A trip, a drawing and a stupid book.

Today, before I went to the gym I searched for some audiobook that I could listen to while working out. It was a good way to distract myself, but it almost didn't work because I got crazy giggle-attacks several times during the work-out!
The audiobook is named "From the Balkans to the Baltics. 1989-1991. An illustrated Travel journal." by Marcus L. Endicott. First of all, the guy who reads it is not doing a good job. He pronounces things with an extreme american accent and puts the emphasis on the wrong words. Anyway, that Marcus guy.. I thought he would have something interesting to say, because he travelled through eastern Europe, just like I want to do. Only, he did it in one trip, and on a bike. I listened to the introduction, and his trip through Serbia and Bulgaria, then I had enough and I let Freddie Mercury save my ears.

Marcus complains about everything, mostly about prices and people trying to rip him off. Oh, I wonder why.. When all he does is throw money around him and act like he's super important. He describes people as rednecks, gypsies, "less civilized", and so on...
Stupid man. You can not demand anything from anyone, they owe you nothing! Be greatful when people do something for you. You are a tourist, but it's their life. Oh, just fuck off.

Zzzzzz.

I also went to the festival today. I didn't go to a concert. I didn't buy an "I <3 Zlatan" fridge magnet. I just like to walk around in big crowds, look at people, smell the different foods.. It's relaxing in some weird way.
About that picture above, I made it a few months ago, and it's just a part of the drawing. It's me, dreaming about Europe, obviously. Resting my head on Serbia and hiding Greece somewhere under the covers, haha.
I've been looking at plane-tickets from Malmö to Belgrade in september-october, and getting a bit excited. Allons-y! Like The Doctor would say :) [Nerd]
Well, hopefully soon. But I have some stuff I need to take care of in Malmö first. Like a festival-report, more comics about Greece, and so on..

Stories from Greece - #1 "Losers"

Hello hello! Here's that comic I was talking about before, my first comic about Greece. It's called "Losers", and it's about media and about how Europe is bullying Greece to obedience. As I already mentioned there will be more comics about Greece soon, on other subjects and with new looks. I will colour this comic properly at some other, less stressful time.

(Läs serien på svenska HÄR.)

Historier från Grekland - #1 "Förlorare"

Hej hej! Här kommer alltså den där serien som jag pratade om, första Greklandsserien. Den heter "Förlorare", och den handlar om media och hur Europa mobbar Grekland till underkastelse. Som jag redan nämnt kommer det fler serier om Grekland snart, med andra teman och nya looks. Jag kommer göra en ordentlig färgläggning vid något helt annat, mindre stressigt tillfälle.

(Read it in english HERE.)

Statistik

Good morning, world! Well, I've been up since 9 as usual, but that's not the point. Here's some sweet statistics for ya. This is the views in total since I started the blog, and of course it's mostly swedish people who are reading it, but lately there has been a lot of russians, (Hello Russians!) aswell as other eastern europeans. Maybe because I talk about eastern Europe and Balkan all the freaking time, but it's nice anyway. Soooo, if you like my comics or me or whatever, and you think I should go to your country/town for some reason, send me and e-mail or something, because I'm looking for subjects to make comics about.

Now I'm going out because it's the last day my bus card is valid, so I feel that I should use it and not sit inside. See you later :)

Från "vad fan?!" till serie

Det brukar börja med tanken "Fan vad det här stör mig, det ska jag göra en serie om". Sedan börjar själva manusskrivandet, som är det värsta jag vet. För det tar så lång tid och jag läser mina egna ord så många gånger att betydelsen helt försvinner i mitt huvud. Tillslut bestämmer jag mig för att "nu får det vara nog" och så börjar jag rita. Det kan gå till på lite olika sätt, men så här gjorde jag när jag ritade min senaste serie "Förlorare". Det är min första serie om Grekland.

It usually starts with the thought "Damn, this annoys me so much, I'm gonna make a comic about it". Then I start writing a manuscript, and that's the worst thing I know. Because it takes such a long time and I read my own words so many times that I lose track of the meaning behind them. Finally I decide that "enough is enough", and I start drawing. The way I draw a comic can be very different from time to time, but this is how I worked when I made my latest comic "Losers". It's my first comic about Greece.

Eftersom serien har mycket text började jag med att dela in den i kortare stycken, för att se hur mycket, och vilken, text jag skulle ha i varje ruta. Sedan skissade jag upp rutorna lite fult på ett A4, och ändrade fram och tillbaka några gånger tills jag var säker på att det jag ville rita till varje textstycke också skulle få plats. 

Since this comic has a lot of text I started by dividing the text into smaller segments, to be able to see how much, and what, text I could fit into every frame. Then I made a messy scetch of the frames on an A4, and changed stuff around until I was sure enough that the things I wanted to draw with each piece of text also would fit.

Sedan tog jag fram de tjocka finpapperna (elfenbenskartong) och ritade ut rutramarna ordentligt med mina gröna penna. Linjal hit och linjal dit.


After that I took out the thick, fancy paper (ivory-something?) and then drew the frames properly with my green pen. Ruler, ruler, ruler..







Efter det skrev jag in texten i varje ruta med gröna pennan, för att se hur mycket plats den skulle ta på riktigt. Jag textar med linjal nu för jag är proffsigare än förut. xD (Ja, människor brukade klaga.)
Sedan tuschade jag rutramarna och runt texfälten, ovanpå det gröna.

After that I wrote the text inside every frame with the green pen, to see how much space it would take for real. I do my lettering with a ruler now, because I'm much more professional than I used to be. xD (Yes, people used to complain.)
Then I inked the frames and around the text areas, on top of the green.

Dags att rita! Jag skissade upp hela sidan med grön penna, och det tog sjukt lång tid. Det här är den svåraste delen av hela serien tycker jag. Det kan vara kul att försöka göra fina bildkompositioner och rita saker man inte brukar rita, men oftast är det bara svårt.


Time to draw! I scetched the entire page with the green pen, and it took forever... This is the hardest part with the whole comic, I think. It can be fun to try and do some really nice compositions and to draw things that one usually avoids, but most of the time it's just difficult.

Jag älskar att tuscha! Åååhh! Det är så jävla roligt! Nu börjar serien äntligen se ut som en serie, och alla timmar man lagt ner hittills känns nästan värt det.
Först textade jag, försiktigt, sedan tuschade jag tills jag hade någon sorts lineart.
Efter att jag gjort likadant med alla sidor lade jag till med svärta där det behövdes, scannade in serien, och lade till gråskala i Photoshop.

I love inking! Ooohh! It's so fucking nice! Now the comic is finally starting to look like a comic, and all the hours that one has spent so far almost feel like it wasn't a huge waste of time.
First I did the lettering, carefully, then I inked until I had some kind of pretty lineart-thing going on.
After I had done the same thing on all the pages I added some black where it was needed, scanned the comic, and added grayscale in Photoshop.



Jag kommer att lägga up serien på bloggen snart, på både svenska och engelska, så att ni kan se det färdiga resultatet. Mmmmm.


I will post the comic soon, in both swedish and english, so that you can see the finished result. Mmmmmm. Comic...

Soundtrack

En helt ovanlig söndag

Det känns som en lite konstig dag idag, jag vet inte riktigt vad jag ska tycka om den x) Jag har inte tecknat något idag, men planerat en himla massa. Planerat serier, jobb och framtida resor, men allt känns ändå lite abstrakt fortfarande. Som att det kommer bli en lite luddig höst.

It's feels like this is a weird day somehow, I'm not quite sure what to think about it x) I didn't draw anything today, but I've done a whole lot of planning. Planned comics, work and future trips, but everything still feels abstract. Like I'm heading for a bit of a fuzzy future this fall.

Nu händer det saker

Page 3, my favorite :) I will upload more pictures and stuff tomorrow (this time I mean it). I'm translating it to english right now, and ohh.. I wish I used even simpler words. Or had wicked language skills.

I should be sleeping, but I'm talking to Calle and Ulrika, and listening to Stevie Wonder instead. I'm unemployed/freelancing (xD) now I guess. I don't have a boss, but I still have to Work work work work.