Piracy is Liberation – Page 2

Seriefest 2023

This weekend (Sep 2-3) it’s Seriefest in Malmö (in Ridhuset, Folkts Park).

We’ll be there with a selection of books, along with Tusen Serier/Wormgod/Hybriden (the policy is to only sell things made by creators who is present. Luckily, Mattias Elftorp will be there and he’s been involved in lots of books)…

There will also be 2 Hybriden-related items in the program:

Tusen Serier: Jorge Varas Varilla
(Saturday 1630-1650)
Jorge Varas Varilla from Tusen Serier talks about his career as a satire illustrator and how graphic humor was used as a tool for wishing for social change in the 1960s Chile. He tells about Allende’s government, about the military coup and also about his own arrest and exile.
www.varilla.se

CBK/Wormgod: Mattias Elftorp
(Sunday 1300-1320)
Talk with Mattias Elftorp about the international comics anthology CBA and about the cyberpunk postapocalypse of his Piracy is Liberation. War mania in a future where Capitalism is the only religion.
www.elftorp.com

See you there!

Coming soon(ish)

I’m now 53 pages into the story, so still a bit left but it feels good!

EDIT (a week or so later): I’m now thinking of maybe moving some chapters around, which would basically dividing this book into two. But we’ll see.

This is the exciting part of writing things more or less on the fly, especially when each book is part of a larger story. You’re never completely sure what’s going to happen. I mean it’ll all fit together and make sense in the end, but what script I do have isn’t so strict that there’s no room for changes depending on what will, in the end, be the best reading experience (I guess you’ll be the final judge on that when you read it). Anyway, nothing set in stone yet. I had some interesting ideas yesterday, so I’ll try to fot them into the over all plotline. I’m sure it’ll be fine 🙂

Comic in Portal #5

I have a comic in the new issue of Portal, an anthology comic book from The Swedish Comics Association.

There’s a release event for it tomorrow (June 30), with an exhibition of risoprinted pages from the issue, at Rum för Serier (Friisgatan 12, Malmö) between 17-20.

My comic, I förhörsrummet, is an excerpt from Piracy is Liberation 012, but rewritten into a self-contained new story, colored and translated to Swedish (a B/W version in English was published in CBA vol 58 last year). I liked how the colors turned out.

Here are some of the panels from the comic:

See you at the release!

Piracy 005-008 digital comics!

I recently put up another batch of digital Piracy is Liberation books for download at Hybriden.

Sometime within a year I plan to also make book 009-011 available like this, and a year after that books 012-013. In other updates, I’ve finished the first few pages of Piracy is Liberation 013: War and Pieces, which will hopefully be out by the end of this year, possibly beginning of 2024. But more on that later…

What happens when the rules have suddenly changed and the police can do nothing but watch as people party in the streets? What happens when even the rules of reality can be broken? One section of the City where Capitalism is the only religion has been freed from the influence of landlords and indoctrinating television, but when the authorities come back with a vengeance to evict the Free Section, expect violence.
Meanwhile, something is moving on the net. Some kind of entities seem to be interfering with its users. What are these Spiders and how will they affect the plans for the Information Upgrade that the anarchists are planning?
Also in this collection:
Can Technograph change the past through timetravel?
And introducing Ming, the open source web-based sentient being.
Political theory, filtered through autobiography masked as fiction, in the form of cyberpunk postapocalypse.
320 pgs
Name your price (minimum 72 sek)

This is a collection of four more books of the Piracy is Liberation series, in digital versions based on the original publications. They are downloadable as a CBR file, a classic format for filesharing comics. You can open it in various comics reader apps, or just a regular unZIP or unRAR app.
Digital comics should be much cheaper than paper books, so it’s a “name your price” deal, with a minimum price based on page count.

Digital download bundle of books 001-004 is of course also still available:

Cyberpunk stories in a future where Capitalism is the only religion, where only sinners disobey and nobody loves a sinner. Pirate is one of those sinners, downloading illegal information straight into his mind to get high. When he gets caught while trying to free Information, he has to use all his skills as a 4-dimensional hacker to break them out of digital prison.
One year later, he’s part of a group trying to free sections of the City from the clutches of brainwashing television, riot cops and the Priests and Masters who control everything.
Meanwhile, Erica toils away as a Slave in the factory. But what’s the dark secret behind the cogs and wheels and levers of her machine? What hides in the desert that no one knows exists? And what of the Drivers and their upcoming strike?
Political theory, filtered through autobiography masked as fiction, in the form of cyberpunk postapocalypse.
266 pgs
Name your price (minimum 60 sek)

RELEASE EVENT: Piracy is Liberation 012 & Vårdfällan

It’s finally out!

On February 25 at 18-21 (or whenever we’re finished), at Poeten på hörnet (Södra Förstadsgatan 65B, Malmö), CBK, Wormgod and Tusen Serier invite you to a one day release event for Piracy is Liberation 012: Outer Enemy & Vårdfällan! A double book release with exhibition and book talks!

You can read about both books here.

There will be a small exhibition of prints from Piracy is Liberation. There will be wine. The books will be presented, with a reading from Vårdfällan. The books will be there, the authors will be signing, it’ll be great!
Welcome!

Both books are available for order now, from Hybriden and other places (Adlibris, Bokus, etc).

ORDER Piracy is Liberation 012: Outer Enemy
ORDER Vårdfällan

Piracy 012 is something I’ve been working on for the last year or so. It ended up as a 212 page examination of a City gearing up for war. It’s the 12th book of the series but don’t worry if you haven’t read the first 11. There’s a story so far section, and the entire series is also available from Hybriden.

Vårdfällan was written by Raquel Lozano, with cover and editing by me. Set in Malmö, it’s a scathing depiction of life as a worker in the health care business.

Here are a couple of sample pages from Piracy, which may or may not be part of the exhibition:

It’s getting harder and harder to be visible in social media, so feel free to help us by inviting anyone you know who might be interested! Thanks!

PRE-RELEASE: Piracy is Liberation 012 & Vårdfällan

PRE-RELEASE of 2 new books from Tusen Serier and CBK/Wormgod! These books are only available at Hybriden until Jan 1, 2023. After that they will be taken down from the site until the official release in early 2023 (Jan/Feb)!!!
So take this chance to be among the first to get Piracy is Liberation 012: Outer Enemy and Vårdfällan (Raquel Lozano)!

Piracy is Liberation 012: Outer Enemy by Mattias Elftorp

Terror strikes the City, and Pirate seems to be the terrorist! Or is this finally the start of the revolution? As the City is gearing up for war, two girls walk its streets looking for action and trying to figure out what actually happened. How will our anarchist heroes deal with this situation as the equivalent to nationalist tendencies grip the population? What happens in a City where war has been an unknown concept, as its billboards are filling up with WANTED posters and military propaganda and the army recruitment centers are opening up for business? Who is the enemy?

10 year in the making, this 12th book in the Piracy is Liberation series finally takes us back to the City for 212 pages of a brand new story about a society on the brink of war.

Language: English
Page count: 212
Book type: graphic novel, softcover
Price: 150:- sek
ORDER (contact CBK about review copies!)

Vårdfällan by Raquel Lozano

Alejandra vill egentligen wallraffa, men efter en tids uppehåll är hon nu tillbaka som vårdbiträde inom hemtjänsten. För att klara av sin vardag med duschar, blöjbyten och läggningar varvar hon jobbet med en ny hobby, även om den kanske inte är helt laglig.

Vårdfällan is Raquel Lozano’s debut novel. With Malmö as backdrop, she depicts the life of a young worker, and her struggle to survive an increasingly cold work climate.

Language: Swedish
Page count: 176
Book type: novel, pocket/softcover
Price: 100:- sek
ORDER (contact Tusen Serier about review copies!)

Also new in the webshop:

CBA vol 58: Modern Glossolalia or the Erosion of Meaning (which I edited) and CBA vol 59: Aloneliness (which I only proofread), the latest issues of our international comics anthology!

Mapuche by Jorge Varas Varilla is now available in a new, quadrilingual edition (Mapudungun/Spanish, with subtitles in English/Swedish) (which I translated).

Five Stories About Undocumented Women by Amalia Alvarez has been hard to find for a while, but is now here in a 3rd edition, with new paper stock and still in 3 languages (Spanish/Swedish/English) (which I translated).

Coming soon: Piracy is Liberation 012!

It’s been 10 years in the making, but now it’s finally (soon) here:

Piracy is Liberation book 012: Outer Enemy

Terror strikes the City, and Pirate seems to be the terrorist! Or is this finally the start of the revolution?
As the City is gearing up for war, two girls walk its streets looking for action and trying to figure out what actually happened.
How will our anarchist heroes deal with this situation as the equivalent to nationalist tendencies grip the population?
What happens in a City where war has been an unknown concept, as its billboards are filling up with WANTED posters and military propaganda and the army recruitment centers are opening up for business?
Who is the enemy?

This is also the return to CBK, who published the first 6 books in the series. From book 012, Piracy is Liberation will be published as a cooperation between CBK and Wormgod.

And don’t worry if you haven’t read the first books. Book 012 is a good place to jump into it, with a story so far section that tells you in short what you need to know. And if you want to get into the back story to get the full experience, we have all the back issues and collections at Hybriden for a good price!

The official release will be early in 2023, but we’ll figure out some excuse to offer a sneaky pre-release sale of it already in December of 2022. Both so that all your friends and family won’t have to miss getting it for christmas and because I’m just too excited to have piles of books lying everywhere with no one else being able to get them. We’ve all waited a long time for this, haven’t we? Book 011 came all the way back in 2012.

I’ll write more about this later, just wanted to let you see the cover (by Susanne Johansson) and start preparing for its arrival…

SIS 2022 – fan art & competition

I’ve taken a short break from posting about Piracy is Liberation in order to be able to spend more time on actually drawing the new book.

Today I took a break from that as well in order to make some fan art for the upcoming SIS (Stockholms International Seriefestival):

COMPETITION:

If you are the first to identify which comic pages are surrounding the dog, I’ll give you a gift. Email me with book title and page number or part of the dialogue from the page (since I don’t normally use pagination) for all of them*. And let me know which one of my books you need as reward and I will send it to you.
*I say all of them, but one of these pages is from the upcoming book so it’s enough to identify it as the unpublished one.
Important: contact me by e-mail (see the contact page). No other means of contact counts.

Anyway, maybe I’ll see you in Stockholm, May 20-22? I’ll be there with Hybriden (CBK/Tusen Serier/Wormgod).

And with that, I’m back at the drawing table again (I mean not ALL the time, but as much as I’m able in between everything else I need to do). It’s hard to finish a book when I’m constantly adding pages to it, but I’m at least more than halfway done by now…

Release: Digital Piracy!

I just put up a bundle of Piracy is Liberation books 001-004 for digital download at Hybriden!

If you’re new to the world of Piracy is Liberation, here’s a short description of what you get in these four books:

Cyberpunk stories in a future where Capitalism is the only religion, where only sinners disobey and nobody loves a sinner. Pirate is one of those sinners, downloading illegal information straight into his mind to get high. When he gets caught while trying to free Information, he has to use all his skills as a 4-dimensional hacker to break them out of digital prison.
One year later, he’s part of a group trying to free sections of the City from the clutches of brainwashing television, riot cops and the Priests and Masters who control everything.
Meanwhile, Erica toils away as a Slave in the factory. But what’s the dark secret behind the cogs and wheels and levers of her machine? What hides in the desert that no one knows exists? And what of the Drivers and their upcoming strike?
Political theory, filtered through autobiography masked as fiction, in the form of cyberpunk postapocalypse.

It’s a great way to get a substantial sample (266 pages) if you want to try it out before buying the books, or if you just want to read it for its own sake. Or if you prefer to read on a tablet (if this proves popular enough I’ll probably do digital versions of the rest of the books as well).

Digital comics often cost much more than I think is reasonable, so I set the price for this at 60 sek (about 6€/$6.35), which is what one and a half book would cost on paper, and now you get four! There’s also the option to pay more if you think my price is too low.

If you want it for free, books 001 and 002 are still available at ThePirateBay, so that’s also an option. Just don’t forget to share!

BUY IT HERE

PROCESS: Main characters

The two girls whose story will be the main focus of Piracy is Liberation 012: Outer Enemy that I mentioned in my latest post aren’t completely new to the series.

You’ve seen them before, for the first time in book 002: Infotrip for a few pages.

They were the ones being given the Basic information for the revolution discs at a café. In that chapter (Communications, subchapter 3: Conversation) they mostly served as a way to show the effects of that book’s events on some random people in the general society.
That scene also turned out to be a bit anachronistic, since it actually took place during book 005: Free Section in the chapter Outside, where we got to see it in the background and from another perspective.

I think I had, even back then, some thought of maybe returning to them at a later point. Which turned out to be correct.
Not going to spoil any of their story in the new book just yet, but here are two of the new pages…