Report from Zinefest Berlin 2012
I’ve been really bad at reporting from festivals this year, but now I’ll make an effort to better myself in that respect!
It was my first time at Zinefest Berlin (last year it coincided with the festival in Gothenburg), and I was a bit nervous that it would be full of hipsters who would only consider getting my comics zines in an ‘ironical’ way. But while the hipster density was somewhat high, there was still plenty of metalheads and nerdy and/or leftish people (my usual readership – people who are like me, I guess V^(oo)^V) who were interested in my zines in an honest and straightforward way.
I was superlucky and got such a beautiful table that I didn’t have to use my tablecloths:
There were quite many English speaking people, so I brought both my German and my English zines, and made little piggy signs:
At one point one person insisted on paying 2 € for the German edition of The Muggers (that I sold for only 1 €). That confused me so much that I tried to offer him the English edition instead, since it’s bigger, has thicker paper and actually costs 2 € … But he really wanted the German edition and he really wanted to pay 2 € for it. O_o
Someone else, who bought both of the German Eva zines, commented that she liked my stuff a lot and that it’s unusual to find both good stories and good drawings in the same comics. *Sigh*! <3
I sold several zines down to the last copy, so I guess I have to make more …
What happens when you don’t drink alcohol:
On Sunday, almost everybody else came a couple hours later than our schedule said, perhaps because they had been partying until 5 AM the night before …
During that deadtime I read a book on Russian art history that was lying around on the shelf behind my table (the festival was held in the rooms of the Berlin School for Adult Education). There were some comics in that book:
“How the mice buried the cat”, 18th century. Another comic featured was one of Mayakovsky’s Rosta windows. (More …)
Anyway, I sold surprisingly much, and I also traded for some interesting zines, like Meeresbande Zine (about living with disassociative identity disorder) and a couple of pretty comics zines by Lilli Loge.
As usual I did little sketches while attending my table, mostly of visiting doggies and random piggies.
Zines for the Finns
In preparation for Helsinki Comics Festival this weekend, I expanded my arsenal with three more English language zines!
I’ve been a bit lazy with the English paper comics. Previously I only had my two most recent 24 h comics as zines in English, White Nights and The Muggers.
Hourly Comics Day 2012 is obviously my hourly comic from this year. It was so epic and porcine that it had to be made into a zine.
16 pages, A6. V^(oo)^V
The Compass Rose is the long-awaited English translation of this (very) short spinoff story from Driftwood, about Aeron back when he was more confused. In spite of my “enormous nose” artistic phase at the time I drew it, it’s one of my prettier comics. Though when I look at it now I’m confounded that his ex-girlfriend looks so “Caucasian”, when she’s supposed to be of clearly African descent (but has albinism) … x_X White-washing my own characters, eh …
In any case I would really like to draw a much longer comic about her (as herself, not as his girlfriend).
12 pages, A5.
Yess, the latest and longest Eva story is now also in English! One night Eva is assaulted by some Nazi-Darwinists. She beats them to pulp and doesn’t think much of it, but what if it did lead to some disastrous consequences, after all? In this story, Eva – who normally prefers to be a “one woman army” – actually teams up with the hot gangster The Leopard, who collects the debts off Eva’s toyboy Ting Yay and his sister. But what will Ting Yay think about that??!!!
44 pages, A5.
I’ll be sharing a table with my eminent sister Ainur. We will also be selling Swedish Comic Sin 2 and 3 (I participated in #3, Ainur in both :3 ), and Ainur will have fabulous zines with her comic Goldenbird! And I guess we’ll also have some pins and maybe other little things.
We’ll be in the Small Press Heaven (Pienlehtitaivas). See you there …? V^(oo)^V
Bałtycki Festiwal Komiksu!
At the end of last month I was surprise invited to the Baltic Comics Festival in Gdansk. Last year, Gdansk artists came to Berlin to draw 24 h comics, and Berlin artists went to Gdansk to do the same. Then, for this festival, they printed little books with all the comics and made an exhibition with them. They didn’t have enough German comics, so they asked us from the other 24 h comics session in Berlin last year if we wanted to be part of it. I happened to be one of the first to answer, so there I was …
I had actually never properly met my travel companions Auge and Ulla of the comics library Renate, so it was a bit like, “hey, do you want to go on a road trip to Poland with some random strangers to a festival you’ve never heard about?!” Well, sounds like fun to me! V^(oo)^V
They turned out to be the nicest and most leisurely of people, very nice companions on a slow drive with lots of stops for nice food and interesting sights.
I made some quick sketches of what I saw during the ride:
Girl sitting outside a farmhouse – she actually had bright red hair and a neon green top, which looked interesting, but which a graphite pencil can’t quite catch …
And the great potato monument in Biesiekierz.
Wild piggy grill bar, and an old man standing in the middle of a field with his bike, talking on his cell phone.
Wooden bear in a garden, and a huge fuzzy doggie, the sight of whom made me feel so fuzzy on the inside that I could barely draw. (Yes, my thumbnail is still dirty from yesterday’s gardening efforts.)
All right, so after a few hours of leisurely driving and eating amazing pierogi at rest stops, we arrived in Gdansk …
Post-Stockholm International Comics Festival 2012
I will write a longer post (in Swedish) later, when I have more photos …
It was a fun festival this year, as always. I presented to the world Drivgods, one of the fattest books of the year, and perhaps one of the strangest comics to ever have been published in Swedish. Maybe I should have made the inside covers blank, or at least left more empty space on the title page, because there wasn’t that much space to draw impressive things when I signed it for people.
🙁
Also, my zine Tunguska #9 won the Swedish Comics Association’s big comics zine award 2012! I don’t remember the motivation, but perhaps they will publish it somewhere eventually. V^(oo)^V Apparently the jury thought it was the best among about 300 zines that they had received (apart from the ones that had won too often already …). :3
But the greatest moment was when a wonderful person bought issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of Tunguska. I signed them all.
* * *
Those who didn’t have enough money to buy Drivgods or couldn’t make it to SIS but want it, see the instructions in the top of the left column!
Posters och vykort :3
Omslaget till Drivgods-boken blev ju så jävla snyggt, så jag kände mig tvungen att trycka lite vykort och posters med det.
Vykort – med runda kanter!! V*(oo)*V
Sen tryckte jag posters på linduk. Det är snyggt och håller mycket bättre än papper. Om man för ett nomadiskt leverne som jag uppskattar man att man helt enkelt kan rulla upp dem och inte behöver oroa sig för att de ska skrynklas eller plattas ihop i packningen.
Om man inte för ett nomadiskt leverne kan man även spänna upp dem på en kilram (30 x 40 cm).
Jag gjorde tre av varje motiv, så det är med andra ord en extremt limiterad upplaga!
Detaljbilder.
