Procrastination

Another dead hero

Will Elder died this thursday.

[via TomTheDancingBugBlog]

Tom the Dancing Bug

For those of you who are not in the know, Ruben Bolling, of Tom the dancing bug fame has his own blog right here.

If you don´t know anything about Ruben, go here. Really. You are missing out.

And I assume that Ted Rall and Tom Tomorrow is common knowledge. In a perfect world, it should be.

Facts from the World @ Electrocomics

For all of you who has been wondering what all this stuff about "Facts from the world" is all about, go here to find out.

Facts will be published in english every sunday starting from today.

And Electrocomics is maybe the most interesting place to be at the moment, take an hour to peek around.

Gandhi Into pamphlet - draft 3

Gandhi Into pamphlet - draft 3, originally uploaded by Karstein Volle.

Observant eyes may have noticed something familiar with Into Kustannus´ first pamphlet "puolueiden kriisi".

I did the cover and I'm doing the covers for all the pamphlets in this series.

Into Kustannus is a new publisher dedicated to publishing political pamphlets on topics ranging from the new political dividing lines, Pacifism/Gandhi and Pentti Linkola. That´s just the first three of them.

To say I´m a proud contributor, would be an understatement.

I Fremtiden blogg

I fremtiden har fått sin helt egen blogg, dere. Der blir det lagt ut en stripe per dag.
Gå hit for å få vite hvordan det vil bli!

http://ifremtiden.blogspot.com

Through the habitrails



Just received my copy of Through the habitrails by Jeff Nicholson. I first noticed his stuff in early nineties indie horror anthology Taboo (the one where Lost Girls did its first run, r.i.p.). Just one of those "How come I haven't seen this guy's stuff all over the place?"-moments. Then I remembered my taste is pretty weird. Anyways, I tracked down a collection published 1994 on an indie called Bad Habit, California (?) it plunked down in my mailbox yesterday and god damn, this is good.

To quote Artbomb.net:

The guy in THROUGH THE HABITRAILS has a job that involves getting taps installed in the back of his neck so his ghoulish bosses can drain him of his juice. His main boss is apparently a gigantic, fat little bastard of a hamster wearing a crown. The job gets so bad that he fashions a jar around his head so he can remain pickled in beer all the time. He has to live with his coworkers, professional politics intermingling inescapably with the personal. These coworkers are egomaniacs, sycophants, drug burnouts, or hollow shells of humans living in cages. He dates some of them anyway.

My point is, track down this man, Jeff Nicholson, make sure he gets his due, elevate him to celebrity status and saturate the market with the products of his imagination.

Really.

SPX 08



Came back yesterday from a fine weekend with Small Press Xpo at Serieteket in Stockholm.

Quick linkspread of personal highlights:

Ulli Lust
Nettinarttu
Nou nou hau
Optimal
Galago
Marko Turunen
Electrocomics
and
Kim Andersson

Take the time to click any of these links. You won't regret it.

Showed my stuff to people from Galago and Top Shelf. I can never make up my mind if I do more damage than good by actively pushing my material upon innocent publishers. Especially after two days of, ehum, immersion into underground culture.

Big thanks to Kalis and Mikko for putting me up + being great company.

Portishead @ Portishead

35 minutes of musical goodness.

I fremtiden stripe 100 - Revenge of the Kjøpesenter, originally uploaded by Karstein Volle.

I anledning jubileet har jeg postet 13 i Fremtiden-favoritter på Flickr-siden min.

Ta en titt og fortell meg hva du syns.

Things my cat has told me



By Karstein and Oskari the cat

Back in Helsinki

I left Kuala Lumpur airport seven hours before this happened.

12 hours flight in economy class (cramped, bumpy, but the inflight thingy was my friend until the very end) from Kuala Lumpur to Frankfurt, arrived 35 mins late, missed my connecting flight to Helsinki. Had to spend four hours in the grey speck of boredom that is Frankfurt International Airport. I've seen morgues with more joie de vivre.

Big kudos to the Finnair people for great inventiveness when mr. German security man told me I couldn't bring my sealed whiskey with me. It arrived in one piece.

Anyway, the Asia trip was a nice experiment in working while travelling. This is the output:

Unnamed deity approx 8 m tall, originally uploaded by Karstein Volle.

Must be seen to be believed. If not in the flesh, then try the Flickr substitute.

Tor

Tor er ikke bare hyggelig og dritflink til å lage tegneserier, han er også flink til å si bra ting i avisen.

Så deler av 90's Love song i fjor sommer og det jeg så gikk Ser du meg nå en høy gang. Og det er på ingen måte ment å rakke ned på den boka, for den var helt nydelig.

Truth stranger than fiction

Sometimes reality jumps up and bites you. I did this Facts from the World strip about out-of-the-ordinary meatproducts. Four years roll by and this hits the market:

Meatwater

I'm not implying that the producers took my idea, I'm just flabbergasted that ANYONE could go to investors asking for funds to produce MEATWATER. Did they just get some financing guy drunk and got his signature?

But the website rocks, with pictures of runners, dancers and athletes, all somehow fueled by a nice lukewarm glass of Dirty Hot Dog.

Birthday download closed

You can't get birthday presents every day.
What was the download? Three rough mixes from nazca's "years in the making" third album "Out". For those who managed to snag it, I hope you liked it.

Nazca 10 years

On thursday the 1st of April, 1998, Nazca played its first gig at Wanha Werneri, Oulu.
As a little birthday gift, go here.

Electricity, originally uploaded by Karstein Volle.

Just uploaded a bunch o pics from the last coupla days.

More impressions while figuring out how five to ten in the eve can be five to five in the morning

1900
I promise myself to read at least 100 pages of the Iggy Pop bio before checking where we are again. I'm still amazed that we are flying over Afghanistan. 10 000 m below me my fellow expats are fighting for peace, prosperity, happiness and cute kittens. I love cute kittens.

2000
I learn some Malay phrases, using the entertainment thingy. The number 4 in malay is "empat", which sounds scifi. Salt is Garam, like the finnish tv-cook. Sami Salt?

2100
I give up trying to sleep, only to doze off watching No Country for Old Men. I get strange dreams mixed in with the movie. Did they all fly in that part really?
Local time in Kuala Lumpur is 0400. They wake everybody to give us orange juice.

2200 (KL 0500)
The stewards all have green blazers and bowties, which makes them look a bit like they play in a dance band. When one of them smilingly asks me about my stay in Malaysia, i realise I know nothing about Malaysia whatsoever. He reels off a huge list of places to which I smile benignily and try to change the subject.

2350 (KL0650)
The doors open and I enter Kuala Lumpur airport. The australian chick behind me remarks that this place feels like entering the tropical birdcage at the zoo.

Impressions

0830 sunday morning:
I say bye to Tanja, the cats and the rabbits before getting in the cab. The cabbie is a north african with a maxi taxi and no winter tyres. We skid our way to the airport to the sound of swedish jazz on the car radio.

0930
We lift off to Stockholm and I realise I got no anxiety of flying, which is great. We get microwaved paper with cheese.

1020
At Arlanda I take the shuttle bus to terminal 5. I get the bus all to myself. I feel pampered by this. Strange.

1040
After watching my neighbour queues speed past me I check in for the Malaysia flight.
Best part is watching a guy in a golf sweater admonish his family repeatedly that they can't take their soda past the security gates, then ceremoniously drinking the remainder of three soda bottles.

1050
Stealing electricity from Arlanda airport to check email. Nobody send mails on easter morning.

1230
Ushered into a GIGANTIC plane. Malay stewardesses in green sarongs smiles permanently, which must get their cheeks all locked up.
Green sarong woman gives me a hot wet towel.
Green sarong woman gives me orange juice.
Green sarong woman gives me beer.
Green sarong woman takes back the soggy towel.
We lift off.

1240
Seatbelt lights goes off.
Green sarong woman gives me Chicken teriyaki with fried taters.
Somehow the plane has not exploded, crashed or been hijacked yet. I feel silly.

1250
The captain tells us all how pleased he is that we are travelling with him. I wonder how it is that flight captains all have thick accents and if dodgy english correlates with great flying skillz.

1400
I finally figure out the onboard entertainment thingy and realise we already have passed Moscow. The interactive map becomes a bit of an obsession for the next ten hours. It answers all my questions: Where are we now? How fast are we going? What direction is Mekka?

1700
We pass through some hardcore turbulence and I get reaquainted with my fear of death for a while, then just becoming bored and annoyed by the bumpy ride.
Two swedish middle aged guys sit down on the next aisle and get boozed up.

I open the window during an especially rough turn to see if we are pelted with rocks or something. The swedish guy goes all matey and makes some kinda joke (you won't see anything there, sonny). I pretend i don't understand swedish.