http://www.kommiekomiks.com/avant/

Vettigare textning.

LinoType Feltpen är kanske inte det ideala heller, men den kompletterar teckningarna mycket bättre än den knubbiga font som Jakob använde.

Otroligt nog har Bild&Bubbla 2/06 kommit ut. Den innehåller en seriekrönika av mig om min praktik i våras hos avant-verlag.

Och ... *tar sats*

Serien i sig är helt kass i mina ögon idag (men så är också mitt självförtroende rent allmänt i botten just nu). Men - TEXTNINGEN SUGER ARSLE.

Bakgrund:

Det var "jättebråttom" att få den här serien gjord innan jag reste till Mongoliet i somras, så det bestämdes att om jag inte hann skulle Jakob Hallin på B&B:s redaktion (som lär vara professionellt verksam som textare) texta den. Jag blev klar några dagar innan jag reste bort, och försökte maila Jakob och diverse andra redaktionsmedlemmar för att höra vilket format de helst ville att jag skulle texta i när jag nu hann trots allt. De andra hänvisade till Jakob, och Jakob själv svarade inte. Jag borde ha textat i TIFF-filerna vid det laget, men jag väntade en dag till och så var det för sent, och Jakob hade fortfarande inte svarat.

Okej, då fick Jakob texta medan jag var på äventyr i vilda östern. När jag kom tillbaks mailade jag honom och frågade hur det gick, och sa att om han inte hade gjort det än kunde jag texta själv trots allt. Ungefär en vecka senare svarade han att jo, nu var det klart. Så fick jag korrläsa resultatet, och hade en hel del anmärkningar på hur det kunde bli mycket bättre (textningen bör ju iallafall inte försämra en serie, vilket den tyvärr gjorde i det fallet - och inte minst saknades det en del text som Jakob visst hade trott inte kunde vara med, eftersom det inte fanns några tydliga textplattor eller pratbubblor för den), och detta möttes av suckar och menande blickar utväxlade med en annan herre som var närvarande på redaktionen.
Jag bad Jakob visa mig det en gång till innan det gick till tryck, men hörde aldrig av honom igen.

Så gick det ungefär ett halvår innan B&B överhuvudtaget kom ut. Som jag nämnt tidigare slutade jag så småningom bry mig alls om B&B.

Så låg detta nummer äntligen i brevlådan, och se där:

Textningen är nästan densamma som jag fick korrekturläsa i augusti. (Bara en av de båda saknade textplattorna har lagts in, bara vissa av pratbubblorna har justerats annorlunda, fonterna är fortfarande inkonsekvent använda här och var, osv. ...)

Jag är inte alls förvånad.

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Krönikan kommer nog att finnas på min hemsida snart, och då förstås med anständig textning ... och *hela* texten.

Thanks to Carl Bildt (see below) I'm now torturing myself getting used to wearing contacts. Well, the wearing is not so hard, but it's the taking out and putting in that gives me problems now in the beginning. I've never had any fingers in my eyes before, so my eyelids keep panicking when my fingers approach ...

People (well, men, mostly) kept looking at me strangely in the street. I don't know if it's because I was suddenly strikingly beautiful, now that my enormous eyes weren't minimized by my strong glasses anymore, or because it looked like I was crying.

¤ ¤ ¤

I had some strange dreams last night. In one of them, I somehow brought Mitsu back to life again, and in another, I saved a friend of mine (someone I've only known in that dream) from a guy who was threatening to kill him with a knife. I stood in front of my friend, protecting him with my body, and was talking to the agressive guy in a very calm and understanding way. Like in some children's book from the 70's, where everything always works out when you "do the right thing", the guy calmed down and didn't want to kill anyone anymore ...
Maybe it's a message that I should join ISM, after all ...

I was in Malmö today at a big manifestation against the changes in unemployment policies that the new right wing government, which won the elections after marketing itself as "the new worker's party", are planning to make. The final decision on these changes has not really been taken yet.

What they want is, among other things, to lower the amount of unemployment compensation, raise the membership fee in the unemployment benefit society, and disqualify students from membership in the unemployment benefit society.

The unemployment benefit is an insurance for the employed to give people compensation if they should become unemployed, in the same way as a car insurance will cover you if your car gets stolen or something. It is also an insurance against unemployed having to take jobs with a lower wage, which would dump the wages for everyone. Thus, the unemployment compensation is a minimum level for wages. If the government wants to lower the unemployment compensation, they apparently want to lower the wages for us all.

There was plenty of people at the demonstration, which was mainly organised by the unions. The infamous Malmö police kept pretty calm. During the demonstration, some mounted police were riding close to us and making people a bit nervous, and four policemen defended a sex shop that lay along the route of the demonstration ...
Some lefist celebrities - Py Bäckman and Mikael Wiehe - performed at the great manifestation after the demonstration.

Me and some red flags:



Photo by Ainur.

The Salvation Army didn't want my big writing desk, because there were "stains" on it, and they didn't want my chairs, because they all looked different. They said it would be difficult to sell them.
I had problems finding someone who would come here and pick up something in the first place, because all these charities with second hand stores get "too much" stuff already. (In short, things are too 'good' in this country ... grmbl ...)

It's funny how it makes you see your whole lifestyle in a new light when charity organisations turn down furniture that you yourself thought was perfectly fine, because they think it's "too damaged" or "odd". Hell, *all* my furniture is in some way "damaged" and "odd" ...

Anyway, since I don't have time to try to sell this furniture privately, I'll have to throw it away. Luckily, in Sweden they seem to recycle wooden furniture (see this Swedish-language PDF pamphlet), so I don't have to feel completely evil about it. I'll just have find someone who will help me carry down the immensely heavy parts of the desk ...

I can fainly recall a series of interviews in some silly women's magazine where one of the questions was, "If you could have someone else's head, whose would it be?" The answers were usually some exceptionally attractive women.

Well, as for me, the only head I could ever imagine exchanging my own for is the head of my personal Miss Multiverse - Himitsu von Nobara-ken.

(I was making silly faces on all the pictures my sister took of me in my new Buryat boots, so I had to photoshop one photo a bit to be able to show it to the world.)

¤ ¤ ¤

Edit / December 4th:

Now, mum said it was a sacrilege to abuse Mitsu like this ... But I just wanted to give Mitsu my body. It may be skinny and weak, but it's still young and healthy.
When Mitsu was dying in cancer, I really wished I could do that. She meant that much to me.

I was shocked this morning when I realised that I have the same model of glasses as foreign minister and motherfuck€r Carl Bildt. (Yes, I'm too tired to criticise him in a more intellectual way than using two different swearwords.)

Carl Bildt's glasses on the left, and a hot reporter with exciting eyebrows on the right:



My glasses:



They are cheap glasses from glasögondirekt.com, so I think it's a bit unfair that Bildt, who "has made himself rich on weapons and porn" (Aftonbladet.se, Nov. 10th 2006), should embarrass me like this ...

(Actually, he had them already back in 2003, so it was me who was happily unaware of this partner-look when I bought my glasses a year ago. Well, then it should be about time he exchanged them for a different model! I can't afford to change mine - at least not for such a stupid reason ...)

 

At the age of fourteen Proust was given an English album - "confessions: an album to record thoughts, feelings". Seven years later he published this questionnaire. In the literary salons in nineteenth century Paris, this parlour game was a popular amusement.

I got it from designboom.com, where the photographer Oliviero Toscani has answered it.


The main traits of my character.
Rootless cosmopolitan.

A quality I desire in a man.
Trustworthiness.

A quality I desire in a woman.
Strength of character, independence.

What I appreciate most among my friends.
Their sense of humour and their respect.

My principal defect.
I hate small talk (is that a defect?). Okay, I'm not always very good at handling stress, either.
Another fault might be that I always tend to blame myself when anything goes wrong. It might not really be a fault, but it's not always constructive, as many people, lacking responsibility, tend to prefer to agree with me.

My favourite occupation.
Drawing comics, playing 'hiding the sausage'.

My dream of happiness.
Being able to draw comics and play 'hiding the sausage' to my heart's content in total harmony with the rest of nature, growing my own food and not harming the ecosystem.

What would for me be the biggest misfortune.
That something would happen that would leave me alive but prevent me from drawing comics, such as my right hand being fatally injured, or me being incarcerated with not even toilet paper to use after comic books would have been banned by a fascist regime.

Whom I would like to be.
An even stronger, even more confident and even more compassionate version of myself.

Where I would like to live.
In an Anarchist utopia of direct democracy, small-scale agriculture and technologically advanced but still small-scale manufacture, close to the sea.

The colour I prefer.
Blue.

The flower I love.
I can't really think of any. Well, borages taste very good. (in Swedish they're called 'cucumber herb' because of their yummy cucumbrous taste ... :op)

The bird I prefer.
I especially like corvidae, not least rooks and ravens. Vultures are cool, as well.

My favourite authors.
Joyce, Hesse, Dostoyevsky, Viktor Pelevin, Harry Martinson, Tove Jansson.

My favourite poets.
Edith Södergran, Bob Dylan, Harry Martinson, Blok.

My heroes in fiction.
Manji and Magatsu in "Blade of the Immortal" by Hiroaki Samura, Sergeant Sirota in "The living and the dead" by Konstantin Simonov, Chubaty in "Still flows the Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov, Andryusha in "Mother" by Maxim Gorky.

My heroines in fiction.
Fee in "Planetes" by Makoto Yukimura, Hyakurin in "Blade of the Immortal" by Hiroaki Samura, Punk-Nana in "Nana" by Ai Yazawa, Idgie in "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café" by Fannie Flagg, Sonja in "Sonja O. was here" by Anja Kauranen.

My favourite composers.
Splin, Tchaikovsky, Viikate, My Dying Bride.

My favourite artists.
Gipi, Jaime Hernandez, Tove Jansson, Repin, Vrubel', Bilibin, William Morris.

My heroes in real life.
Sergei.

My heroines in history.
Himitsu von Nobara-ken.

My favourite names.
Last names: Sartorius, Kaban (the latter is likely to become mine next time I have to renew my passport ...). First names: Sergei.

What I hate most.
Opportunists, people who lack in compassion and responsibility and only care about themselves.
Also, when I myself unconsciously am doing things that used to hurt me when other people did them to me.

The historic characters I dislike most.
People who needed to compensate their lack of penis size (or lack of love and affection) with ideas of "greatness".

The military enterprise I like the most.
None.

The reform I appreciate the most.
A voluntary reform of the mind ... or something.

Nature's gift I would like to have.
A physical disposition more prone to growing strong, enduring muscles ... And the ability to pronounce a rolling 'r'.

How I would like to die.
At peace and content with my life.

My soul's present condition.
Transition. I've stayed too long in a no-good place, and the roots I grew are rotting. Soon I'll fall and roll somewhere else ...

The faults I can bear.
Difficult question ... I guess I might have some problems with that ...

My motto.
Don't waste time talking - just do it.

"Hälsningar från den dystra hårda provinsen" ligger uppe på Komika Magasin, Sveriges kanske bästa nätbaserade magasin om inte minst europeiska tecknade serier ... (Inte för att det skulle finnas alltför många konkurrenter om den platsen.)

Jag hade gärna velat göra en personlig intervju med Gipi, men han var iväg på festivalen i Lucca. Det hade också känts lite onödigt att fråga om "allmänna" saker, och påträngande att fråga om mer "intima" detaljer. I de intervjuer jag har läst med honom har han för det mesta varit rätt undvikande i fråga om sin personliga bakgrund, så det är kanske hur som helst mer illuminerande att läsa hans serier om man vill veta mer om honom.