The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

(cover to Hey Princess by Mats Jonsson, published Top Shelf)

One of our favourite Indy publishers, Top Shelf, is following up their From the shadow of the Northern Lights anthology of Swedish underground comics which I really enjoyed a couple of years ago (see review here). This time they have a number of titles bringing some of the thriving Swedish comics scene into the sphere of the English language reader, something we’re obviously rather pleased about -- we’re well aware of some great comics work going on in other countries and languages which, frustratingly, we know we’ll probably never get to read, so its terrific when a publisher steps up and puts in this kind of effort.

(120 Days of Simon by and (c) Simon Gärdenfors, published in April by Top Shelf)

Avoid the Future has this short video promo and interviews with three of the artists behind he Swedish invasion: Mats Jonsson (Hey Princess), Kolbeinn Karlsson (The Troll King) and Simon Gärdenfors (The 120 Days of Simon -- I’m sure many of you will get the literary pun). Top Shelf also has Frederik Stromberg’s Swedish Comics History coming in the same month and, I’m especially pleased to see, a second volume of From the Shadow of the Northern Lights; rumours that Brett Warnock and Chris Staros were given secret shares in Ikea (who are introducing a new comics themed Top Shelf to their Billy bookcases) and signed photos of Abba as thanks cannot be confirmed at this time. Seriosuly though, it is great to see this -- we keep saying there’s a big, wide world of all sorts of comics work out there and its brilliant to see work we’d probably never see otherwise getting translated like this.