In progress.

Worlds apart: Ladies, Comics, & Sweden

So two months ago, I went to Sweden for their (government funded) SPX, and the Swedish festival is run by one of the librarians at the Serieteket (comics library) in the Kulturhuset (cultural center- but it really doesn’t compare to anything in the US, you actually get the sense that culture is valued from the exterior & location of the building it’s in). Serieteket gets a lot of assistance from Galago, a comics publisher & quarterly magazine who helps coordinate the foreign guests and programing. Johannes Klennel is the guy in charge, he’s this tall, blond, viking hipster, and the Galago crew skews male, but there’s plenty of women involved.

At the bar down the block from their offices, we started talking about the changes they’ve gone through in the past year. Sweden has a vocal feminist presence, and when I say feminist, I mean cute, fashionable girls who have been raised to believe they should be treated as equals, not the disparaging view most Americans have of feminism. They took issue with Galago’s gender ratio- very few women were being published in the magazine, though many of the women were getting books published and producing great comics. They raised enough ruckus that the editors decided to look at why that was happening. 

It more or less came down to them being men and not really thinking about including women. They made an editorial choice to have a goal of 50% men & women in each issue, with the rule being, if at least 30% of the comics weren’t by women, they’d scrap the issue & start over.

They lost 0 subscribers, and ended the complaints from women. 

The biggest complaint at the festival was that the new conservative government had just eliminated pensions for retired artists. Second was that table prices had been raised to $50. 

About A Bull Chapter 2!

New Chapter of About a Bull is up, featuring work by Hilary Florido & Matt Wiegle. Chapter 2 diverts from the familiar Kinsella order & features a more obscure story about Maeve.

Late late late

So it seems I’m a tiny bit over a month late. Subtracting the 3ish weeks of interruptions which involved not working on the comic at all, most of which were known about, it puts completing a chapter at about 6 weeks instead of one month, which might just be what it takes. A friend of mine asked me how I thought I might get faster or more productive, but I really have no idea. Some kind of wizardry is the best answer I can think of. That would also be an excellent solution to the screaming child on the street right outside my window… (and LIKE MAGIC it stopped shrieking as soon as I typed that!) 

On the other hand, some of the delays are for projects that I’m really excited about, including one thing that should take form for SPX that Jonathan Hill & I are working on together, (It’s not a comic!) and other diversions which should produce some enjoyable reading down the road. My eggs are in several baskets, resulting in a slight delay in full-basket delivery. But they’re good eggs, and I hope are worth the wait. And part of the delay is spent in fussing over details, little things that add an hour to production that will be glanced over in a second, but that make a world of difference to the look of the page. 

Anyhow, the new chapter should be up by the end of this week. 

What I’ve Been Reading

Thinking of the fiction I’ve been reading lately, divided by gender.

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