WHAT DOES IT MEAN

One day when I was in my early teens I noticed that for the past few days I can always see the moon during the day. I made a casual comment to my father about it, saying that I found it odd, and wondering what might have caused it. After a short silence while staring at the moon with a worried expression, my Father turned to me and said in a dead serious voice:

- ''This means trouble.''

And I have to say, the deadpan delivery was utterly fantastic, because I sincerely got worried for a minute there when he said it. But of course, That was just Dad being a dad, and trying to mess with a young kid who was still wandering at the world. That short exchange however, was the seed for my 'what does it mean' comic. Even though I have not started drawing it until much later when I was around 20, I can clearly remember the very first comic where I created my paranoid dog character and the mood I wanted to capture taking shape after remembering that particular situation years ago, and the naive, sincere confusion I felt when I saw my Dad worriedly staring at the moon.

In this collection of short — 3 panel comics, I created a world as seen through the eyes of a very philosophically minded and somewhat suspicious and paranoid dog who wanders through life, questioning everything and seeking hidden meanings in everyday mundane things. The monochromatic and simple style creates a moody world full of secrets and mystery behind every corner.This projects had its ups and downs, with me starting to draw and publishing some of the first comics online around the age 20 as mentioned earlier, and I finally made enough of them to compile a small book around 2017. It is self published and has a limited number of prints still available on my shop.

You can find all of them here

Bard Guys - Beyond the red mirror

When it comes to personal projects, this is by far the most ambitious one I have completed to this day. And it is something I would not hesitate to call a ''passion project''.

People who know me will know that I am a huge metal head, and one of my all time favorite bands is Blind Guardian — a power/symphonic/progressive metal band from Germany, who have an impressive over 30 year carrier and have released 10 albums with the newest, and long awaited — orchestral album coming out this year.

I always had a desire to create a longer comic with a proper story, so combining that desire with my passion for fantasy and of course my love for Blind Guardian, has resulted in a quite obvious to me conclusion — I had to make my first comic about Blind Guardian! Right?

In retrospect, it was a great choice all in all, because committing to finishing this project was no small task, all while studying intensively at university, it was not easy to find the time to work on this. Many times I would have to put it aside to focus on my education, but being passionate about it, was what made me always come back to it, and see it through to the end. If I did not enjoy working on it as much as I did, I would have probably never finished it, and boy, am i glad I did! Because this project was actually responsible for one of my dreams coming true (more about that later on).

Also, having a larger project that I managed to take from idea to completion, to hold in my hands the printed comic book that I have written, illustrated and designed, have given me a huge boost in confidence as a creative, that I can — indeed — see a project through to the end.

I have worked on this through 2016, and finished it in 2017. I feel like my illustration skills and style have really developed and improved since then, and I would do a lot of things differently if I would work on this again today. The writing is very basic, I am no Sanderson,however I am not ashamed of it, because I am no writer, and it was written with love, if not much skill.

You can find the full Story Here

So after I've finished and printed out ''Bard Guys'' I took one of my 3 printed copies and send it over to the band, hoping they will enjoy it. Well they did! And thanks to this comic book, I did not only got to meet the band in person (that's the dream part!) but they actually used my comic as their advents calendar for 2018, and released in on their social media platforms.

It was such an honor and a thrill to have that happen to me, to be acknowledged for my work in such a delightful way. It certainly gave me a huge boost of positivity to start of the next year full of other exciting projects!

Thanks ''Bard guys''. The fictional and the real ones.

Sooth Tooth

When I started working on his story I had a vision of something quite quirky and silly, however the more i've read the poem, again and again to try and create the imagery for my sketch, I realised the underlining tone was actually somewhat dark and full of this sour acceptance of the flawed human nature.

Sooth Tooth

A stranger feeling known to man

does not exist, oh, frying pan.

Your frying blackens, grime on wall,

where once ruled light see darkness crawl.

Alas! what wonders of de-light

your shadow sings to old and young.

Dare we outreach our wretched tongue,

and taste things, tantamount to sin?

Unending throngs, us - broken beasts!

devour all your foul produce.

Yet on our kneeswe shall not sate,

and never tire of your ruse.

Fried chocollate on beavers' snout,

aye, this is what life is about.

Car'mel dripped honey pots for sale,

eradicates each bee and wale.

Thus mankind forged demonic pacts

to combine carbs with sugar fats.

Now, in the twilight of our years,

as deafness conquers all our ears,

as wickedness dissolves our nerves,

could we remember who this serves?

Knowing David, I am pretty sure he did not intend it to actually say something "deep" while writing it, for he takes his poem lightheartedly and does not like to moralise, however i feel like his general cynicism (when it comes to humanity ability to control it self and self regulate) did shown through without him - maybe even - realising it.

On a less philosophical note - this piece was my own personal success. Because after I formulated a clear vision of what I wanted it to look like, I actually managed to to achieve it pretty much exactly - "as seen in my head". Which is not always a given! Creating this space that is both recognisable and mundane, as in - the kitchen - while also not actually strictly defined while it is free to transform in to odd depths at unexpected moments. There is no clear boundary between the real and the imaginary, between the space that character physically occupies and the space that he perceives through the lens of his subjective experience.