COMICINVASIONBERLIN 2017
In the weekend I was at Comicinvasion Berlin, yay!
It was a bit of a disaster, because my brand spanking new zines that I had planned to have at the festival were stuck in the parcel center with a “sorting error” for almost a week (today it finally says the delivery is underway ;___;).
So I only had old stuff, but there were enough people who didn’t know it or didn’t have all of my books yet so it was okay I guess.
Of course there were so many other amazing comics at the festival, and my best new discoveries were Grey Area: From the City to the Sea by Tim Bird, a quietly poetic comic where the artist travels from London to the North Sea and reflects on the landscapes, and Drawing the XXth Century by Lithuanian and Belarusian artists Lina Itagaki, Miglė Pužaitė, Viktorija Ežiukas and Viktoryia Andrukovič, with stories told by the artists’ parents and grandparents and documented as comics. To my shame I couldn’t buy a copy of the latter, because the story The White Pig by Lina Itagaki was so sad that I would just have cried every time I glanced at the book. V;(oo);V
Somehow I didn’t take photos of anything, except …
1. This absolutely deliriously hypnotic doggie, who was tabling with the art suppliers Malstoff, and got lots and lots of cuddles from everyone, very much including myself:
2. My calling cards that I painted by hand on the spot (maybe I should print proper ones):
(Oops, forgot to colour one)
The next festival I’m going to is Stockholm International Comics Festival! The main event is May 20th-21st, and I will be part of an amazing group exhibition that opens on May 19th and finishes on the 25th!
COMICINVASIONBERLIN 2015
Photo by Lilli Loge – On Sunday, Lenara and Ilan brought me falafel, and even cake, even though they did not know it was my birthday! To the right are my friendly table neighbours Katja (reading one of my Eva zines) and Matthias.
My piggy postcards were a big hit as always. A French couple exclaimed “C’est magnifique!” at each piggy postcard and bought all seven. A group of Chinese girls were likewise amazed by them and two of them also took advantage of the piggy postcard value pack (1 for 50 cents, all 7 for only 3 €). Yeaahh …
I sketched a few piggies over the weekend, though my table was too small to colour them with watercolours.
I even sold a few Driftwood books, after I remembered that in Germany you need to put the things you want to get sold in the middle of the table, not in the corners like in Sweden.
Somebody asked me to “like” and “share” some post on facebook. He was kind of hot so I agreed. Sadly I never found that post. He bought a zine from me and took a photo of me, so he should be able to find me easily … If you are that kind of hot guy, please send me the link to that facebook post and I will be most pleased to do things to it. V^(oo)^V
I sold no more than three copies of my brand new awful poetry collection Hunger Will Drive the Piggy Home. Two to friends/colleagues, and one to a person who just bought all the zines that had covers she liked. I am now confident that this is the right outlet for my creativity.
P.S. Already next week, there is Stockholm International Comics Festival! Phew! V`(oo)´;V
No Zinefest for me …
This weekend it’s Zinefest, but I’m too §$%&ing ill … Today I had to go out a bit, and on the bus home I got one of those conditions when slime drips down your throat, and it makes your eyes water like crazy, but if you cough or breathe too hard you’re going to puke! Yay!
In fact I was able to breathe very flatly and with great focus and keep swallowing desperately for about 10 minutes until the danger was over. But I’m in no state for selling zines …
Belated Helsinki Comics Festival photodump
The Islamic congregation of Helsinki and some old villa behind the trees
Doggie paparazzi photos
Essential artist’s supplies: loads of sketchbooks, Russian and Chinese watercolours, and also Aspirin. :3
Piggy window painting
At Sarjakuvakeskus (the comics centre) in Helsinki they had a table on which you could try out the pens they sell at their cafe. So I drew some proletarian piggies …
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Stef Gaines was our super special guest and made lots of photos:
* Me sewing zines in the last second (Ainur and Stef were awesomepants and helped me fold them, for which they were rewarded with copies of Electric Tsunamis)
* Ainur and I being cool at our table, as always (with Nicola in the background, doing something indeterminable)
* Coffee and the Mochi dummy (Mochi is a character in Ainur’s extraordinary comic Goldenbird!)
* Finnish pirogue and the Mochi dummy
* Me at Sarjakuvakeskus, wearing extremely Finnish, Mymlan-style clothes that Ainur gave me after having grown out of them (the pattern persists even in adulthood!), yet drinking German lemonade
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… Anyway, back in Berlin I saw this fluffy white doggie at Frankfurter Tor:
Helsinki Comics Festival piggy drawings
The highlight of the festival was probably when a slightly inebriated Russian showed up, distraught that he had lost his tour bus and had to figure out how to get home to Vyborg somehow, in this hostile city where nobody spoke Russian and police officers gave him the finger when he tried to ask them for help. Luckily I actually did speak Russian, so I showed him the way to the central train station, from where he was hopefully able to catch a taxi to the port. :-/
On Saturday I sold 34 piggy postcards and some books and zines, and I painted some watercolour piggies (and some kind of disproportional/non-euclidic shiba):
On Sunday my comics business was totally dead, so I painted “desolate piggies in melancholy landscapes”, as Ainur dubbed them:
