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Barnporrnografidebatt av... lite annat slag....
Det här är roligt på riktigt:
Gå ner till debatten "Tänk på barnen"
Man måste ha lite humor i eländet.
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torsdag 30 september 2010
fredag 24 september 2010
Pictures from Fanny!
Just got these fanart pics from my former protegé Fanny M Bystedt! I love them! So nice! I just posted all the ones she sent me, though the last one is cropped. Hope you don't mind, Fanny!
My favorite is easily that one though "Super-Janne"; how can your heart not melt for a bit of naked chest?
I've bloged about Fanny before in this entry, but she deserves another at least. She makes the loveliest comics, and she's so FAST. Kind of like the Mattias Elftorp of the Swedish manga scene.
She posts sample pages of her manga and illustrations on her webpage:
http://www.fannymbystedt.se/
There, I leave you to enjoy:
onsdag 22 september 2010
Rediscover Maus - an exhibition
There is no recovery from Sundays catastrophic election in Sweden (Swedish democrats i.e our up until now marginalized nazi/racist party is in parliament), but trying none the less to get back to drawing, faking hope for the future.
There will be no bookfair for me this year; I have one new book out ("Tam och Nydraken") but not much else to do there, and a lot of work here in London. But for those who are going I'd like to give you a tip about Serifrämjandes exhibition "Rediscover Maus". It will open at Gothenburg city library 24th of Sep 18.00, and also be shown during Altcom in Malmö in November. After that it's to tour around and at some point reach Stockholm, though I'm not sure of date yet.
The exhibiton consists of cartoonists depicting their relationship to/interpretation of Art Spiegelmans classic comic Maus. This was my very very gory contribution:
A special about Maus and the exhibiton will also be featured in the latest issue of Bild&Bubbla, no 148 available now:
fredag 17 september 2010
Mycket bra om barnporrlagen
"Kan serieteckningar vara barnpornografi?" - genomgång av barnpornografilagenlagen och senaste händerlserna i debatten på Obs, Svensk Radio:
Mycket bra program om än ensidigt (inget egentligt uttalande från någon som är för lagen).
Liv Lingborn - mangatecknare och medlem i seriefrämjandets styrelse - gör ett fantastiskt jobb när hon påpekar problemen sakligt och nyktert, lugnt och samlat. Heja Liv! Har påpekats förr men bra att det är så många kvinnliga serietecknare som står upp emot lagen, tror inte det var väntat från lagstiftarnas håll.
torsdag 16 september 2010
The infamous... rape scene?
Working like a house-elf in order to meet my deadline the 1st of dec, I finished my daily page and found myself staring down at this:
As my inner feminist stared down in horror at what filth seemed to have emerged from my pen, my housemate walked past and, peeking over my shoulder, rubbed it all in with the phrase "Why is he raping her?" and, viewing the next page: "oh, is he comforting her afterwards?".
Two housemates and similar comments later it was official: I had apparently drawn a rape scene, and my attempts at explaining that the situation depicted was quite the opposite did nothing to dissolve their puzzled looks.
But no, seriously, there is a definite lack of rape in the comic, even if this specific page when taken out if its context seems to indicate otherwise.
However none the less I was thinking the other day that there is a rather drastic change of mood in the second book, seeing as the series goes from cheery slapstick to very dark very quickly. But, you know me (figuratively speaking), when I say dark of course I mean darkness framed by the stereotypical overdramatic manga clichés I'm so fond of, not to mention summed up by random sugardripping moral pointers at the end, but still. I usually find little interest myself in stories without any angst, I find without at least a little suffering it's hard to make the characters growth and development believable.
About the first volume it's been mostly positive response, but funny thing about the criticism received is I've heard everything from that 'shallow and uninteresting story line - too perfect too happy' to 'bad cause it fits into the pattern of everyone having to be so depressed in Swedish comics' (he he).
But basically it's irrelevant cause you never really have a choice do you, to tell your story, you just do and people will either like it or not.
But though inevitable I'm always worried about disappointing people .
Please stick with me... yoroshiku onegaishimasu... >_<
tisdag 14 september 2010
Great review! (Swedish)
Lysande recension av Tam och Nydraken i SvD idag, även om bilderna fick lite ris! Jag kopierar från hemsidan:
"I ”Tam och nydraken” avslutar Jo Salmon och Åsa Ekström sin slukareserie Drakriddare på ett för genren överraskande sätt. Att det inte riktigt går som man hoppats får ses som en läsarutmaning. Kul att de vågar!
Berättelsen om Tam, hans vänner och drakarna vore ingen riktig drakberättelse utan en avgörande strid. Den står i staden Demar, mellan en maktlysten adel å ena sidan och folket och drakarna å den andra. Landets kung tvingas välja sida och ställa upp för folk, drakar och frihet.
För stridens utgång är samspelet mellan kvinnligt och manligt av sann betydelse och inte helt oväsentligt är att kvinnligt och manligt inte nödvändigtvis är kopplat till kön. Även det nog en läsarutmaning.
Man sträckläser gärna, och som kritiker gläds jag åt fraser som ”manande röst”, ”virvlande sotflagor” och ”flög fram högt över havet”. Inga märkvärdigheter, men ändå något utöver det mest alldagliga. Enkla fraser som sätter fart på läsarens fantasibilder och kanske utan att man vet varför skapar läslust och längtan efter mer.
Ekströms illustrationer i mangastil fungerar liksom i föregående böcker väl ihop med texten. De förstärker dramatiken och ger, om än med viss övertydlighet, tyngd åt berättelsens känslomässiga intrigmakeri. Det enda jag önskar mig är att bilderna också hade präglats av textens innerliga skildring av titelns nydrake, den drake som föds vart tusende år.
För att se recensionen direkt på SvD gå hit
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torsdag 2 september 2010
Satoshi Kon, Japanese working culture and more
Read this today:
It's been a few days since Satoshi Kon pased away but I haven't gotten around to read his last words/blog entry. (For those in need of an update, Satoshi Kon was a very famous and loved Japanese animator and filmmaker: 'Perfect Blue', 'Tokyo Godfathers' and 'Millenium Actress' among other works).
It's well worth reading. Sad of course, but reading it he seems to go from your preconceived
image of him to just a rather modest man that has accepted death as gracefully as he can.
As I read on a lot of traits that I remember seeing in Japanese men comes to mind, and that too makes him seem very human to me. Such would be dedication to work (he does apologize to his wife for not seeing her... much), a rather old fashioned sense of honor and responsibility (kind of perceived a trademark of Japanese I guess), but also I kind off all pervasive nostalgia about past times, youth, memories and, least but not last, a joy in the small things; of eating mikans in winter or go watch the autumn leaves. Especially the nostalgia; "Natsukashii" in Japanese, is one of the first words I learned for a reason; you hear it a lot in Japan and it has maybe not a different meaning than in the west but a much more profound and important one.
Admittedly I think we've lost Satoshi Kon in all this; but in any case, it got me thinking and I'll ramble on:
Although he died of cancer, I can't help but think overwork definitely hurried the spread of it, or maybe even prevented the detection of his condition at an earlier stage that might have bought him a few more years. In a lot of places -such as here in London for example- unpaid overwork is just expected of you and very much so in Japan. To suffer some physical and mental pain for work as well as not seeing you family or have holidays is normal. There is even a word for when people die from overwork; Karoshi (wikipedia link). It's been a phenomena in Japan since the 60's and though things are improving slowly with restricting laws of how much you are allowed to work, companies seldom pays attention (on paper Japan has a rather modest working week I think, maybe 40 h or so, but in reality, most people are required to work much much more). Lately Karoshi has gotten a new wave of media attention with some foreigner employees dying.
That working culture as a background, combined with a consuming passion for your work, artists might be especially in the danger zone for overwork related sickness. (Does anyone know what's happening to Ai Yazawa, by the way? She's been on one year leave some time ago and now again for even longer. That does sound alarmingly much like chemo not working! I love her and really do have nightmares mentioned scenario sometimes. Don't die, Yazawa-sensei!).
Well that was pretty much what I had on the subject. Go se a Satoshi Kon movie, preferably 'Perfect Blue', his debut and in my opinion darkest and best one.
It's perfect.
I'm back to overwork!
onsdag 1 september 2010
why hello kittycat where are you going?
My lovely lovely house mate (that in the first picture has abandoned me for the fridge) brought me gifts to encourage the general working spirit; hello kitty candy and hello kitty mug that - hold on to your chair - comes with marshmallows and cocopowder.
Hello kitty, all is forgiven.
Also on cats tonight we adopted the neighbours one by feeding it Swedish sill and naming it Lafayette, highly influended by True Blood. Such a good show!!!
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