Nordic comics anthology for kids and children’s comics network
Illustration from Joonas Sildre’s Maailman naba
The Finnish Comics Society is looking for partners in the Nordic and the Baltic regions to help create a comics anthology for children featuring northern european artists. If you are a comic artist creating stories for children, a publisher interested in sharing them or otherwise involved in developing children’s culture, contact us: [email protected]
The growing need for Nordic children’s comics
Most of the comics now aimed at children come from the United States or Japan and thus from different cultural backgrounds. Though the need for locally created stories has been acknowledged and children’s comics have lately flourished in the Nordic and Baltic countries, there are still relatively few children’s publications with cultural ties to northern european life. The Finnish Comics Society together with Danish publisher Afart wants to create an anthology that is not just another catalogue of artwork for international publishers, but a genuine publication for children with stories that will resonate with their everyday lives.
English, Finnish and Danish editions releasing in spring 2013
The anthology will be published in English for the international market and in Finnish and Danish to reach its most important audience – the Nordic children themselves. We are still looking for co-publishers to help edit and fund editions in other northern languages.
The finished book will be a tome of 200–300 pages. For now, we are preferably looking for longer stories, even whole albums to be included, but shorter stories are welcome as well. Artists from the whole Nordic and Baltic regions are welcome to contact us.
The planned schedule for the anthology is as follows:
November: Editorial work
December-January: Translations
February-March: Layout and printing
April: Release of all editions
An international exhibition will also be curated from the anthology, which will be presented at Copenhagen Comics festival in June 2013.
Previous editions of our Nordic anthology series
In 2011 the Finnish Comics Society created Kolor Klimax, an anthology which united twenty-two Nordic artists to present the best in contemporary Nordic comics. Focusing on work from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, it offered a wide range of approaches and genres displaying amply the diversity and innovation in comics today. Edited by art historian Ph. D. Matthias Wivel, Kolor Klimax inaugurated the series of Nordic anthologies created by the Finnish Comics Society’s Nordicomics initiative and it was co-published with American publisher Fantagraphics Books. The first printing has now sold out in spring 2012. Though the children’s anthology will be very different both in content and form, we hope to create a similar success with it.
Interested in other forms of collaboration?
The Finnish Comics Society is now laying groundwork to a Nordic children’s comics network. The proposed network aims to connect organizations, publishers, festivals and individuals who want to create more opportunities for northern european children’s comics. At the moment the society has partners in Estonia and Denmark, and we are looking to find new ones in all Nordic and Baltic countries. Through collaboration, we hope to create forward-thinking actions that will benefit the children’s comics scene and establish long-term international partnerships. Contact us if you are interested in joining us or for more information at: [email protected]
Both the anthology and the network projects are funded by Nordic Culture Point.
