As of today, the Arvsfonden project FANZINEVERKSTADEN is officially finished. Fanzineverkstaden itself will live on, more or less in the same form it’s been since it opened (but with less workshops, at least for a while). One of the final things I did as part of the project was this guide for how to put together a zine (only in Swedish so far).
It’s not a basic step-by-step guide for complete beginners so much as it is a list of things that are good to keep in mind to raise the quality of your zine. Or at least avoid some of the pitfalls you might stumble into on the way. Short recommendations for file formats, resolution, technical design issues, distribution etc. Useful things.
SIS (Stockholms Internationella Seriefestival) is up and running now, and I sell two digital comics at Seriefrämjandet’s Seriemarknad. The link sets off all my virus alerts here, but it should be safe so if you can’t open it, try another webreader.
This is my first try at selling digital comics. I wanted to sell them as CBR files (a classic format for pirated comics), but that wasn’t allowed so I made them in a more regular format (collections of JPGs).
Piracy is Liberation 001-004 bundle I met someone once who told me that finding the first two Piracy is Liberation books on thepiratebay when she was young changed her life. I think she exaggerated, but just in case, here are the first FOUR books of the series in a ZIP bundle. Unzip and read as JPEGs. Political theory, filtered through autobiography, masked as fiction in the form of cyberpunk postapocalypse. 265 pgs, in English, 50 sek
Spyware A Piracy is Liberation short story. Spyware knows that they’ve implanted surveillance equipment in her teeth, bu no one believes her so she leaves City and wanders into the desert to do something about it, but she finds more than she expected. This short story was a finalist in the 4th Morning International Comics Competition in Japan. Unzip and read as JPEGs. 32 pgs, in English, 15 sek
I’m the main editor of this issue, and I think there’s some great stuff in there.
Burnout has become an increasingly normal part of everyday life for many of us since the term was getting widespread use in the late 1900s. From hospital staff to comic creators to basically any job in the gig economy. Anyone who doesn’t have a steady income, or who is expected to do more work in less time than is reasonable, can feel it. So who or what is to blame? Could we create a situation, a systemic change, to avoid the conditions that cause burnout?
Of course, I’ve been working on my own burnout for about 20 years. I haven’t quite broken down yet, but who knows how long that can last? So when it was my turn to helm a new issue of CBA, I thought this theme must be one with a high recognition factor, not least among comics creators. We didn’t mean for the deadline to be extra short, but when it turned out that way it was tragically fitting. In the end, I’m quite happy with the result.
Comics by: Steve Nyberg [SE], Mattias Elftorp [SE], Henna Räsänen [FI], Iso Sling Lindh [SE], Tom Mortimer [UK], Radovan Popović [RS], Aleksandar Opačić [RS], Manuel Rodriguez Navarro [DE], Felipe Kolb Bernardes [BR/DE], Korin(a) Hunjak [HR], Julia Nascimento [BR], Aiden Kvarnström [SE]. Texts: Kinga Dukaj [SE], anonymous [SE], Lisa Weibull [SE]. Illustrations: Rasmus Gran [SE]. Cover & main editor: Mattias Elftorp [SE].
My own contribution, apart from the cover and editing, is a comic called BurnOut Boy. An attempt at comedy/semi-autobiography. Here’s a page:
I just got the new issue of Brand in the mail the other day. The theme is Generations (of activism) and they used two of my illustrations for the 90s chapter in an article about the autonomous movement in Skåne.
These drawings were published some years ago in the book Trettionde November, by Andrés Brink Pinto and Johan Pries. It’s about the autonomous/antifascist demonstrations in Lund that used to happen each November 30 when various nazi groups used to march in commemoration of Karl XII, the old Swedish king who spent most of his regency waging war against the rest of Europe. Very glorious. Legend has it he was shot by one of his own soldiers who used a button from his uniform as a bullet. Here’s a replica I’ve had since I was a kid…
I guess that’s what happens when you expect people to kill and die for you but you don’t pay them enough for bullets. There’s an anarchist point in there.
If memory serves, the nazis stopped their royalist celebrations after a final big riot in 2008. Don’t say a riot never lead to anything good.
Speaking of antifascist wins, did you hear about how the people of a neighborhood in Glasgow stopped a deportation not long ago? They just turned up, more and more people, to stand in the way until the deportation was stopped.
Today, the new Tusen Serier exhibition opens at Hybriden.
It’s a sci fi project about border politics that also touches on other subjects. It was started by Open Art Week as a collaboration between Tunisian and Italian comic creators, as the first of (so far) two such exhibitions. We got the opportunity to join and expand upon their concept with artists from the network connected to Tusen Serier and Hybriden.
The showcased artists in the Tusen Serier edition are: Elida Maiques Korin(a) Hunjak Julia Nascimento Felipe Kolb Bernardes Leviathan Ana Biscaia Amalia Alvarez and me
It’s been some work with coordination, programming etc, but it feels real good to be part of this project.
Here are a few panels from my contribution:
To be continued in the exhibition…
La nuova frontiera (The new frontier) was initiated and produced by OPEN ART WEEK. In partnership with: Biblioteca delle Nuvole (IT), Lab619 (TN), Fokus Illustration (CH) Tusen Serier (SE), Hybriden (SE). Artistic coordination: Claudio Ferracci and Abir Gasmi. The Tusen Serier edition of The new frontier is presented with support from Malmö Kulturnämnd.
Since it’s May 1 today, which is celebrated all over the world in remembrance of the murdered Haymarket anarchists and the struggle in general of the international working class…
Anyway, here’s my latest published illustration work: cover + illustration in the latest issue of Portuguese journal of anarchist expression: A Batalha #291.
The same Kropotkin portrait will also be included in an upcoming issue of the Swedish anarchist magazine Brand, and I also made print of a variant on the same image, which you can buy from Hybriden:
Ihor Homenyuk was a Ukrainian immigrant in Portugal who was beaten and asphyxiated to death by SEF border police while locked up in a detention centre awaiting deportation.
Maybe one day we’ll get to remember victories instead of death and defeat…
In a few ways, it feels wrong to use this post to try to sell stuff, and also trying to sell a portrait of an anarchist. On the other hand… This is the first day of my latest period of unemployment, so that’s a thing. And I was really happy with how it turned out so I thought maybe someone else will also like it, and they’re not free to print, and I did the published illustrations for free, and it’s not uncommon for anarchists to want people to get paid for their work. And… It may sound like I’m defending myself to whoever is reading this, but I’m pretty sure I’m defending it more to myself. I have a complicated relationship with money (and work).
At least I’m not one of those fucking assholes who are refusing to release the patents for (I was going to say COVID, but that’s faar from the only one) vaccines etc in order to maximize their profits.
“Bring Back The Age Of The Guillotine” to quote Khmer Noir… Here’s a little something from them to cheer you up and celebrate the day:
My latest published comics work is a 2 page story in Alkom ‘ X 11 HellHeaven
About the book: 17 x 25 cm, 7 hand stitched notebooks 102 pages, 1 lino, 1 stamp board Lino cover lost plate 2 passages Printing 150 screen prints on 4 different papers price: 19 euro artists: David Paleo, Kapreles, Радован Поповић, Crippa Almqvist, Zeke Clough, Zven Balslev, Muriel Bellini, Jeff Gaither, Dan Michiu, El Rughi, Mattias Elftorp, Denis GRRR Art, Scarlatin Taipan , Audrey Faury, Jean-Jacques Tachdjian, Paul Boswell, Alkbazz Garagel, Tommi Musturi, Alain Marciano, Herve Andre, Gabriel Delmas, Gene Mutation, Marcel Ruijters, Craig Earp, Xenoid, Reijo Kärkkäinen, Olaf Ladousse , Concrete Cité… The Garage L., Branquignols Publishers, 2021
They recommend that you order it directly from the editor, Alkbazz: alkbazz(at)free.fr but it’s also possible from Etsy.
I’m not very good at bragging. Mostly I just tell people (= blog about, post some link somewhere) about things I’ve been involved in and hope for the best, but I’m going to give it a try here, because far too few people bought CBA vol 47 that I was the main editor of (which I know because I’ve seen the orders).
I’m not even marketing my own stuff here, mostly, and I don’t make any money from the sales, so it’s self-less bragging, really. I do this for you. So here goes:
One of the things I did make in this volume was the cover, and I’m really happy with it. It’s a combination of a linocut print, a scan of the plastic sheet I used to mix the paint when I did the print, the old circuitboard I scanned and used for Piracy is Liberation after finding it at the dump in Skellefteå in the 1990s, and maybe some other random structures I had lying around. The letters of the title are left-overs from someone’s (Kinga’s?) lino cut-outs for something. Anyway, I had fun doing it and think it worked pretty well as a cover.
The first comic, by Avi Heikkinen was the winner of the comics competition in Oulu where I was one of the judges (because I got the honorary prize the year before). I really liked how it’s look of photo-based drawings worked well with the story about a camera that can look into the past, and a film-maker who becomes obsessed with it.
Next up is a comic I wrote and compiled, based on a nightmare that Kinga Dukaj had, built out of one of my favorites of her artworks. It’s one of those dreams where you dream that you wake up but then realize you’re still in the dream, then you wake up but realize you’re still in a dream and so on. Layer by layer. Scary stuff that made for a scary story that fit really well with her photomanipulation of a tree growing out of a skull.
Then there’s Danijel Žeželj. Danijel fucking Žeželj, just to emphasize, because not enough people have seen his works. And a lot have, because he’s worked on X-men, Superman and a whole lot of other stuff, self-published and at big publishers. I first heard about him from the Stripburger crew when they were visiting Malmö in 2005 and talked about Stripburger in particular and Balkan comics in general. I saw Žeželj’s stuff and immediately fell in love! First time we published him in CBA was later that year, or maybe the year after. We distributed a few copies of his book Small Hands, which is sadly out of print now, I think, but it’s one of my favorite comics. Anyway, it’s always great to have his stuff in one of our books and you should check him out if you don’t already know his works.
After discovering Balkan comics, I found Komikaze, a Croatian web-based anthology, and in Komikaze I found a bunch of artists that we also published back in the day. One of which is now a friend of mine that I meet maybe once or twice year (pre-covid, when we could go to festivals), which is far too seldom; Radovan Popović. His art style here is based on chaotic paintings/collages, evocative and dark and beautiful. In this case a story connected to Philip K Dick, inspired by the Science/Fiction theme.
Another artist originating in the Balkans but living in Canada at the time is Ivana Filipović. I may be mistaken but I don’t think I found her but rather she found us. She sent a comic to the AltCom anthology of 2018, which she said was the first comic she made in about 20 years. A great honor and I’m glad she started again because I really like her stuff. Mostly straight-up drawings, and this is no different. She picked up on the religion-related part of the theme, with a fun/dystopic sci fi twist. Edit: Turns out she found us when Radovan shared a link about CBA. So there you go, it’s all connected somehow…
Korin(a) Hunjak, another Balkan artist, but one that I’ve had less personal contact with, made this one. The ”where is the line between the living and the artificial” robot story is a classic, and one I often find interesting. This one is thematically reminiscent of the game Detroit: Become Human (which I replayed recently, by the way. Great game).
Francisco Sousa Lobo is a friend of a friend in Portugal. I have a couple of his books published by Portuguese comics network/publisher/association Chili Com Carne, and they’re always interesting, mostly low-key storytelling with simple lines that don’t necessarily betray the dark undertones of the stories. This one is no exception, and I think it’s a good sample of what he’s doing. You should check him out!
Last but not least, one of the founding members of CBK, Oskar Aspman, got inspired to make a new comic in his way that is often abstract in story, expressive in line-work, apocalyptic in mood. Always a pleasure.
And I also wrote a few illustrated text pieces, one about the construction of identity, one about something I’ve been thinking a lot about the last few years: how we seem to be living in an increasingly fictionalized world, in the post-truth era that former US president Trump is such a great champion for. It’s interesting and pretty frightening depending on the kind of dystopic fiction we often end up living in…
So that’s it. Maybe none of this sounds like something you’d like and then you should probably stay away. But if you’re anything like me and it sounds like something for you, give it a try (buy it here)! This is one of my favorite issues in recent years, and not just because I was so involved in putting it together, but because I think it’s really good!
By the way, if you want a wide variety of comics in style and content, why not get a subscription? It’s an extra good idea to get it now, before we will have to to raise the price due to increased postage costs. If you’re like me, you like things that are high-quality and low-price, so if you make sure you get your subscription before mid-April, you’ll get a better deal (not that it’s going to get super expensive after that, but still)!
