The deadline is soon here! April 13 (note the timezone, not sure how that works at Indiegogo) is the last day to donate to CBK for the new volume of CBA.
Here’s my introduction to the book. Hope you like it (click it for biggermaking):
And let’s have the video once more, shall we? Just because it’s so nice:
My first book in Arabic (& Swedish) is officially released by Tusen Serier next week, April 12!
I wrote the story a few years ago, and it’s finally finished and printed and ready for reading.
The whole thing started when one of the artists associated with Tusen Serier, Yousif Akar, asked if I’d want to write a script for him to draw. I thought it sounded fun, but all I knew was that it was supposed to be in Swedish and Arabic, and I just had no idea what it was going to be about. Until one day, on the train between Stockholm/Malmö(?), when I realised that I’d have to deal with the fact that you read the two languages from different directions.
From that point, the story more or less wrote itself. It turned into two stories, told in each direction, revolving around the same situation but with different main characters, that meet in the middle.
Then Yousif dropped out of the project because of reasons, and through the help of magician (etc) Stefan Eriksson, I got in contact with Shko Askari, who became the new artist of the book, which turned out really nicely. And here it is, now.
An Iraqi doctor is on his way to work in Baghdad when a car bomb is detonated just outside the hospital. He starts treating the victims, but there are some people who think that certain victims are less deserving than others.
/
A Swedish student gets an email from a long lost migrated relative in the US. He wants to come visit her in Malmö.
Those are the starts of the two stories. I don’t want to risk spoiling anything by telling you more than that.
Anyway, you can order the book through the CBK webshop.
The other day i finished lettering the comic I don’t want to dream by Spyros Verykios. We normally don’t do that but he needed help and I liked the story so much that it was worth it.
It’s a beautifully painted and quite disturbing comic of 43 pages that will be included in the upcoming CBA vol 36. A while ago we changed the structure for how we work with the editorial stuff in CBK. Instead of having big meetings that decide the contents of each issue (well, we still have those big meetings to discuss the comics), we have one person that is the main editor. This is because the new crew that took over CBK 2 years ago is a bit more diverse that earlier ones when it comes to taste. Which is a good thing in general, but it also meant that for each new volume, no one was completely happy with the contents. Having a rotating main editorship made a change in that; now everyone can at least be completely happy with one issue once in a while, and it’s ok to not be 100% satisfied the rest of the time. To be clear: I’m not saying that I don’t normally like the comics in CBA, but you always have your favorites. There’s a Swedish proverb to explain this. Taste is like the ass: divided.
So CBA vol 36 is my volume. I got to use my absolute favorites of the material that has come in from the last calls for submissions (Spyros Verykios, Akab & Elena Guidolin), and also headhunted some other stuff (Serena Schinaia & the cover by Radovan Popović), and I’m really happy with it.
The problem is that CBK is currently out of money. Tusen Serier is letting us wait a bit with paying our part of the rent for Hybriden, but it’s not a good situation since our funding from the Swedish Arts Council was cut off. So we decided to try crowdfunding via Indiegogo.
HERE’S THE CAMPAIGN PAGE. Please help us by donating some money and/or share the link and spread the word (if you prefer, it’s also possible to donate directly to us via PayPal: info [at] cbkcomics [.] com). It would really mean a lot to us (and to me, since this volume is a personal matter) and you’ll also get some perks as thank you. The really big spenders will get our entire back catalogue of what we still have in print, which is a massive pile.
Also check out this really cool promo video with art from the book, made by Víctor Expolio, with music by Feberdröm.
Let’s plunge together into the pits of madness. Let’s watch the dissolution of reality, let’s dance with clear heads and see where it takes us. Let’s travel the river hiding in the desert sands until the wind rises and we reach the final collapse. Let’s look deep into the eye of the tiger. And see afterwards if we dare to dream.
Sound Disturbance is coming up this weekend (Feb 10-12). I will represent Wormgod in a collaboration with Noise Against Fascism in a harsh noise/visual performance on Saturday. There’s a bunch of gigs/sound art performances that start 1930. We are part of that schedule but I don’t know what exact time it’ll be, so you should come for the whole thing.
The Wormgod exhibition After the ends of the world (from AltCom 2014 + the book of the same name) will also be shown at the event, including the soundtrack (in some form or another) by Dekoder, Nimam Spregleda, Feberdröm, Knullkraft and Concrete Threat.
My paintings from last year’s BLEED exhibition (by CBK/Tusen Serier):
The exhibition was made for the release of CBAvol35.
You can see more exhibition photos at Tusen Serier, samples from the book at CBK where you can also order it.
Please do; CBK desperately needs money (crowdfunding thing coming up soon) and it’s a really good issue.
I think I’m just drawing now because I should really work on some applications and/or a few different books and/or a crowdfunding campaign and/or an information folder and all of it is unpaid work but it needs to be done and no one else is doing it (because they can’t or won’t or just don’t) and I just need to smell the pens and I want to have lunch (yeah I know it’s 7 in what I think some of you call “morning” but I’ve only been up for 12 hours and isn’t that when you’re supposed to have lunch and watch a movie?) and continue watching Kurosawa movies or play Limbo or Inside on the PS4 but I still have too much to do and I guess this blog post may be some kind of cry for help or just a moment’s distraction.
And it’s still too early to turn up the volume because the neighbors may still be asleep and I know it’s not nice to wake them.
And I actually feel quite ok and not too stressed-out if it wasn’t for my nagging suspicion that I will have to get out of bed around noon tomorrow and that’s around the time when I usually fall asleep these days.
Edit: It turns out I won’t have to be anywhere until 17 on Thursday, so I can relax a bit after all. Yaay.
New year, new plans. Here are a few mentions of future stuff…
UPCOMING GRAPHIC NOVELS:
En Andra Chans (Tusen Serier) by me and Shko Askari
Sagor från Angered (working title) (Tusen Serier & Blå Stället) by me, Amanda Casanellas & Segal Mohammed
Piracy is Liberation v03 (Wormgod) IF I can only find the time for this, it’d definitely be about time to finally be able to continue this story…
EXHIBITIONS:
Cool Cykel (Tusen Serier presents Tanja Komadina) in February
I don’t want to dream (CBK presents Spyros Verykios and CBAvol36) in May
MORE BOOKS:
Berättelser om Yunnan – minnen från kulturrevolutionen (Tusen Serier) by Emei Burell
CBAvol36: In the pits of madness (CBK) with me as main editor, really excited about this one…
CBAvol37: Fragments (CBK)
FESTIVALS:
I’ll probably be going to the usual ones, maybe something new, we’ll see (preliminary dates)…
Copenhagen Comix (Feb)
SIS (May)
CRACK! (Jun)
Helsinki (Sep)
Novo Doba (Oct)
+ VARIOUS OTHER STUFF
It’s too early to tell yet, but we have some big plans for Hybriden. More news when we know if they will actually happen…
2016 ends and it’s time for a summation. I could comment on the new migration laws, on the ongoing/invigorated persecution of undocumented as well as beggars, the seeming rise of general stupidity, the steady decline of hope as species are going extinct at a rate we haven’t seen since the last ice age, various mad-people in power, abuses perpetrated by various states etc etc (I could also talk about celebrity deaths but why?). But I’m probably going to keep this personal and up-beat(?).
So here are some things I made/was involved in during the year. Mostly unpaid work as usual, which I’m getting increasingly tired of, but what are you going to do? Up-beat, was it? Right. Ok. This is me when I’m unemployed:
COMICS:
The Troll actually came out in the end of 2015, but it was still new when this year started, and it was also my only solo book, so I still feel that it counts.
I had some other plans for upcoming solo books, but none of them have turned into reality. Yet…
Publication-wise when it comes to my own comics, this has been more of an anthology year, with some comics being published in several places:
Viral was drawn in 2015 but published this year in CBAvol30.
Medication, published in CBAvol35: BLEED, Komikaze #42 (web) and #15 (paper) and possibly Alkom’x #9
Idle hands & recreation in CBAvol34: Re: Creation and idleness and possibly Alkom’x #9
Fragments will be in CBAvol37 and possibly Alkom’x #9
Arg Kanin om Samma gamla visa in Asylkalendern 2017.
I sent some of these stories to some other places as well so they may turn up in more places in the future…
ASSOCIATIONS:
Some big steps forward were taken for both Tusen Serier and CBK. Both associations broke some ties with the Swedish Comics Association this year, which feels nice for various reasons that shall remain untold for now. It meant that CBK left the Comics Centre in the Mazetti building where we had been since 2005. Tusen Serier also finished the last project period that was run through the Comics Association. Both of these things lead up to both groups moving together and starting our new exhibition/store/studio/library/storage space Hybriden. We officially opened in March but it definitely feels like we’ve been there for more than a year… The new space also brought a brand-new webshop with it into existence.
CBK also started to get its shit together with the release of CBAvol30: A new hope, which was the first volume made/compiled completely by the new editorial crew. We also published our last graphic novel issue, CBAvol33: Repeat Offenders by Julia Scott, and 3 more anthologies.
FESTIVALS:
There was of course the AltCom 2016 festival, themed WORK. In many ways it felt like it was the best AltCom so far. We managed to create our own pocket universe during those few days in the end of July.
Also visited some other festivals/events (not as many as planned, but enough):
SIS, CRACK!, Oulu art night, Novo Doba, Örebro.
EXHIBITIONS:
–Vasta-Aine was an exhibition at the Oulu Comics Centre, featuring 3 of my recent comics, Medication, Fragments and Happiness.
-I had an exhibition at the CUK Imago in Belgrade during Novo Doba, with some of my old Wormgod prints and some original paintings.
-And, also during Novo Doba, I painted a mural at the Zemun-based cultural centre Matrijaršija.
-The BLEED group exhibition at Hybriden, organized by CBK and Kinga Dukaj, was the coolest exhibition I’ve been a part of for a long while. I made three paintings for this exhibition that took place in the midst of a seriel killer’s murder scene, walls and ceiling covered with plastic sheets, blood (most of it fake) spattered everywhere, special music by Feberdröm…
MORE BOOKS:
Tusen Serier released a batch of new books this year:
Fem historier om prostituerande by Amalia Alvarez
Myling by Amanda Casanellas & Yossra El Said
Mapuche by Jorge Varas Varilla
Void by Susanne Johansson (published in cooperation with Wormgod)
Cool Cykel by Tanja Komadina
THE ANGERED THING:
In November I took over from Amanda Casanellas who was there in October as the Tusen Serier residence artist at Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, a special residency that they had in cooperation with Blå Stället in Angered. During one month I could (mostly) concentrate on one thing instead of a hundred, which was probably quite healthy. I took some breaks to be at the BLEED exhibition and the Örebro festival, but still managed to draw 55 pages based on Amanda’s ideas, which were based on stories from Angered. Urban legends, folk tales, local mythology which we will work into a story to be published at some point during 2017…
LIKE TEARS IN RAIN:
There were probably some more things that might be worth mentioning, some short comics, illustrations, book covers, maybe some project or other, but I simply can’t remember everything and I’m too lazy to look it up.
So I’m going to leave you with a (surprisingly long) list of stuff I’ve watched/played/read in the sessions of downtime squeezed in between all the rest. It’s not all from this year, because only idiots think that there’s no past. And yes, these are just from the top of my head, things I recommend that happened to not slip my mind:
PS3/4:
DMC | Beyond: Two Souls | Enslaved | Alice 2 | The Last Guardian (finally!) | Shadow of the Beast (worthy remake of childhood nostalgia) | Life is strange (just started but seems promising)
TV SERIES (the most noteworthy new discoveries / steady classics):
South Park | Rick & Morty | Westworld | Crazy Head | The OA | Orphan Black | Preacher | Daredevil | Jessica Jones | Luke Cage | Doctor Who (even if there was only one new episodes)
FILMS:
Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen (Kitano is back!) | Sausage Party(!) | Maps to the stars | Lamerica | He never died | Extracted | Mr Six | Batman v Superman (Martha?!) | May Allah bless France | M. Butterfly | Borgman | The Lobster | High-Rise | Schizopolis | Kontroll | The Witch | Urge | Upstream Color | Ghostbusters | Vanishing Waves (ok, I saw this in 2015, but still worth mentioning) | + of course the MCU stuff…
COMICS:
Low | The Wicked + the Divine | Supreme Blue Rose | Starve | Punk Rock Jesus | Empty Zone | Monstress | (all of) Hellblazer | Deadenders | Bitch Planet | Velvet | New Lone Wolf & Cub | Lazarus | Saga | Nameless | Injection | Caliban | Blackgas | Stormwatch (Ellis) | Animal Man (finally caught up on Morrison’s run)| Trees | Deadly Class | Miracleman | Annihilator | + caught up on the X-books up until Secret Wars…
BOOKS:
Woman on the edge of time by Marge Piercy | The Dispossessed by Ursula K LeGuin
Yeah, regular books take me a long time, so 2 in one year is unusually good.
LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH:
Hope you found something interesting that you might have otherwise missed in these lists, and enjoy the last few hours of the year…
It doesn’t seem to be available online, which is too bad because I liked the story, but today’s HD (Helsingborgs Dagblad) featured a novella that I illustrated. Here are some of the drawings I made:
