Best of the Year 2008…

Johanna M Beyer – Music of the Spheres.

Forbidden Planet asked me to write something about what I thought about the comics year of 2008.

This is what I wrote.

Hiroyuki Onogawa – Metal Dub Soup.

Tonight is when we make the selection for C’est Bon Anthology vol. 7. We got a lot of good material to chose from, so it looks promising. The deadline for C’est Bon Anthology vol. 8 will be June 1, so if you’re a comics artist reading this, don’t hesitate to send us your stuff!

Con-Dom – Master Speaks.

And in the Gaza strip, people keep being massacred…

Deleted scenes…

Autechre – Sublimit.There’s quite a lot of material for an alternative version of the dream sequence in the beginning of book 004: Copies and Originals. That scene was meant to be much longer from the beginning, but for different reasons it didn’t turn out that way. One day I’ll get around to scanning it to show the sketches at least…

And here’s an old character sketch, from 2002(?):

 

Phylr – Far and Away (Circuit Redux Remix).

By the way, I am as good as finished with the script for Violence now. Will start drawing next week, if not tomorrow…

 

There’s an ever-growing pile of papers with notes for Piracy is Liberation that I have to go through during the writing process for every new script. An assortment of ideas that either have been used already, are meant to go in future books or are not going to be used at all. They’re lying around on no particular order right now, so I have to go through all of it to see if there’s something I had planned that I want to use for Piracy is Liberation 006: Violence.

Some of the unused stuff is interesting. These things may make it into stories that have nothing to do with the Piracy universe. Some of them will show up on the Infotrip site as the equivalent of Deleted Scenes. I just put some stuff up there (on the pages for book 001 and 004). Filed under Story.

Feel-Bad comics…

Edwige – Anna, the pleasure the torment (from the album The inconsolable widow thanks all those who consoled her).

Here’s a sample from a comic that will be published (with some variations, like added color) in an anthology from Komika Förlag on the theme of fire. It will be out sometime next year, I think. This is the remade version that will hopefully make it into C’est Bon Anthology vol. 7 (also next year)… 

eld-cba-2-3_7

Because I’m not interested in making feel-good comics. I recently re-read an old text of mine, about an exhibition we made with C’est Bon Kultur back in the days (ACETON (CH3COCH3, maybe someone remembers it). It made me want to do something reflecting this world we live in and it’s not always a pretty place.

My subtle Fuck You is not always that subtle (a friend/collaborator once said about my comics: “There’s a subtle ‘Fuck you’ to everything you do”, and it’s one of the remarks I ever got that I like the most).

Contagious Orgasm & Government Alpha – From the Outside.

Small Christmas Victories.

Hunting Lodge – Banishing Dirge.

Spent Christmas alone this year. Just me, Haibane Renmei and Bright Future (which was amazingly good by the way).

Haus Arafna – Paranoia.

It struck me yesterday at some point that for some reason you assume that you’re the only one being alone on Christmas. Which probably isn’t true, but it’s probably also the reason that it’s so hard on those who actually are alone (involuntarily so). It seems like everyone else in the world has got someone. Like the old Future Sound Of London song: Everyone in the world is doing something without me.

Karl Runau – Hope for your understanding.

Not for me though. I simply enjoy avoiding (as much as is possible) any kind of empty tradition for tradition’s sake. Sitting alone watching movies on Christmas eve feels like a small victory.

Hypnoskull – No Chance Left.

It’s a voctory (very small, but still) against tradition, against commercialism/capitalism and it’s prophet, Coca Cola’s own Santa Clause.

Alec Empire – Overdose.

Ok, that’s it. Time for breakfast (which, taking place after 18.00, is also a small voctory in itself)…

Current 93 – Crowleymass.

 

Ett steg närmare kulturell kollaps…

Sorry, this is in Swedish because I started writing it in Swedish so that’s the way it came out… Normally this blog is in English, of course.
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Ang pågående fildelningsdebatt i HD…

Precis som videon när den kom på 70-talet förstörde filmbranschen, precis som kassetten när den kom förstörde musikbranschen, så kommer nu fildelningen att förstöra all kulturproduktion. Det enda som kommer att finnas kvar är kultur som produceras för producentens egen skaparglädjes skull. Vad händer med den kommersiella kulturen om vinstintresset tas bort ur beräkningen? Tänk på allt fint som skulle försvinna.

Originaliteten kommer vi också att gå miste om när alla har fri tillgång till vad andra har gjort. Och tänk på allt skräp som kommer att flöda på fildelningsnätverken. Material som inte har prövats genom att behöva godkännas av de stora produktionsbolagen för att se om det är kommersiellt gångbart. Vanliga konsumenter, gratiskonsumenter dessutom, kommer att få avgöra på egen hand vad som är bra och dåligt. Vågar vi verkligen lita på deras omdöme?

Vågar vi dessutom lita på att behovet av kultur fortfarande är så stort att någon kommer att vara beredd att se till att dess kreatörer fortfarande har en försörjning? Vågar vi lita på att företag och/eller stat kan se sig ha ett tillräckligt intresse i att kultur fortsätter produceras?

Vi kan bara hoppas…