SIS/SPX14 SHORT REPORT
Yay, it’s already been a couple of weeks since I got back from Stockholm International Comics Festival. It went really quickly and smoothly and I sold crazy amounts of comics and of course piggy postcards, and I met crazy amounts of fun people, and managed to spend a little quality time with my awesome Swedish comics friends. Best SPX Stockholm ever (but I say that every year …).
I shared a table in the big hall with Ainur. It was a bit cramped so I displayed the back issues of my zine Tunguska in a really classy cardboard box, as you can see below … But I actually sold a few of them too. Maybe if this becomes a recurring theme I should bring a nice-looking cardboard box next time.
The biggest hit was of course The Slow and the Relentless. Yay! I’m glad I printed so many. (There’s even a little review already, here.)
Busy signing comics … photo by Thomas Karlsson!
Lucky for us we got a table here by the benches, where there was a little bit of draft. Others complained about how bad the air was in the big hall, but we were okay.
And this is how badass we looked, as usual … photo by Lars-Erik/caltex98!
I always try not to bankrupt myself buying comics there, although the temptation is heavy. But I have self-control of steel. This year’s loot:
Postcards from Mangapatriarkatet (podcast about comics by the awesomepants Lisa Medin and Stef Gaines), porcine poster (“Love Swine, Hate Cops”), Fridas resor by Frida Ulvegren, Dagarna i mars by Stef Gaines, Mitt ex som gjorde slut är sur på min flickvän by Tomas Antila, Aomanjuskogen part 2 by Hisae Iwaoka, Plutonium 11 (I have a piggy comic in it), Rysk afton på de övergivna männens poesiklubb by Andreas Rosengren, C’est Bon Anthology 24 – “Hair” (I have a hairy comic in it :3 ), Människomaskinen by Lisa Medin, weird flyer by Daniel Ahlgren, and a free PDF download of Åtta ben från underjorden #4 by Jenny Hannula!
I also got to meet some newborn chicks and their extended family:
And Lady Oscar:
It was atypically hot and sunny in Stockholm (except on Monday – clearly the whole city was crying because SIS was over ;_;).
But it was still very nice to walk the last bit home through the lush dirt roads of Brandenburg. :3
The Slow and the Relentless part 5 and 6 (the end)!
I finally finished my slow and relentless “24h comic” (actually 52h comic…) Go read it!
The Slow and the Relentless zine
56 pages of Soviet truck racing action in the Siberian winter!
Alex is crazy about cars and racing. But this winter her stunt driver mom has dragged her along to the snowy depths of the Russian province, and tells Alex she’s too young to drive in Russia, so she is to stay the hell away from cars. Alex soon discovers that the big thing in Urgunovo is truck racing, and for her new classmates, not having a valid licence is not an issue. However, the races, as well as Karim, the total babe sharing a desk with Alex in school, are ruthlessly dominated by Irka, the mayor’s daughter … Does Alex have what it takes to beat her?!
I finished the comic just in time to print a zine for Stockholm International Comics Festival this weekend. (I don’t have time and also I’m evil, so I won’t post the rest of it online until after the festival. Mua hah haa …)
The theme of this year’s SIS is “representation”, and I guess The Slow and the Relentless fits the theme quite nicely. It’s (obviously) inspired by the Fast and Furious films. While Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner is probably the least annoying “obligatory white male lead in a mostly non-white cast” ever, the trope was more obvious and annoying in Tokyo Drift, with Lucas Black as the boring lead and Bow Wow’s much more interesting character inexplicably relegated to the role of “the funny sidekick”. So I wanted to subvert that trope and write a Fast and Furious type story with a black girl as the main character and a funny white girl as a sidekick/comic relief. Yay! V^(oo)^V
So come get it in Stockholm! My table (shared with my awesomepants sister Ainur) is here:
P.S. I’ve got something else that’s brand new and will be for sale at SIS – piggy postcards! Yay!
China White
A while ago I threatened to make “more serious” comics in watercolours. That’s what I’m doing right now!
I made some disastrous colouring mistakes with the first page and had to edit it a lot in Photoshop afterwards.
Just in time after I’d half destroyed it, I remembered one of Joann Sfar’s musings about watercolours – something like that you shouldn’t try use “natural”/”realistic” colours. And I figured that green can basically go fuck itself …
Adhering to that, the second page was even more fun and I’m quite pleased with how it came out. :3
Cosmonautics Day
Yesterday, April 12th, was Cosmonautics Day (in honour of Yury Gagarin’s first manned space flight :3 ). My plum tree is in early bloom.
This year’s garlic looks very happy too! The succulent-looking plants in the upper left make pretty flowers in autumn. Below them I’ve stuck some scallion stubs that are about to grow new leaves.
Cosmonautics Day selfie :3
