I got an invitation to lend some of my originals to an exhibition on Finnish adventure comics. I should select some with Andy, don’t you think?

This is one of my favourite pages with Mochi, but all black and patterned fields are missing from the original, so it may not be very interesting. Is it cheating to repaint an original?

There’s an interview with me about another project at the Swedish Comic Sin blog. You can order books 2 & 3 from me here in Finland, too.

Swedish Comic Sin 2: 20 € (+shipping fee).
Swedish Comic Sin 3: 10 € (+shipping fee). Delivery after May 20th, 2012.

The Nyarlathotep storyline starts here.

The Nyarlathotep storyline starts here.

New friends, old friends, interesting discussions, new discoveries – the festival delivered. Perhaps surprisingly in these trying times, a lot of people were happy to spend their hard-earned cash on my comics, and my neighbors in the Small Press Heaven tent made similar observations. Sari sold out her KÄRMES fanzine (a funny and educational all-ages story of the inner life of a snake in bright, happy colours) and homemade owl jewellery (I bought a ring) and Kaarina’s hilarious and memorable characters were an instant success (I bought her Sarjakuvahahmojen salaiset seikkailut – the secret adventures of the comic characters – brilliant dialogue and an incredible amount of small clever ideas crammed into 32 pages).

Goldenbird also sold well, and people even thought that it was cheap (5 € for 64 pages is pretty decent – I might raise the price in the future). I also sold/gave away ashcan prints of Jelly Roll Blues as advertisements for 10 cents each. Of the original share of 30, I still have something like 16 Swedish Comic Sin 2 books that haven’t been reserved for very special people, so hurry to get yours! I gave two to the comic archive of Sarjakuvakeskus and one to the comic journal Sarjainfo for review.

Comics that I bought:

Essi Kakkola – Minä vs. laki ja järjestys

- Her attractive art style caught my eye (as well as the neat haircut). Weird dreams – I have them, I love them. Essi’s dreams have their own peculiar logic and sexy uniforms

Tuukka Virtaperko – Omenapuu

- He offered me his book and 10 € for one SCS volume. I immediately agreed. This would make a neat Christmas gift for a dear old friend of mine. Surprisingly many LOL moments even though I tick at least 11 boxes in the list of possibly offended types on page 6. Tuukka was also dressed in military style at the festival :3

Ilkka Markkula & Jukka Koivusaari – Punainen ratsumies – Verner Lehtimäen tarina osa 1

- The art makes me cry a little on the inside, but I can’t resist the historical topic. Verner Lehtimäki was a leader of the Red guards in the Finnish civil war. This story pulls no punches – provocateurs are being shot on slightest suspicion, Swedish volunteers taste the sabre, and Verner even finds time for some romance with a brave courier. Maybe I should try my hand on a story about Aarne Orjatsalo.

Team Pärvelö – TentaLove luku 1. Idiootit ja realistit

- Now and then even I find some boy’s love story quite suspicious and totally irresistible. Great, lively expressions and body language. Jaakko the Ostrobothnian pervert nerd is my new idol. (I’m not sure if he’s Ostrobothnian, but there was this cute note in dialect…)

Now, without further ado, some nice photos.

Photo: Kaarina Uimonen

Photo: Aino Sutinen
Selling comics with Kaarina Uimonen & Sari Toivola

Photo: Matti Karjalainen
All-female panel on war comics (the original British Commando comics as well as the Finnish Korkeajännitys independent spin-off series)

The festival area is the Lasipalatsi plaza (Lasipalatsin aukio, Mannerheimintie 22), where you find two tents: go for the smaller one, which is the Pienlehtitaivas – small press heaven.

Sales hours: SATURDAY 17.9.2011 10:00 – 18:00
SUNDAY 18.9.2011 11:00 – 18:00

Special Event!

On Sunday 18.9. I will be discussing war comics in an all-female panel. More about that soon. Location: KIRJASTO 10
Elielinaukio 2 G (Postitalo)

Kirjatkaa kalenteriinne! Olen paikan päällä Pienlehtitaivaassa myymässä Goldenbirdiä ja Swedish Comic Sin 2:ta. Mahdollisesti yritän myös päteä jossain alan paneelissa!

The final page of the illustrated Trotsky anecdote from Deutscher’s famous biography. There’s really no punchline. I guess Deutscher was trying to give the idea of future doom while giving rational reasons for Trotsky’s “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”-reaction to Stalin’s grumpy appearance. He writes:

The rough growl with which he had met Trotsky came as if from the depth of the Russian log cabin. (The Prophet Armed, Oxford University Press 1954, p. 210)

The anecdote may also be a bit difficult to decipher without insight into the split between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks within the Russian Social Democrat Party in the pre-revolutionary decades. Trotsky and Lenin didn’t spare each other in debates, and Stalin would use these remarks later to prove Trotsky’s disloyalty. Obviously this comic gives the impression of Stalin as a man of (violent) action, while Trotsky … I guess my answer to Deutscher’s mystery (why did Trotsky save this scene for so long in his memories, yet why didn’t he retell it earlier?) is that Comrade Lev Davidovich was too busy doing his thing too, you know, revolution and all that, that he didn’t spend much thought on the people whose toes he stepped on.

But I’m not even half-way through the first volume of Deutscher’s trilogy, so I might be surprised. And when other interesting scenes crop up, perhaps more comics will happen, too!

Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin – the unholy trinity. The second of three pages inspired by an anecdote in Isaac Deutscher’s biography of Trotsky, The Prophet Armed.