Category: Work

Sekventiellt.se about Piracy…

Review of Piracy is Liberation at Sekventiellt.se…

It’s a very nice review by Fredrik Strömberg. Took him a while to get around to it, but when he did it, he did a thorough job with it. Some of my favorite passages:

The story behind the making of Mattias Elftorp’s magnum opus Piracy is Liberation is quite unlike anything in Sweden. Elftorp has worked on this project since the beginning of the 21st century, handling the production, publishing and marketing parts mostly by himself (first through C’est Bon now through Wormgod), never making much money out of it (and the little there is, is always put into the next printing) and, most importantly, never compromising with his artistic integrity. And this he has. Lots of it. I know, I have been involved in the making of several of these stories, reading them through, giving advice knowing that most of it will be ignored…

Oh, what the hell. I’ll just publish the whole thing here (high-lighting the important stuff)… Still worth the trip to his blog. Frequently updated and lots of interesting comics-related stuff.

Then there’s Elftorp’s penchant for mixing in several different influences into his genre crossing comics. He himself describes them on the project’s website as: “Political theory, filtered through autobiography, masked as fiction in the form of cyberpunk postapocalypse…” Well, for the postapocalyptic part, The Matrix is a quite obvious influence, with a lot of cyberpunk thrown in for good measure. Then there’s the political part, where already the title indicates the anarchistic tendencies. And the autobiographical parts… Well, the main character is quite obviously based on the artist himself, at least visually. And that the political part of these stories are a real and genuine part of Elftorp can be seen by the fact that he himself has uploaded the first volumes of the series as torrents on The Pirate Bay.

Anyway, I have read most of these comics in various stages, but never all in one go, which I just did. An interesting experience.

The art is expressive, sometimes to the point of being unintelligible. Elftorp has an uncompromising attitude towards his art, where the initial feeling of a drawing is more important than making a certain character look exactly the same, panel after panel. When reading Piracy is Liberation I can never really decide whether this is good or bad, or both. After a while I get really into it though and as with other good auteur comics, the story and the art meshes together to a unity where one could not exist without the other.

The story line is a bit complicated, but never for the sake of being complicated. Sometimes it is very straightforward action, sometimes it messes with the mind of the reader and jumps backwards and forwards in time, playing with the whole cyberpunk theme of being able to upload your consciousness to the net. As a voracious comics reader I of course like the part in volume four, where Elftorp plays with the form of comics and mixes metahumor with cyberpunk and lets the characters actually travel across the comics pages, aware of being part of a comics and able to walk backwards and forwards in time – echoing the creation process of the comic in itself.

Very shortly put, the story in Piracy is Liberation takes place in a post-apocalyptic world which resembles ours in many ways, but where the whole world is made up of a city where the population is kept in a state of subdued subordination through indoctrination mainly via TV (and yes, V for Vendetta does spring to mind, as does Alan Moore’s own inspiration, 1984 by George Orwell, of course). Fighting against the corrupt corporate system is a small group of pirates using the internet to access iformation, attacking the authority, orgnanising rebellion. It’s all on one level a political metafor for the lives we live today, but never to the point of killing the story, which is engaging, sometimes fast paced and often very clever, with the main characters having to copy themselves into reality due to being locked up in a virtual prison, and the ramifications this entails when there are several version of them walking around. Here Elftorp actually does several things I haven’t read or seen before, which is inpressive as the whole post-apocalyptic/cyberpunk genre has been flogged to death many times over, as far as I’m concerned.

But it’s the genuine feeling of the political convictions pulsating thorugh Piracy is Liberation that keeps my interest going and that is what will make me keep reading in the future. Knowing that Elftorp has this series planned to at least 20 volumes I’d be surprised if there isn’t a film made somewhere along the way. I just hope the whole idea of Piracy is Liberation won’t be lost in a Hollywood production (which in itself is the negation of the message of the story). Anyway, until then, do read this strange combination of action and political philosophy and make up your own mind. That’s the main message Elftorp is trying to convey.

Dystopia 01-05: a presentation

Ok, so this is a bit overdue, since these have been available for a while. But what do you want from me? Anyway…

Since December 0f 2009 I’ve been the editor of a series of books called Dystopia (Swedish edistions are called Dystopi). In this series, I’m gathering a wide selection of artists who have created stories centered on dark visions of the future (or in some cases the present). There’s more information at the Wormgod site. The Dystopia books are published as a cooperation between Wormgod and Seriefrämjandet.

I’m enjoying this project a lot. I’m getting a lot of interesting stuff to publish, and there’ll be more coming soon. I just wish I had some more time to be able to give it the attention it should get, but I’ll have to settle for giving it the best I can. Starting with the so far unpublished fifth issue, I’m going to present each of the Dystopia books that have come so far. So here we go:

Dystopia05: Munk by AKAB.

The story of a man with Munk’s disease, which makes him scream constantly and uncontrollably. He’s finally found a doctor who claims to be able to help him, but it’s hard to believe, having heard the some thing over and over before. Still, you have to keep hope alive…

Coming soon in English and Swedish.

Dystopia04: Reclaimed by Mattias Elftorp

While on drugs, Information has learned how to fly. Still under the influence, she arrives at the Reclaim the Streets party… You might have seen this story before, in Piracy is Liberation 005: Free Section, but for this special occasion, it’s been colored. First time ever that a Piracy is Liberation story gets the color treatment, and I’m quite happy with it.

Available in English, coming soon in Swedish.

Dystopia03 Side A: TK 47 by Spyros Verykios Side B: Nail Story & Ramon by Igor Hofbauer

Spyros Verykios’ story is set in one of the possible ways human civilisation could end. If Kafka was making a classic zombie short story with painted art, you’d think it might turn out like this.

The B side offers two stories set in a surreal future. One is a classic story about jealousy, monuments and nails in the head. The other one is even more surreal. And it contains monkeys.

Available in English, coming soon in Swedish.

Dystopia02: Freak Dreaming by Artùras Rožkovas

A dreamlike story consisting of a selection of psychedelic drawings that combine to tell the story of a stillborn wolf child. Or perhaps a society whose population has been asleep for too long. Is it just a dream, or something more?

I got these more or less randomly selected pictures and put them together and they turned out to tell a story that I hadn’t really expected when I started doing the selection.

Available in English, coming soon in Swedish.

Dystopia01 Side A: Vanja & Vanja by Danijel Zezelj Side B: Desert by Carol Swain

Very good start for the series, setting just the mood I was looking for. Both stories have been published before in C’est Bon Anthology, a few years back, but I still wanted to use them for this, since I felt they would be perfect for a Dystopia split issue. This is also the first time any of the two artists have been translated into Swedish (which, so far, is true of all the contributors to Dystopia).

Vanja meets Vanja after practice to share a fruit. Vanja likes Vanja’s medal, but he has to run because he isn’t allowed to be off on his own for too long so they’ll meet again the next day. This story was adapted into a short film: Racconto di guerra.

And Carol Swain tells the story of a group of soldiers making their way across a desert landscape.

Available in English and Swedish.

Dystopi 04: [Title Unknown]

Ok, ok. Long time no blogging. I’ll try to make it up in the days to come.

So. What’s new?

Today, I’ve made the translation of Dystopia04: Reclaimed into Swedish. Everything except the title, which I will have to figure out during the evening. Something that retains the double meaning of the English one, if possible. But the best I’ve come up with so far is “Dagen då vi spöade snuten“. I’m not sure if that’s good enough.

Dystopia04: Reclaimed. Cover (and contents) by Mattias Elftorp.

Later, I will talk a bit about Dystopias 02, 03 and 05. I might also mention AltCom, but that should probably wait a while longer. And if I could just find the time to actually sit down and continue drawing Piracy is Liberation 008: Spiders pt 2, I’m sure I’ll have something to show and tell about that (more than this one, which is a page from the second chapter): 

Invitation to DYSTOPIA.

This post is aimed at potential participants as well as readers. Please spread this information to anyone who might be interested…

I’m currently editing a new comics project. The project is called DYSTOPIA and it’s a series of comic short stories on the theme of dystopia, as the name suggests. That is dystopia in a broad sense. We want the title to be open for a wide variety of genres and subjects, like science fiction, cyberpunk, horror and current political subjects.

It will be a series of 32-page books in 140x182mm format. Optional color or black & white. Each book will be one story (24-26 pgs) or it will be done as a split (flip book) between two artists if the stories are shorter. They will be made in two editions (Swedish and English) because one is not enough.

Contributors will be a mix of new and established talent, old classics and new stories. The first book was a split with Danijel Zezelj and Carol Swain and other interesting artists have shown interest as well, so artists who decide to join will be in good company.

More info at the Wormgod website. 

Dystopia is a cooperation between Wormgod (which is me and Susanne Johansson, both former editors of C’est Bon Anthology) and the Swedish Comics Association. For me, this is part of an ongoing effort to internationalise the comics scene and also to publish comics with something to say.

Here are the covers for the first split:

Contact me with any questions at mattias @ elftorp . com (delete the empty spaces).

Winner of the ISV award!

The main weekend of the ISV (I Seriernas Värld) comics festival in Malmö, Sweden, just ended.

For the first time, at least for me, ISV felt like a real comics festival. I’m not sure why that is. Could be because of the international guests, or the overall organisation. I’m not sure. Anyway. There were lots of exhibitions and my art was part of some of them. Scroll down to an older post for more on that, because that’s not what I was going to talk about here.

This is the first page of Jag & min Pappa & Zlatan:

zlatan01

This was my entry in the ISV comics competition. A 10 page story about a girl arriving to sweden with her father hoping to get to meet Zlatan Ibrahimovic. This was also the entry that won the competition, which is very nice. The prize money will make it possible for me not only to pay my rent and bills but also to start working soon on Piracy is Liberation 008: Spiders pt 2.

In the future, you might see a longer graphic novel version of Jag & min Pappa & Zlatan. Hopefully both in English and in Swedish.

Edit: The Jury’s motivation

Drabbande läsning. Svensk-maskerna utgör en stark bild i denna serie om asylsökande. Serien har något särskilt att berätta utan skymten av tom övertydlighet och ett bildberättande som lyfter fram detta innehåll. Tonen i jag-rösten är träffsäker, med korta lakoniska meningar. Teckningar, sidkomposition, bildperspektiv, hur texten är satt och infogad: allt håller.

(From the ISV website)

Second prize was shared by Maria Fröhlich and Sofia Malmberg.

You, Me and Tommy Lee, about me.

Check this out: Article about me by Hannah Oredsson at the You, Me & Tommy Lee blog.

This bit about Piracy is Liberation, CBK and Wormgod. In Swedish:

Think outside the city

Vecka 43
Mattias Elftorp är helt rätt i tiden. Och han har något som inte alls beror på timing eller trend; hängivelse.
Han har gått alla tre steg (år 1, år 2 och kreativt friår) på Serieskolan i Malmö med några års mellanrum. Han startade upp C’est Bon Kultur tillsammans med Oskar Aspman, Jacob Kindstedt och Daniel Novakovic. Denna alternativa seriekulturförening kan med sina antologier numera konkurrera med klassiker som Galago. Mattias är också mottagare av en rad stipendier, bistånd som utan undantag går rakt in i hans konst igen.
Mattias kombination av konst, populärkultur och politik skapar ett unikt stilgrepp som hittills främst fått sitt uttryck i hans mastodontprojekt cyberpunkserien Piracy is Liberation. Den 7:e delen kom ut nyligen och hans mål är 20 stycken. Med tanke på hans ovan nämnda engagemang tvivlar jag inte en sekund på att han kommer att nå dit. Det som framförallt övertygar mig om att Piracy is Liberation är en serie att hålla ögonen på är att den inte liknar något som jag vanligtvis gillar i bildberättarväg. Men jag kan inte lägga ner den när jag börjat läsa och ser fram emot att läsa varenda del. Den är mörk och dystopisk, queer och radikal. Det politiska perspektivet är konstant närvarande utan att väga tyngre än intrigen. Som läsare sugs man in en liten bit till för varje sida som vänds.
Mattias håller sig konstant på fronten. Han är inte rädd för nya grepp. Han lämnade nyss C’est Bon Kultur för konstprojektet Wormgod som han driver tillsammans med Susanne Johansson. Wormgod har redan hunnit med en handfull utställningar och utgivningen av 007 Spiders ur Piracy-serien. Ni kan vänta er att se Wormgod poppa upp lite varstans inom kort, och var inte rädda för att leta i ett mörkt skrymsle nära er… Det är därifrån bilderna, musiken och berättelserna kommer. Alla potentiella portaler till en dystopisk och otrolig framtid eller parallell värld.

Hemsida: http://www.elftorp.com/

Piracy is Liberation: www.elftorp.com/freeinformation

Wormgod: http://www.wormgod.net/

Blogg: http://www.elftorp.wordpress.com/

/Hannah

Takes one to make one…

My third and final image for the C’est Bon Panorama II: Frankenstein exhibition is done. Here’s a sample:

frankenstein01a

It’s about saying “Fuck you” and finally moving out from your parents. Trying to stand on your own two legs, living your own life.

Or maybe it’s about being thrown out into the storm by your own father because he was too chickenshit to take responsibility for his creation.

Well. At least it hasn’t started raining. Yet.

The exhibition opens at Biograf Spegeln (Malmö), October 30, between 18-21.

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At the same time, I’m also participating in two or three other exhibitions. It’s all part of the big I Seriernas Värld event that will be taking place in Malmö from the end of October until the end of November.

The biggest one is Seriemaskerad, which will be held in Malmö Muséer (Teknikens och Sjöfartens hus), Oct 26-Nov 22. Opening October 30, 14-16 (it’s going to be a busy day)…

I’ve made two masks for this exhibition. This is one of them (photo taken with my crappy cellphone camera):

mingmask

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There’s also going to be an exhibition of the entries to the Seriemaskerad comics competition, which I participated in, so I’ll have some work in that one too, at Form/Design Center, Oct 30-Nov 1. The winner will be announced October 30, at 19 if I remember correctly.

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October 30 will finish off with some kind of party which will also be at Form/Design Center, where I’ll take part in a comics battle. A team from Malmö will meet a team from Stockholm.

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I think I might also be exhibited in the Seriernas Värld exhibition with some Piracy is Liberation originals, since that exhibition will be shown Oct 30-Nov 1, also at Form/Design Center. At least they’ve been showing my stuff when the exhibition was shown in Örebro, but I don’t know what material will be shown here…

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There’s also (this never ends) the comics marketplace which will be at Form/Design Center, Oct 30-Nov 1. I don’t know how I’ll manage to do everything at once, but I’ll try to make sure that Piracy is Liberation 001-007 will be available there.

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November 1, at Biograf Spegeln in conjunction with the Panorama II exhibition, there will be a special showing of a bunch of Frankenstein movies.

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And there is the party, October 31, at Debaser. Seriemaskerad: Come dressed up as a comic book character. Why not chose one from Piracy is Liberation? If you do, find me and I’ll give you a free copy of one of the books.