Comics! In Sweden!
October 7, 2009, filed under: News, Studio, by LexOn my first trip to Europe (in those halcyon post-college days), I was delighted and astounded to discover great comic shops and boutiques in virtually every city I wandered through. So on my second go around, I made it a mission to seek out more great European comics and comic shops. I’m happy to report that Sweden and Denmark are holding their own.
It was down a narrow street like this in the Gamlastan district of Stockholm that I caught a glimpse of a TinTin flag waving in the breeze and I knew I had stumbled upon a TinTin Boutique. These specialty shops are devoted to all things TinTin and it was cool to see all the editions, sculpts and other paraphernalia (for the intrepid comics traveler check out this worldwide listing).
[Full disclosure: although I admire Herge's skill as a cartoonist, I've always been in the Asterix camp of storytelling--but hey, I'm gonna be happy in ANY shop devoted to ANY comics].
Lucky for me there was plenty of Asterix to go around, especially these terrific sculpts:
and another European comics staple, Spirou
I was also curious to see what American comics were popular in Sweden. I’d heard rumors that Beetle Baily was huge there (thankfully, I saw no such thing). As I rummaged through some back issues I came across a translated collection of Kalle och Hobbe:
It was nice to see a familar face–though not really surprising (Watterson’s art is reminicent of some European comics). I wanted to find more, so the hunt continued. As we traveled the west coast of Sweden we stumbled upon a convenient store where we…saw…COMICS!?
In a convenient store? That’s crazy! Who’s every heard of such a thing?! So easily accessible to the everyday public?! Check out all these titles: Get Fuzzy, Mighty Mouse and…Ernie?
Believe it or not, Bud Grace’s Ernie (AKA: The Piranaha Club), is very popular in Sweden. I had seen it translated in two or three different papers and I came across lots of collections in different book stores. I always thought Ernie was funny…too bad I have to go all the way to Sweden to get it.
These Swedish discoveries were nice, but it didn’t scratch my comic-lovers itch. Where were those huge shops devoted to nothing but European comics? I knew they existed, I’d seen them years before. Where would I have to go…?
Copenhagen! Where, on the last leg of our trip I stumbled upon a beautific underground lair of comic delights: Fafaos Cigarer.
This place had EVERYTHING: European comic albums, American comics, manga, comic strip collections, sculpts…I would still be there if I could! It was like a little slice of heaven in Denmark.
After all this time hunting down comics, I wanted to know if there was a comic native to Scandinavia. Belgium had TinTin, France had Asterix, Sweden had…Ernie, but was there a comic as popular as those in Denmark? The answer my friends, is Peter Madsens’ Valhalla!
A comic I (inexplicabably) never heard of until that very moment, Valhalla is an ongoing series that retells the Norse legends and is drawn in a terrific, cartoony style. The second I saw the pages it looked like a hybrid of my own work and my friends’, Justin Thompson of Mythtickle (clearly, we all have similar influences). Apparently Valhalla has been going on for the last 20 years, and the final volume, “Volvens Syner,” dropped that very week. It’s a gorgeous book and I gladly bought the momento.
As terrific as the comic (and the shop) was, it was also frustrating; here I was, in this comic-lovers paradise, with all kinds of terrific new adventures and artists to discover and none of them are translated into English! And outside of Stuart Ng Books, you can’t find these books in regular comic shops. Ugh. Now that the series is ended, I can only hope it gets translated and sold in the States. It was great discovery though.
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