April 27-29 Stockholm International Comics Festival, Stockholm

What used to be called SPX has probably been renamed to avoid confusion with the (slightly better-known) Washington festival. It remains, however, Sweden’s foremost comics festival, and you don’t want to miss it if you’re a local. Shoot, in recent years even Top Shelf and Buenaventura Press have been going!

In a bit of a “beauties and the beast” constellation, I’ll be tabling with two of my favourite comic artists, Sofia Falkenhem and Eliza Frye. Can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to that!

October – AltCom, Malmö

Although the AltCom festival still hasn’t been announced for this year, I’m taking for granted that it will continue to fill the biannual gap between  ISV comic festivals, and anyway it’s right in my backyard, so I’ll be there in one capacity or another.

November 12-18 – Thought Bubble Festival, Leeds

I’ve wanted to go to TB since I first heard of it, and with the amount of talent in th UK at the moment, I would really be stupid not to go. So far the exhibitor signup hasn’t opened, so no details are available yet – other than I’ll be there, manning a table alone or with friends.

—

All of this information is subject to change, and will be individually updated as needed in later posts. Just to say, keep your eyes on this blog

The traveling Maus tribute exhibition that I contributed to, Mus/Mouse/Maus, will be at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris, open from 18 September through 30 December 2011: The opening ceremony on the 18th will begin at 3PM. Sadly I can’t be there myself, but our quite capable curator Jamil Mani will be there to represent the unfortunate absent.

If you’re in Paris during those three months (and be honest, who isn’t?!) go see the exhibition. There are loads of great interpretations of art spiegelman’s book – oh, and there’s mine, too:

What would a Finnish comics exhibition be without a token Tom of Finland presence?

This papier maché model has been overseeing all official proceedings at the Kemi festival with a lurid composure.

Every year, the Kemi comics festival presents a branded festival beer. Below, a close-up of this year’s label, and a display of previous years’ brew.

I’m at the Kemi comics festival in Finland, a tiny but renowned event held at the city cultural centre. Just an hour’s drive shy of the Arctic Circle, it is likely to be the world’s northernmost comic festival.

Walking around the cultural centre yesterday, I came upon a sculpture that struck me as fitting for the weekend’s event. A simple, but clearly sequential piece, it’s like a three-dimensional version of a newspaper strip.

The sculpture is right in front of the men’s room. There might be some cross-media commentary there that I can’t quite put my finger on.

All content is one or another form of variation on comics that have previously published in C’est Bon Anthology  by C’est Bon Kultur members:

• Oskar Aspman went and remixed Niklas Asker’s story Second Thoughts, originally published in CBA vol. 7.
• Mattias Elftorp has reinterpreted an illustration by Daniel Novakovic, originally published in Publikation(34)C’est Bon.
• Sofia Falkenhem took Martin Flink’s story The Troll for a spin, originally published in CBA vol. 7.
• Martin Flink contributes a variation of Jamil Mani’s story Passage, originally published in CBA vol. 4.
• Susanne Johanssons has made a photocollage of Johan Jergner-Ekervik’s story H2O, originally published in CBA vol. 6
• Jamil Mani redid Sofia Falkenhem’s story Dawn, originally published in CBA vol. 8
• My own contributions to this volume of CBA is SEX (after Mattias Elftorp’s story Violence, originally published in CBA vol. 3) and the cover (above), a tribute to Nathan Fox’ cover for CBA vol. 2.