When a Swedish student and cartoonist named Niklas Asker first wrote Top Shelf Productions publisher Chris Staros asking him to be his thesis adviser, it seemed like a long shot, to put it mildly. But after seeing the student’s artwork, Staros not only accepted his request, he later decided to publish the thesis at Top Shelf as a book titled Second Thoughts, hitting shelves later this month.
It was Staros’ first introduction to the world of Swedish comics, but far from his last. His initiation continued last year when Johannes Klenell, editor of the Swedish comics magazine Galagos, invited him to attend the Swedish Small Press Expo as a guest of honor, an experience that opened Staros’ eyes to a young, flourishing comics scene, and convinced him to bring some of its brightest lights to North American shores for the very first time.
“When I was over there, you could tell that the Swedish small press community was coalescing in a really serious way,” says Staros, who saw his trip as a chance to be an ambassador from the world of American alternative comics. “I made it a point to talk to everybody; I bought mini-comics from every person who was exhibiting. I wanted to get a sense of what everyone was doing.”
Staros was particularly impressed by the work of Mats Jonsson, a Galagos editor whose graphic novel Hey Princess sold over 10,000 copies in Sweden, and Simon Gardensfors, who chronicled 120 wild, itinerant days on the road in a book called 120 Days of Simon. After meeting with the two creators and reading English translations of their work, Staros decided to publish them as well; both books are now slated for Top Shelf 2010 releases.
According to Klenell, a combination of government funding and scholarships for artists and publishers in Sweden “has made it possible for us to build a strong [comics] scene…despite the fact that we are a very small nation.” With a population of only 9 million, compared to 300 million in the United States, Sweden already boasts two schools devoted to comics, and sales of top books comparable to American small press graphic novel sales.
Currently, the work of most Swedish creators is virtually unknown in the States, although Fantagraphics has made some inroads with reprints of the comic strip Rocky, Martin Kellerman's funny animal slacker saga. Staros hopes to bring even more attention to the country's native cartoonists, and considering the international reach of the internet, it is no surprise that a webcomic is leading the way: Anders Loves Maria by Rene Engstrom.
Although living in the north of Sweden has left Engstrom “geographically disconnected from 99% of other [Swedish] creators,” the internet allows her webcomic to reach 50,000 readers every day—most of them native English speakers. The comic, which was initially posted in both Swedish and English, developed such a large following on the English site that she ultimately dropped the Swedish version. Once the series is completed, she hopes to publish it in book form, “aiming for the stronger English-speaking [audience].”
Staros sees the potential for far more Swedish crossover success, particularly because “the Swedish small press community and the American small press community are very similar in the kind of things that they like," he says. "I think there is a really great opportunity to cross-pollinate: to sell more of our books to Sweden and to import some of the Swedish books and translate them into English,” he says. “It’s an exciting time to do something like this with a community that has the same values that you do.”
Following Staros’ trip, Klenell brought their cross-cultural exchange full circle by attending the American Small Press Expo (SPX) in Maryland last fall (shortly after Top Shelf’s release of the Galagos anthology From the Shadow of the Northern Lights), where he also found striking similarities between the two comics communities.
“Coming to the States and SPX this fall for the first time was definitely like coming home,” says Klenell. “All of a sudden we were in a nation where we felt like the scene spoke the same language as us artistically…I think that the American and Swedish scenes have only just started what is the beginning of a very long and strong friendship, and I’m sure that we have a lot more to give to each other.”
