Back from Helsinki Comics Festival

I’d actually applied to be in the “International Exhibitors” section this year, but since I spoke Finnish nobody took me seriously. Which was just as well, because now I got to have a table next to Ainur and Kaarina in the small press area!

So then I also got to hear about 5000 comments about how the massive book Driftwood wasn’t really a “pienlehti” (‘small magazine’, the Finnish word for small press). Yay! V^(oo)^V

Compared to last year when all three of us had been placed at one single table, and it was really cold and there were floods in the small press tent, it was really nice this year when we all got our own tables and the weather was warm and sunny. Somehow magically it didn’t even seem like any drunk men pissed on the tent the night between Saturday and Sunday, so the small press tent had a pleasant odour all weekend! Amazing!

I sold some books and zines and met some nice, fun or ‘interesting’ people, and I bought these:

* Nyarlathotep, Ainur’s latest zine – a Lovecraftian side story from Goldenbird.

* Laivakoirat (The Shipperkes/The boat doggies) by Syssy Hiitteenkallio – epic maritime doggie comic.

* >> by Oleg Tischenkov – one of the books with his philosophical and cute “Cat” comics, detailing a bit about the background of the comic and how it came to be.

P.S. I also photographed some doggies: