DOG ISLAND CHAPTER 1 ZINE
The first chapter of Dog Island is done, and collected in a beautiful printed zine!
I had a six years long hiatus in the middle of drawing it, but returned to it last year thanks to corona and the overwhelming feeling that nothing matters anymore, so I might as well do whatever the hell I want to do.
You can get a copy here in my gumroad store.
Hunger Will Drive the Piggy Home
Since I only ever get shit for drawing comics, I will from now on express myself exclusively in awfully bad poetry, illustrated with piggy pictures. It will be so pathetic that nobody will ever want to plagiarise it, abuse it in their blackmailing schemes or make fat profits off it while paying me nothing but small change for my hard work. V^(oo)^V
My first work in the genre is this little zine, which collects eight poems, most of which I wrote around the turn of the century. The illustrations, on the other hand, are almost all brand new – I made most of them this early afternoon.
For those who read my comics back in the day when I still drew them, there’s a drawing with Aeron and Willie as piggies (because that poem is really about them, but I didn’t want to break the piggy theme …).
You can get it from my table at COMICINVASIONBERLIN this weekend! See you at Urban Spree, Revaler Str., 12:00-20:00 April 18th and 19th.
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!
Leipziger Buchmesse this week!
From tomorrow until Sunday I’ll be at the Manga-Comic-Convention at the Leipzig book fair and sell my books and zines.
I’ll of course have Driftwood, and also Swedish Comic Sin books as well as zines in German and English.
I made a new German edition of all the Eva stories in their own zines:
Previously the first four stories were in one fat zine, but it’s sold out. Now I discovered that at some point I had translated also the more recent stories into German, so I made new German zines with those. And I updated all the translations, since apparently my German has improved a bit in these seven years since I moved here again.
I have some fun ideas for table decoration, so I hope to make some decent photos … V^(oo)^V
Last time I was in Leipzig was in 2007 for one day, at the claustrophobic manga zine area they had back then. Now the doujinshi area is much larger, more open, and also next to the catering, which is always a plus.
The convention is four full days. I guess some people are staying in Leipzig over the duration of the fair, but the commute from Berlin is just 1,5 hours, which is totally normal commute time for me anyway, so I just got a weekly train ticket and will get to ride awesome ICE fast trains every day.
It’s Helsinki Comics Festival tomorrow!
At Lasipalatsi Square in central Helsinki, the 28th edition of the festival has once more set up its tents. Now on Saturday and Sunday we will brave the Finnish September temperatures again … Luckily the weather seems a bit milder and less prone to floods than last year!
I’ve been so busy with boring dayjobs that I haven’t had time to do any press work at all for Driftwood. This is the only photo I’ve made of the books so far (right after opening the first boxes upon delivery):
They are really awesomepants. I’ll be selling Driftwood at the festival for 20 € each, and 10 € for Flotsam and Jetsam, the short story and behind the scenes info book.
Of course it’s not enough for me to present only the big fat Driftwood book as a new thing at the festival. I also made a zine with (my apparently totally innovative e-book comic) Electric Tsunamis (in English), mainly because I want to see if I can sell more printed copies than Bonniers can sell electronic copies! 😀
I will of course also have all other English-language books and zines that I have currently in print …
See you this weekend – Saturday the 7th from 11:00 to 20:00, and Sunday the 8th from 12:00 to 18:00!
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Bonus doggie etc. chalk drawings from the festival grounds:
