Missa inte den spännande avslutningen på korthistorien Nyarlathotep – en självständig spinoff på Goldenbird på svenska – nu på babian.se !
Läs också de andra serierna – speciellt Maja Lünings “I goda vänners lag” med gästuppträdande av Oscar Wilde!
Invented by Spanish booksellers in the 1920’s, the World Book Day coincides with the date of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, as well as the Catalan tradition of celebrating Saint George’s Day on 23 April by men giving roses to the ladies of their hearts. Since 1925, the tradition was updated: in return for the rose, the woman gave a book. (Falco and Mayann are therefore wearing costumes from Catalonia.)
Since 1995, UNESCO celebrates the World Book and Copyright Day on this date. Confused Brits claim that it is also the anniversary of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, but forget that the staunchly anti-papist Elizabethans did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until much later. Thus, Shakespeare died 10 days after Cervantes, although both died on 23 April!
Don Quixote has been considered the first modern novel; it introduced many previously unknown or sparsely used storytelling techniques. The anti-hero also shows character development, contrary to many of his idols in earlier chivalric romances – Don Quixote makes a pessimistic inner journey from enchantment to disillusion. (Let’s hope that Falco’s and Mayann’s journey will be a happier one.)
I recently had a look at the visitor statistics of my website between May 2009 and April 2010. Last year was the 200th anniversary of the Russian conquest of Finland (until then a part of the Kingdom of Sweden), which was commemorated with a specially minted 1 SEK coin in Sweden. The obscure inscription on the coin invited many visitors looking for an explanation.
The most popular searches in 2009 remained “erlking” and “bravo”, including variations. The Erlking is my unfinished comic about an orc and a foxy Scandinavian forest creature, but it’s also a possible translation for Goethe’s poem Der Erlkönig. “Bravo” could either refer to the fact that I have had some crazy scans from the German teen magazine Bravo on my site, or … see below.
In December 2009, people suddenly started to search for “noli me tangere comics”, which turns out to be an adaptation (or maybe this one?) of José Rizal’s novel Noli Me Tangere, a classic in the history of the Filipino independence movement. In the Philippines, the novel is part of the national curriculum, which would explain why many kids (?) might be looking for a comic version. Unfortunately, a Goldenbird chapter named “Noli Me Tangere” tops Google Image Search…
A lot of people who search for so-called great men of history land on my site. Some notable names include St. Ignatius, Urho Kekkonen, Per Albin Hansson, Bertel Gripenberg and Gösta Ekman Sr. Some search strings only appear once or twice, never to be seen again. These are some of my favourites:
“commedia dell arte comics” (July 2009)
“comic strips about science” (12 times in Oct 2009!)
“finnish swastika”, “honda bravo modified” (Dec 2009)
“horoscope of dog” (Jan 2010)