You have to like this – reminiscences of South African underground comics by a Finnish comics enthusiast! Over on Pitkä Mies Jelle shares a recent article written for Kuti in which he recalls being a young reader and first being exposed to something very different from his comics experiences up until then as he encounters a comic I’d never heard of:
“My second epiphany concerning comics came when i was helping to start up a comic magazine at the incredibly naieve young age of 19. We were having a first time get together with all the interested parties. Talks inevitably concentrated on what we now really wanted to do. Then somebody stood up and grabbed something from his bag and asked “Why don’t we try to do something like THIS?”"
“In his hands he held a comic magazine called Bitterkomix (subtitled “pulp for dimwits”). This magazine was as exotically made as it sounded “an underground comic magazine from South-Africa” After reading it, i was completely floored. These were not stories that tried to please people esthetically nor intellectually. It was weird and above all, mean. Later on in life i found the perfect wording to describe the reading experience. No other comics publication ever made me feel like i was participating in something subversive and wonderful simply by reading it.”
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