We live in a society that is very much based on the individual, but a lot of what happens, especially when it comes to events with the potential to change things, are happening on a collective level. It’s all about mass movements (which is probably why the current culture is so centered on the individual, because it makes the status quo easier to maintain).
So another thing I’m trying to do with Piracy is Liberation is to tell the story from a slightly different perspective. Of course, it’s very much about individuals. As a reader, you need characters to relate to in order for the story to work. But my characters are also parts of a greater collective. A collective that may not be visible as such at alla times, but one that is always present. When major changes take place, individual characters may be acting as catalysts, but there is always a collective that makes the real difference.
From Piracy is Liberation 004: Copies and Originals
This is something that may not be obvious, but I want it to run in the background, surfacing now and then in the climaxes as seen through the eyes of the individuals taking part in the movements of the story. I’m also trying to convey the feeling of working as a collective. The feeling that anything can be achieved, in a way that I would say you’ll never feel on your own.
There were a lot of issues that I had to consider when I began turning Piracy is Liberation into what it is today. Things I thought I’d like to speak about in the series, but I think that some things can be spoken about by not speaking about them. War is one of those things (how does a world where the concept of war doesn’t exist differ from ours?) that I might go into later. Gender issues is another, and that is what I’d like to talk about now.
I was thinking, should I use Piracy to talk about gender issues that we all live with here today by having the Piracy world be similar to ours, or should I take another approach. I’ve never tried to market Piracy as a feminist comic, but I’ve heard from people who think it is, and I can understand why they think so. Of course, it was my intention, but I wasn’t sure people would notice it and I’m glad they did.
From Piracy is Liberation 003: Wires
The thing is that there are a lot of stories, fictional and otherwise, that describe our gendered society and talk about inequalities and all that, but there are very few that show what things could be like without that shit. There are also some that turn the tables and present a world where men behave like women and women behave like men, but I’m not really interested in that either. I also have problems with drag sometimes, when it confirms stereotypes rather than question them. It doesn’t really change anything. Quite the opposite, almost.
So I present a world where men and women work under very similar conditions. They are able to do the same things, think the same thoughts, act on the same level. Because physical sex shouldn’t matter and gender (its mental/social counterpart) shouldn’t exist, and I wanted to see what would happen with my story if that was actually the case.
I still wanted the society in the City where the comic takes place to be hierarchical and conservative, but in other ways. It can be conservative when it comes to how we manage our relationships even if it’s gender equal. After all, relationships tend to be hierarchical in one way or another, no matter if they are heterosexual or homosexual, so I don’t think that heterosexuality or gender differences is a prerequisite for that.
After reading this, some may wonder why the opening phrase of the entire series is:
That’s it, stay still, bitch!
with a woman lying under the heel of a man’s boot, but the point in that scene is that the man is a policeman who could just as easily have been a woman. So it has more to do with power and violence and not so much to do with gender.
One final point I’d like to make is that the way I treat the subject in Piracy is Liberation, even though it’s pretty far from most other ficitonal stories produced in this society, is probably more similar to actual reality. Because the image we have of women as passive and men as the acting subjects throughout history can’t possibly be true. I thinks that’s simply another fictional story…
The description of my part of HackNight at Utkanten on Saturday:
I’ll be talking about the world of Piracy is Liberation, my cyberpunk postapocalypse series of graphic novels, where I got the idea for the original concept and how it progressed from there. By looking at the story and describing the City where it takes place, I hope to paint a picture of how the comic mirrors the reality of sweden in particular and capitalist society in general. I’d also like to talk a bit about how I’ve handled different story elements, like gender, media and collectivity/individuality when I’ve constructed this fictional world.
I may write something about any of these topics here on the blog during the week, if I’m not busy working on the new book.
It is also a Wormgod image and will be available as a print at the upcoming Wall 001 exhibition (when and where that will be remains unknown, so check the site in the near future for more info as it comes).
July 11: Hacknight, Utkanten Malmö, Sweden
and
September 19: Wormgod: Zombies @ Malmö Queer Art & Film Festival, Panora, Malmö, Sweden
The first one is a hacker festival at Utkanten in Malmö, where I will talk a bit about Piracy is Liberation.
The second one will be some kind of talk about the Wormgod: ZOMBIES project, which is still very much in the future at this point, held by me and Suss. This will be in cinjunction with the showing of Bruce LaBruce’s film Otto or Up With Dead People, so we’ll probably talk a bit about that one too. More info about all this will come later at Panora‘s website.
And, of course, no one interested in Piracy is Liberation, Wormgod or extreme music should miss the party this Saturday at Utkanten!
I can’t get rid of the question: “Why isn’t it always like this?” The Crack festival takes place at a squatted fortress in Rome and it’s the most creative and energetic comics festival I’ve ever been to. The organizers keep it open for (more or less) anyone who feel that they belong there to contribute and it’s more about creating exhibitions than just selling books.
This year I was there with Johan Jergner-Ekervik for CBK and we didn’t really know what to expect. We also had no time to prepare anything, what with the trip to New York and everything, so we simply brought books to sell and improvised an exhibition by sacrificing a copy of CBAvol7. Next time will be different. I’m sure CBK will be better prepared, and hopefully I’ll be able to come with Suss and make a Wormgod exhibition.
Anyway. While I was there, I got the feeling that this is how it should be done. Don’t get me wrong. I liked the MoCCA fextival and the others I go to, but they are all totally different from this. This is more like a music festval. You get up, sit in the grass for some hours with your breakfast beers and then everything starts at 18 and keeps going until late in the night, or sometimes the next day. Intoxicated people looking at art and comics. Loads of punk dogs. And good company from different places that aren’t sweden, which is always nice. Only setback was the lack of people speaking english (hence not being able to read our books). I always kind of interpret that as a sort of racism. An uninterest in being able to communicate with people outside your own language zone.
And so it got me thinking. Why isn’t it always like this? Why am I more and more losing interest in swedish comics culture, even as things are starting to change? And why is it that some interesting comics artists that I know here have lost interest in the medium, mainly because thay don’t feel at home in the dominant social culture of the swedish alternative comics scene? A scene where I’ve been hoping to have a home, but for some time now I’ve been losing that hope. Which may be just as well. I guess I’ll just have to move to Portugal or something.
Until then, I’ll settle for concentrating on Wormgod and Piracy is Liberation. Finding new audiences, doing new things. This morning I started planning for the Wormgod exhibition at next year’s Crack! festival. I look forward to it already.
And before the end of July I plan to have made another Piracy is Liberation book, a short comic for C’est Bon Anthology and at least one more image (after the one I’m working on right now) for an upcoming Wormgod exhibition (at Panora in August).
Becky Cloonan put in som very nice words for me at her blog after MoCCA. I’ve admired her work since I first saw it in her and Brian Wood’s Jennie One, so I think that’s very cool.
Piracy is Liberation by Mattias Elftorp- Mattias caught me at the end of the day on Sunday, and I felt pretty bad because I didn’t remember him right away from last year- but that changed once he showed me his work! He gave me books 3 through 6 of his series, to match 1 and 2 which I got last year. He’s working on volume 7, so I hope he can make it again next year so we can trade 🙂 Or maybe I’ll just have to hit a convention in Sweden!
I just wish I’d have time to do some kind of report about my new comics too. Then I’d let you know that I liked her art book (Burn Your Treasures) and Pixu 2 (I just need to find a copy of Pixu 1, because that was a really cool book).
Maybe I can do it after Crack!… Then I’ll probably have some more books to talk about. Now I mostly need to sleep to recuperate from Punk Illegal…
So I’ve started writing the next installment of Piracy is Liberation. Book 007: Spiders, as it turns out, will be book 007: Spiders pt. 1 and book 008: Spiders pt 2.
This may change, of course, but it’s the way it looks right now. The interesting thing is, now that I’m dividing the story up into volumes of ca 6 books, that I can no longer plan one book at a time (of course I used to have further plans before, but this time they need to be more detailed). Now I need to have a structure for book 007 that works in itself and also works together with book 008 and also works with the books up until 011. It makes the whole scripting process a lot more interesting.
What was going to be book 012 will now be book 000. Possibly made together with one or more other artists and based on a story I made for the very first issue of C’est Bon back in 2001.
So anyway. This next story arc will deal with the Information Upgrade that has been hinted at in the recent books. It will also deal with the religious/political system of the City as well as the apocalypse. How the world turned out the way it did. And, of course, the relationships and dealings of the characters we’ve met so far in the series.
So that’s it for now. More planning will be done and anything I just said may turn out to be a lie in the next few days/weeks as work progresses.
Just got home from The Great Satan, after a really good time spent in its capital city, New York City.
Second time at the MoCCA festival, and it was great, both at and around the festival itself. I spoke to a lot of interesting people, found a lot of interesting stuff, traded books and looked for artists for CBA. And found some new readers for Piracy is Liberation, I believe.
I participated at a panel on scandinavian comics, together with Åsa Ekström and an assortment of people working with comics from the other nordic countries. We had a good talk. As it turns out, we all had some prejudices about the other scandinavian countries, and we all seemed to agree that they were more or less true. Things are changing though, especially in sweden. The more internationally oriented we get, the more interesting stuff seem to be coming out. The new generation of swedish artists read more internationl comics, and want to do more internationally relevant comics. Be it manga, cyberpunk or horror comics, I see a brighter future.
The festival was nice, but it was also nice to do a bit less of the touristy stuff in New York City this time. Staying in Queens helped. Riding on a subway where you hear more spanish and chinese than english makes it feel more like home, somehow. Spent some time in Astoria too, which was more or less the high point of the trip. All in all, the Great Satan is growing on me.
Oh, and Piracy is Liberation books 001-006 are now available at Blue Stockings bookstore in the lower east side, at 172 Allen Street.
