he wasn’t the Most Wanted (which is kind of suspicious), but I don’t have enough facts about it, so I can’t really say a lot. Except that I didn’t suddenly start trusting the police/authorities in general for no reason…

/Edit: Seems that they let the guy go, so I guess he was innocent. Is there still a terrorist running around the country, or was the whole thing a false alarm? Since they knew exactly who to look for, I would lean more towards a false alarm. They had his name and a pixelated photo, yet somehow they couldn’t find him (he lived at the address he had given to the Migration Boeard, with his name on the door, and his Facebook profile was open and available, so they could easily have found a better photo), and when they did get him, he was just going about his everyday business.

Compare this to when they found lots of explosives in a barn belonging to a Sweden Democrat who was obviously up to no good. In that case they didn’t raise any official nation-wide threat levels. And when a wave of fires against refugee accomodations sweep the country (around 30 so far this year), that’s also obviously nothing to take seriously… End edit/

Definitely something hopeful about how now maybe people will be more understanding towards refugees from Syria. Because this thing happened to people “we” can identify with because maybe we’ve been to Paris or at least seen it in some film. Or maybe something bitter about how it doesn’t seem that way because “we” just put up extra passport controls on the border and people seem to go on being stupid and paranoid about it.

I should also write something about the Roma that were evicted from the Sorgenfri camp in Malmö and who have been sleeping outside City Hall since it happened, even though the City has repeatedly stolen (with the help of the parking guards and police) their trailers, mattresses, blankets, clothes. And now it’s snowing. And the politicians (Social Democrats) do nothing except congratulate themselves and exacerbate their situation.

I probably have something to say about the term racism and how it’s lost all meaning to people who say racist things. To them, it’s just an insult, not a word that means anything. I could also reflect on how cartoon characters used to seem overtly simplified when they talked about themselves as “evil”. I would have said that no one would see themselves as evil. But now I hear that in some mainstream(?) circles in Denmark, for example, they talk about “good” people as some kind of bleeding-heart wimps and/or dangerous enemies of society (because they try to avoid being or acting like racists/fascists). Which I guess means that they consider themselves evil?

Basically, I would talk about how a lot of things are turning more and more to shit.

However, I’ve heard that people prefer to hear good news, so I’ll settle for showing you the comic I got the honorary award for at the Oulu Comics Festival a while ago (it was included in their Hunger of Horror anthology where they spelled my name wrong but who cares?). It’s probably going to turn up in CBA at some point as well, but I’ll show you the whole thing now anyway (more news later about CBA and also about Myling that got 3rd prize and will soon be a Tusen Serier book).

So here it is: Immunology

(click images for embiggening)

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Ett historiskt dygn

Detta dygn är historiskt. Eller kanske veckan som kommer, beroende på hur utdraget det blir.

Vi har vuxit upp med Katitzi och hört om saker som Sverige gjorde Förr. Berättelser om orättvisor mot ett folk utan nation. Från en tid då Sverige och dess myndigheter gjorde saker som att jaga bort romer från deras hem, då man steriliserade romer för att de inte skulle föra vidare sina “asociala” gener. Även efter andra världskriget, då man egentligen inte längre kunde skylla på att man “inte visste bättre”. Ändå var det mycket av den gamla tidens sätt att hantera samhällets utstötta som levde kvar. Sverige var Socialdemokratiskt, vilket väl antagligen betydde att man kunde ha gott samvete när man gjorde sådana saker, för det handlade om att bygga upp Välfärdsstaten. Det Svenska Folkhemmet.

Kanske såg man det som att man bekämpade fattigdomen genom att ta bort de fattiga så resten av oss slapp se dem? Ungefär som att våra beslutsfattande representanter för Malmö stad nu säger sig skydda de boende i Sorgenfrilägret från den giftiga marken de bor på, från den ohygieniska situationen som har byggts upp i brist på ordentliga sanitetsanläggningar. Återigen genom att köra bort dem därifrån och låta dem själva hitta ett alternativ. Kommunen har gjort sin plikt, nu är det upp till romerna att hitta nya lösningar på egen hand. Sålänge de håller sig borta från parkerna, för där ska vara rent och fint. Det är därför polisen ser till att väcka de som ändå vågar sig på att sova där. Varje natt. Och på gatorna kan man ju inte sova. Inte i Sverige 2015 där det inte finns någon riktig fattigdom.

De som har bott i lägret vill väl inte heller bo på giftig mark, men vad har de för alternativ?

Det här är knappast människor som kommer hit för att sno åt sig av vårt välfärdssystem, för det har de inte tillgång till. Välfärdssystemet ska ju dessutom vara till för just de som inte har några andra resurser. Vi betalar skatt för att samhälleligt dela på resurserna och hjälpa dem som har det sämst, men här gäller inte det för nu är det inte svenska medborgare det handlar om. Många kommer från ett område som drabbats av översvämning. Många kommer för att dra ihop pengar till vårdräkningar för sjuka barn eller matpengar till sina familjer. Gärna genom att lönejobba, men det är inte så lätt att få jobb när man inte kan språket och inte har tillgång till hela, rena, fina kläder att ha på sig på en arbetsintervju som man hursomhelst inte ens blir kallad till. Så de flesta, de som inte kan få tag i ett jobb med lön, får sätta sig på marken med en mugg och hoppas på medborgarnas godhet och generositet i ett allt kallare Sverige.

Och nu återupprepas historien. SDs framgångar har med saken att göra, men man kan inte bara skylla på dem. De har inte majoritet, så ansvaret ligger på de starkare partierna som inte ser det som att de kör bort smutsiga invandrare utan ihärdigt motiverar agerandet med sin egen godhet, sina goda intentioner. Även om de intentionerna inte sträcker sig längre än till “Vi måste upprätthålla lag och ordning, det finns faktiskt regelverk att rätta sig efter”, vilket egentligen inte har någonting med varken godhet eller medmänsklighet att göra. För den som tar lagar som garant för att ett beteende är rätt och riktigt och moraliskt försvarbart glömmer att nazisterna som genomförde Förintelsen inte alls bröt mot lagen utan snarare upprätthöll den.

Och där kom kopplingen till nazismen in i bilden. Det var väl bara en tidsfråga och det har faktiskt inte med saken att göra och det går inte att jämföra detta med Förintelsen. Nej, kanske går det inte att jämföra, men parallellerna finns där, klart och tydligt. För nazismen handlade också om att städa samhället, om att rensa bort de som inte var önskade, dölja det man inte ville se. Och romerna som dog i koncentrationslägren var en del av de miljoner som osynliggjorts i efterhand. Judarna fick ta största smällen, men det är ingen ursäkt för att glömma alla de andra. Precis som romerna försvunnit ur den statistiken då ska de nu försvinna ur “vår” stad. För det vi inte ser har vi inte ont av.

Förintelsen började inte med koncentrationsläger, det var något som byggdes upp till steg för steg. Steg i vilkas spår vi verkar följa ännu en gång.

Utvecklingen och vräkningen är ivrigt påhejade av de medborgargarden som tidigare slagit sönder romernas tält och kroppar med basebollträn, som bränt tiggarläger och asylboenden och som inte vill kalla sig rasister, för det är ju inget man vill bli kallad. I samma facebookkommentar går det nu att säga “jag är inte rasist” och “ut med packet” utan att blinka. När jag skriver detta står de utanför lägret. Kanske inte just samma personer, men personer som är del av samma mentalitet, samma samhällsutveckling. De väntar på att få heja på polisen när de ska riva vad som i flera månader varit folks bostäder. Polisen som pratat med de företag som har lokaler i närheten och kommit överens om att de ska ge sina anställda ledigt imorgon när rivningen ska ske. Antagligen främst för att de inte vill ha någon insyn från “vanliga” människor. Det räcker de vänsteraktivister som är på plats för att med sina kroppar försvara lägret. För dem är det ok att slå med batong eller rida över med hästar och dem är det ändå ingen som lyssnar på om hur jobbigt det var. För att inte tala om romerna själva som helt enkelt får skylla sig själva. De har ju faktiskt haft sin chans att lämna platsen.

Så detta dygn är historiskt, för det visar att vi fortfarande lever i gårdagens samhälle. Där mätta, rena, varma människor med fast inkomst kan bestämma var hungriga, kalla och fattiga människor INTE får bo, istället för att hjälpa dem hitta en ny plats.

Ett historiskt dygn som knappast kommer att bli ihågkommet som något annat än en del i det som ledde fram till en ny mörk tidsålder. En händelse vid sidan av lasermän, brandattentat, skolmord och våldsamma tvångsdeportationer. En händelse som legitimerar fascisters och rasisters handlingar och retorik, oavsett om de kallar sig för just fascister eller rasister eller bara vanliga Svenssons. Indignerade över att behöva utsättas för att se att världen inte endast består av välmående svenskar utan också av folk som behöver hjälp och stöd. Stöd som inte tar formen av en vräkning från det enda hem de lyckats hitta och bygga i det här landet.

Storage…

Storage is a comic I made for the AltCom 2012 NO BORDERS anthology.

On page 3, you can see a deportee being strapped to a special chair that is used for transporting “difficult” persons by plane. People who, for some reason, do not want to be forcibly deported, even though the Swedish authorities have declared that it is correct, almost that it is done with the best interests for the person in mind. Because why would the Swedish authorities do something like that if it wasn’t the right thing to do?

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Instructions: If you see someone being taken on the same plane as you against their will, stand up, make a fuss, etc. Get more people to do the same. The plane is not allowed to take off until everyone is seated, and the pilot has the final say. Several deportations have been stopped in this manner. This may give the person more time to appeal again and maybe even get residency. Also, they may not have to be drugged and wake up in another country where they may have no viable prospects for a decent life.

As for the comic, it was inspired by a passage from Fortets Murar, a report from various detentions centers (prisons for asylum seekers/refugees whose only crime was to try to stay within the wrong borders. In Sweden, they are called “storage”) in Europe.

Click images for bigger, more readable, versions:

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