2015 - in retrospect

I usually do (as my long time readers of this blog knows) a summary of the past year. This blog has been my open diary for 8 years now and I like doing these yearly summaries to show for myself that I did a lot of amazing thing in a year. Sometimes you get discouraged by all the work and need some perspective, and I find this a good way to get that and pat myself on the shoulder.

This year has been shaped by one focus: finishing my biggest manga project so far. And also some international trips opening my eyes. A good change from the routine work of 2014.

Milestones of 2015:

January
When the year started, I was already working hard on the third and last volume of Sword Princess Amaltea. Since the publisher had some company changes in the end of the 2014 and my editor left for other adventurous jobs, the deal with book 3 was hanging loose for a while, but luckily the Editor in Chief Josefin Svenske decided to continue the series and publish the last book as well!
This decision came in the end of December 2014, and really made my holiday complete!

In the end of January I also got the amazing opportunity to be invited to  42nd Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême in France, courtesy of the Swedish Institute in Paris. It's the biggest comic festival in the world when it comes to size, since the whole town is involved. I made a blog entry about this inspirational and eye opening trip, and the new contacts I got there at the French publisher Kazé Manga.

February
I took a short break a couple of days from the work on Sword Princess Amaltea 3 to make a 10 page short story for the anthology Freya – Sequential Love Stories, which I also was part of the organizers for. I tried a new technique on that one, and learnt some stuff. Even though I have my prefered materials and techniques, I believe it's important to never stop experimenting and try new things to elevate your creativity.
I also kept on drawing and inking Sword Princess Amaltea 3 and my plan was still to have it printed before the Swedish event NärCon Summer in July... Yeah, spoiler alert; that will not happen.

The event of this month was J-popCon (Copenhagen, Denmark) the 21-22th of February, where me and my sister Catarina, both members of the Swedish manga collective Nosebleed Studio had a table in the Artist Alley and sold our latest book Nosebleed Studios Stora Mangasamling (in Swedish). The book is also selling amazingly well to Swedish libraries, who in the end of February had bought about 200 copies already!

March
All this time I had also started using instagram and uploading images from my everyday work. I realized I mostly used Facebook and this blog to comunicate with my fans, but since my fans are so young and can't have a Facebook account I was not reaching the kids. Most of them are haning out on "new" stuff like those apps and such. (Oh, I'm so old!) So I got myself an Instagram account.
And now I hear talks about Snapchat and all that... plz ppl staaap!!
I used instagram for showing my drawing and promote events I was visiting, but also to show some images from Serieskolan (the Comic Art School) in Malmö where I work twice a week, like here where the students held a mini-fanzine-event for practice (for the students only):

Mini-seriefestival på Serieskolan i Malmö (bara en övning, inget officiellt). #serieskolan

Ett filmklipp publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) Mar 17, 2015 kl. 5:29 PDT

March was also the peak of the work on the fanzine market event Malmö Seriefest at the Malmö City Library that I was organizing on my own at this point. Blogging and facebooking and marketing with flyers and posters! This project was in collaboration with Seriefrämjandet (Swedish Comics Association), Malmö City Library and ABF (Workers' Educational Association). It all came to fruition in the last weekend of March, a huge success with over 500 visitors, and I made a blog entry about it all (in Swedish).
My goal with the event was to show it was possible and to create a new market space for fanzine and self press comic creators, with free table space at a central spot in town. A great collaboration and everyone seemed satisfied!
Sadly, the sound and light in the room made the videos we made hard to make something good of, and some videos also got lost... This was a way too big of a project for one person to handle on their own, so 2016's edition is organized by a fantastic team, more about that in a coming blog entry.

April
The month started off with both me and my boyfriend being sick and miserable, and missing out on the nerdy board game convention GothCon which is a tradition of ours. ☹
But I kept drawing and when I was finally up at my feet again it was off to PicaCon (11-12th of April) in Kristinehamn, a bit of a trip from Lund where I live. It was the first time I got invited to a manga convention and actually was payed for the presentation I did there, as an official guest!
I have been a guest before, but since Swedish manga artists are not as visually interesting to look at as cosplayers we are not usually on the VIP-guest list at the bigger cons here in Sweden. So I was glad to finally get some recognition~

At this point I was also trying to get the fifth edition of Swedish Comic Sin together for print, the indie-erotica-comic-anthology-project that I have been organizing since 2010. This edition had similar interest as previous books, with a couple of them dropping off through the project because of lack of time and inspiration. We did finish a 180-page book (and made a crowdfunding campaign for it too!) but since the drop off rate is still quite high, I have decided to take yet a years break and start the next one this Fall for a release Spring 2017. That one will probably be the last of the Swedish Comic Sin books. If you or someone you know wants to participate, I recomment reading about the project on the blog and read the project desctiption (in Swedish).

The other anthology I participated in was Freya – Sequential Love Stories, which we also did a crowdfunding campaign for and got international attention even! (Thanks to Anette Bengtsson who was in charge of it, good job!!)
The book came out nicely, but the crowdfunding success also ment we had to pack a lot of books and stuff to backers a couple of days, haha! Phew!
You can see more previews of my comic in Freya here.

May
This month was a crazy stressy funny time! SIS (Stockholms International Comics Festival) in 9-10th of May, the biggest comics-only-event of the year, started it off with a bang and we in Nosebleed Studio had booked three tables this time.
 

 

Sadly, they had done some rearrangement of the market tables and we got some shitty places in a sweaty and airless part of the locales. We could see how people didn't cope with is and turned away before getting to our tables, and even our fans told us later they didn't find us. And this showed in our sales, which was less than the year before even though we had our new Swedish book. Not satisfied, I sent a feedback email to the organizers, but only got a dismissive reply.
I hope they think about it to this year's event...

At this point I had realized that Sword Princess Amaltea 3 would not be finished before July, since it was 30 pages longer than the previous two books. I spoke to my editor at Kolik Förlag and we decided to release it in September instead, so I made a preview fanzine with the first chapter in the third book to sell at SIS for the fans that couldn't wait, haha.

The weekend right after we attended KodachiCon in Lund, my hometown. It was nice to be able to sleep in my own bed on an event, for once, haha. And the week end after that, me and my sister went to Düsseldorf, Germany, for the manga convention Dokomi! It was truly an eye opening experience to see how the manga self press scene has developed, and truly inspirational for us artists trying to grow the fanzine and self press market here. I made a happy blog report about it all (in English!).

June
This month was mostly spent on drawing and drawing to finish Sword Princess Amaltea 3 on time, but I also got some breaks doing an exhibition in Malmö with the team behind Freya.

July
Drawing, drawing, drawing! So close to the end of the book I could SMELL IT!

I also spent some time this Spring on the planning and organizing of the Artist Alley at NärCon Sommar, the biggest manga/nerd/cosplay-convention in Sweden with over 8000 attendees. Nosebleed Studio have attended their Artist Alley several years, but most of the times it has seemed a bit unorganized and a little sloppy. So when I contacted the previous organizer and they told me that the spot actually was vacant, I took the chance! I was determined to make the best Artist Alley in the history of NärCon and I think I succeded. I knew what info the artists needded and also made sure they ended up on the website with names and links and all. I had invited guests with signing sessions, Q&A's and presentations. Later I made a survey for the artists who had tables and the response was overall positive and thankful.
The chiefs of NärCon also took notice of my efforts and appreciated it! Sadly, this year they made a rearrangement of the whole area, which ended up making the role I had get a bit chopped up. After some back and forth I decided it's best they try their new organization of the area this year, and if they want me back next year I'll ask for the same postition I had 2015. I hope they want me back, because I truly have grand visions for the Artist Alley at NärCon! ♥

Oh, and:

Alexandra cosplaying Amaltea!!!!

August
This month started off with me FINISHING SWORD PRINCESS AMALTEA 3!!
I could finally get back to the blog and my life, and made a long blog entry about my summer.

At the beginning of August my boyfriend and I took a short vacation by train (mostly) to Oslo and Bergen in Norway. It was a nice and well deserved time off, we had both worked almost all Summer. He's been working hard, as a level designer on the game The Division at the game studio Massive Entertainment (a UbiSoft studio) which will be released on the 8th of March this year!! Stoked!!

And so I took a couple of months relaxing celibacy from drawing... NOT!!
Haha, nope, I started a new project instead: Mjau! - the Anime!
I first did some research, tanking to people that I met at events and online. But since I have been thinking of this for a while now, I already knew I wanted to do this and also how. I had been looking forward to this all through the months of working with Sword Princess Amaltea 3. Like a tasty carrot dangling in front of me...
I uploaded some videos of the process at my instagram, and when I had the time to animate I could make 2 seconds a day. Sadly, I had a new book to promote too (such a luxury problem, right?) and did only finish about 50 seconds during the Fall. But I have not given up on the project, oh no!
There will be more updates here and on instagram as soon as I have time to work on it again.

Here's a small part of it:

Final step: rain added, and together with another cut I made last week. Sounds and other post production effects will be added later... #makinganime #animation #animating #mjauanime #anime

Ett filmklipp publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) Sep 2, 2015 kl. 2:28 PDT

September
This is the other crazy stressy funny time this year. While working at Serieskolan again (with a new class of aspiring creators, ready to get their dreams crushed and get molded into strong warriors!) I went to a bunch of events. First off: Comic Con Malmö 12-13th of September.
This was the first time for this event, and it went very well from our (Nosebleed Studio's) perspective. The team behind the comics area did a good job and was very inviting and accomodating. I highly recommend it!
Sadly the third book hadn't arrived from the printers yet!

Elise Rosberg is our latest member, together with my sister Catarina and I.

The Saturday after I went on my own to Östergötlands Bokmässa (the Book Fair of Östergötland County). It's a pretty small event if you compare it to other book fairs I've had the chance to visit, but it was still an honor to be invited to hold a manga course there and do some signing.

And so, the week end after that, the biggest book event in Sweden, Gothenburg Book Fair, marked the release of Sword Princess Amaltea 3, the final book in my longest series ever! I was sooo proud! Many signing sessions and together with Henri Gylander who also released a book with Kolik förlag at the book fair, we held an awesome release party at a Kulturhuset Oceanen, with live music and live drawing and all! It was really fun and the best way to celebrate the completion of this 5 year project of mine!
Here's my blog report about the events this month.

Oh, and Nosebleed Studio's book was selected to the prestigious children's books catalogue that was released at the Gothenburg Book Fair! This is probably one of the biggest achievements of our 10 year together!

Glömde uppdatera om detta, men kolla in!! Barnbokskatalogen presenterar ett urval av barninriktad litteratur utkommen under året. Bibliotekarier och läsare (stora som små) kikar i den efter bra lästips. Kommer man med i den ökar dessutom chanserna att vinna en plats i tävlingen Bokjuryn där barn röstar fram sina favoriter. I mitten av katalogen finns en poster som hängs upp på biblioteken med de böcker som finns med i katalogen, och det ökar chanserna avsevärt! 2010 vann min manga Mjau! 1 andraplats (efter den internationella succén Lou) och 2014 fick Sword Princess Amaltea 2 en tredjeplats den med (ettan var Amulett 5 och Mulleboken 2014 som båda är kända storfavoriter). Hoppas Nosebleed Studios Stora Mangasamling eller Sword Princess Amaltea 3 landar på topp-3 i år!! Om du är i skolåldern eller känner någon som är, så se till att de röstar i sitt skolbibliotek i februari 2016! #bokjuryn #nosebleedstudio #swordprincessamaltea #barnbokskatalogen #braserier

Ett foto publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) Okt 27, 2015 kl. 7:14 PDT

October
In October I took the chance to try the Inktober challange: to make one inked picture every day for a month. It felt like a good thing to do to fill my Instagram with illustrations... but I thought I could make it even more interesting! I decided I would make it into a give-away thing, and donated the image to the first person who commented on it on Instagram. I didn't know what I just started... but it became a monster! People where haning around my feed for hours just to get a chance, and even though I gave away 30 illustrations, there was still a bunch of awesome fans who didn't get any. Sorry about that. I'll make a post soon with all the pics so you can see them, but here's one:

This month also ended up getting quite event-heavy in the end:
17th of October: HBTQ Book Fair at the Malmö City Library
24th-25th of October: I Seriernas Värld, a childrens comic festival in Malmö
29th of October: Manga workshop at TioTretton in Stockholm
30th-1st of November: Comic Con Gamex in Stockholm
The HBTQ Book Fair was small but fun since we had Freya to promote. I Seriernas Värld ("In The World Of Comics") used to be bigger but they have changes the location again and that probably made them lose some visitors. A lot of them. The manga workshop in Stockholm was a huge sucess with 50 participants! And last but not least Comic Con Gamex, which was so fun, lot's of people and a good mix of different nerdy interests. Nosebleed Studio had a booth!

November
Since mid October, I have been working more hours at Serieskolan, because one of my colleagues was on parental leave. This went on until mid December, and even though it was super fun, it made me have less time to create stuff. But I still made time for drawing, and I had something I needed to make: my contribution to the next Nosebleed Studio anthology, our 10 years jubilee anthology none the less! We decided upon the theme of friendship. My short story (42 pages long) is called When I Close My Eyes. I'll make a blog entry about it soon...

December
I drew my short story manga, uploaded sneak peeks on instagram (like the one below) and worked at Serieskolan. Most of the days.

Another frame from "When I Close My Eyes", my short story manga for Nosebleed Studio's next manga anthology (out in May, in English). #nosebleedstudio #manga #drawing #inking

Ett foto publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) Dec 28, 2015 kl. 1:30 PST

A proof of Amaltea becoming popular is the fact that the library in Ängelholm asked me to make a painting to decorate their new comics section. I felt so honored! After some sketches we decided upon a 1:1 scale Amaltea with her sword so the visitors can take pictures with her!
The painting is digital and printed on canvas, which makes it less fragile compared to a painted... painting.

 

This was my 2015. A year of conclusion. A year of closing the door and opening a new. Of turning a page, starting a new chapter.
I also got some eye opening experiences and meetings. Trips to places, new friendships and old that came back. I also think that I now, the year before 30, feel I am finally quite satisfied with where I have arrived. And this is not the finish line, by far!

Oh, and the sales of Sword Princess Amaltea is hitting the roof! Till today the first and second book have gone into reprints again, and sold together over 5000 copies! The third book was therefore printed at a first edition of 3000! I'm looking forward to the coming year and being able to sell them all together as a full package, a proof of what you can accomplish with hard work, determination and a dream of creating manga.

I already know from the several fan letters I have received that I am inspiring the new generation of manga artists right now. And that feels soooooo goooood. ♥♥♥ 

✰ Aiming for a prosperous 2016! ✰

Stockholms Internationella Seriefestival - here we come!

Dags för årets svenska seriehöjdpunkt! Stockholms Internationella Seriefestival är den främsta self press/fansin och seriefestivalen i landet. Den tar plats på Kulturhuset i helgen, med program och satellitevenemang alla dagar fram till och med söndagen, med seriemarknaden som höjdpunkten.

Nosebleed Studio kommer självklart vara där! Här är våra nyheter för årets SIS:

Dessutom kommer det hända roliga saker!
Dels håller jag och de andra i teamet bakom Freya-antologin en releasefest för Freya och Swedish Comic Sin 5 på Le Bar Rouge på Österlånggatan 17 på fredagen mellan 17-19. Gratis inträde, så kom och mingla med mysiga tecknare, införskaffa dig böckerna och samla signeringar!
Kolla gärna in facebook-eventet för att se platsen på kartan.

Sedan kommer jag såklart också signera min Sword Princess Amaltea bok 1 och 2 i Koliks förlags monter på bottenplan (ingång bredvid Lava).
Signeringstiderna är:
Lördag 13.00 - 14.00
Söndag 12.00 - 13.00
Nedan kan ni se var Koliks monter kommer vara:

Alla som kommer för signeringar får fina bilder i sina böcker! Visst, det kan ni även få vid Nosebleed Studios bord, men där är jag i regel alltiallo och hinner inte alltid med en lika fin bild som när jag faktiskt har en signeringstid, så passa på att komma till Koliks monter för att få en extra snygg bild i era böcker!

Eftersom jag just nu jobbar med bok 3 av Sword Princess Amaltea (sista delen, kyaaah!) så har jag fixat ihop en förhandstitt – hela kapitel 10 från boken i form av ett fansin.
Såhär ser hela omslaget ut:

Det kommer kosta 20 kr styck, men alla som köper både bok 1 och 2 får fansinet gratis!

Hoppas vi ses på SIS i helgen!
\(^o^)/

Swedish Comic Sin 5

Time for some advertisement, and an entry in English for once!

Right now, the crowdsfunding campaign for Swedish Comic Sin 5 is about to finish!
You've only got a few hours left to get your hands on this awesome anthology, with 9 erotic short stories in a graphic novel collection with 180 pages in total.
Click the image below to get to the campaign:

Swedish Comic Sin started as an indie project, where I gather aspiring new artists who want to challenge themselves and make erotic short comics. The adult comic market in Sweden are dominated by American, French/Belgian or Japanese erotic comics, and they depict those countries view on sexuality, gender and erotica. We want to produce something more Scandinavian; a more open view on sexualities and trans- and gender issues, and a more inviting attitude to styles and techiques. Erotic comics doesn't have to look a sertain way, or be told a sertain way.

This fifth volume includes stories by 9 talented artists, and covers different kinds of relationships and scenarios. Some are more personal, while others totaly fictional. Read more about them and the project at the campaign or the blog.

Please help us out, and donate some money! We offer nice gifts in return!

2013 - in retrospect

Time for some time travel - backwards!
This past year, things I have hoped for for years have been achieved, and I also feel a lot more secure in my position as a comic artist. Not that I doubted my position or potentials before, but today I feel I am truly a part of this all, and can make a difference. And that what I make is appreciated and seen for what it is, most of the time.

Here's a quick look back at 2013!

Milestones of 2013:

• January began the year with a walk down the memory lane, with me making a new cover for Mjau! for the collected edition (of all 9 chapters into one volume) for Kabusa Böcker.
  At the same time, I had sold the last of my English copies of A Song For Elise, and after asking I got a go-ahead from Tokyopop in Germany (that owns the International rights for the series) to print a new small batch. So I also re-did that cover, and added the short sidestory from the GUYS!-anthology to make a collected edition of A Song For Elise as well!
  And when at it, I also reordered new copies of The Marauders And The Secrets Of The Heart (The Harry Potter doujisnhi I made back in 2009) that also had gone out of print.

• In January, I also started drawing my contributing manga to this year's Nosebleed Studio anthology, this time with a Swedish theme. The story I made was Hearts of Midsummer, about a young girl named Julia who celebrates the Swedish holiday Midsummers Eve in her childhood village.
  We also tried crowdfunding for the first time, for our book Nosebleed Studio's Swedish Manga Anthology, and we raised more money than we asked for! Yaaay!
  
  

• In February-May I started my work as teacher, at both Serieskolan (Comic Art School) in Malmö and at a drawing course called Rit- och Skisstekning at Malmö University. Maybe it sounds hectic, to have had so much to think about, but actually it was pretty nice - both the fact that I got to teach and get away from my drawing a little, but also the different environments. It was fun! And it also payed for my living just enough so that I didn't have to take from my savings. Yay!

• In March I finally signed the book deal with Kolik förlag on the Swedish version of Sword Princess Amaltea! This project started back in Fall 2010, and now I finally had a publisher on the hook! Also, the Danish magazine Comic Party would publish the manga regularly. With two editors and a whole bunch of manuscript, preplanning and research done I was ready to take on the biggest and longest project of of my life!
  The layout sketches was allready done in the beginning of the year, so I just had to start drawing.

• As always, I was away on a couple of events this Spring as well, mostly conventions together with my awesome colleagues in Nosebleed Studio. The biggest one was of course the yearly happening S.I.S. (Stockholm's Intenational Comics Festival), where we released our new anthology. I also sold the new prints of Mjau!, A Song For Elise and the Harry Potter doujinshi, plus this year's Swedish Comic Sin  - the fourth anthology in the series!
  This project has been really a fun way to network and see people evolve, but also letting me act as an editor and produce books from start to finish. Sadly the fifth book will have to wait a little, because of me having too much to do with my new big manga project, and also this last fourth book having been cut in half when people left the project (because of their lack of time and inspiration). Well, that's how it works...
  
  

• During Spring time I also started making youtube videos with me drawing, to both promote the upcoming book and also to try it out. It went well, and I got a taste for making tutorials! Here's one where I ink the cover illustration for Sword Princess Amaltea book 1:
  
  
  
  
  
• My friend Yossra El Said and I also started making podcasts in Swedish, with the catchy name Seriesystrar (Comic Sisters). The idea was to have mostly women talking comics, and focus on constructive critisism, gender and ethnicity issues and the
  comic market internationally and nationally. For all Swedish readers, please check it out! I bet you'll like the show~
  

• Summer came, and while drawing like crazy on Sword Princess Amaltea, I also got the chance of a life time: To be one of five Swedish guests at a robot drawing tournament in Japan in late July! Crazy!! It was right in the middle of my freakish deadline (165 pages to be done before August) but I still went. My sister Catarina and three other awesome artists from Sweden - Jesper Nordqvist, Maria Fröhlich and Kei Mak - and I went to this event called Robopic. Payed trip and stay, and what an experience! Not only did we get to draw and compete with 100 Japanese in a Olympic-style drawing tournament, we also got to dine with the famous artists that made up the Jury, such as my idol Hideshi Hino-sensei!!
  And as if that wasn't enought... two of us even made it into the finalists - and I WON! Shock!!
  Sorry for not having made a blog entry about this just yet, I'm still waiting for the robot picture to be sent to us. So soon hopefully...
  I also sent some of my works to Japanese publishers, in hope of getting a meeting there - and I got two! More about that in the upcoming blog entry about the trip...

• Finally in August I handed in the book for printing, and it would not have been possible if it wasn't for my four awesome assistants Emil Johansson, Catarina Batista, Joakim Waller and Yossra El Said. Their help with book 1 made the crazy plan of 140 pages to be made in 5 months time actually possible! THANK YOU!!!!

• The book was released right in time for Gothenburg's Book Fair, where I signed books like crazy! Thank you all who came and got yourself a signed copy, you really made the release a success!!

• Another book that I participated in that was released then was Ordningen upprätthålls alltid by Per Thörn and published by Apart förlag, a comic anthology with more than 20 artists making comic adaptions of Per's short stories, all with connections to a criminal world. A really cool project, made possible by the awesome editor Johan Kimrin! By many reviews titled as "the best comic book printed in Sweden during all of 2013". Check it out!

• The Fall was mostly spent on teaching at Serieskolan (Comic Art School) and Malmö University's comic course, plus promoting Sword Princess Amaltea, but also on a side project I havn't mentioned much here at the blog. I was part of making an exhibition called Vicky, Jackie, Wendy about girl comic magazines in Sweden from 1950 up until today, in collaboration with librarian Hans Holm and Seriefrämjandet (Swedish Comic Association). The exhibition premiered at Malmö city library in October, as part of the childrens comic festival I Seriernas Värld ("In the world of comics") and I feel it's a very important, fun and interesting exhibition. We've even collected old and new girl comic magazines and displayed them as part of the exhibition.

• This year, I also got a another award; Nordiska Skolbibliotekarföreningens (Nordic School Library Association) gave Häxfolket written by Jo Salmson (and illustrated by me) their prize for the best childrens book 2013. We were invited, together with the amazing editors for Bonnier Carlsen that worked with us on the four books, to Skolforum (a school and teacher fair) to recieve the prize, and got to say some words on the stage before hundreds of teachers and librarians. Nice!

• In December, I had finally finished the layout sketches of book 2 of Sword Princess Amaltea, and started drawing and inking the pages. Around X-mas, I was about 15% in, which felt nice! All going according to my plan, and if my editor approves it, the book can be out in the end of the Summer! Looking forward to it!! 

I think that's all. A pretty nice year. Work at Malmö University and Serieskolan is enjoyable on so many levels, and also gives me more energy to work on my own stuff when I'm at home.

Also, books sales have done very well! (I don't often write about book sales, but I think more people should.)
Since 2010, Mjau! have sold in over 10 000 copies so far! Woah! That's a lot, according to people working in the buisness that I have mentioned this to.
Sword Princess Amaltea has also done amazingly! Since the release in September, almost all of the first edition's 1200 books are sold! In less than 4 months! Yay!!

This year has been elevating. I have recieved two awards (I shit you not, it's the first time I win first place in something this big), a book deal for my longest project yet, a trip to Japan where I got to talk to more editors and a bunch of egoboosting feedback through reviews of the new books and through people that I've met this year. Thank you all!

And to compare to last year, I think I made some history in 2013, like the Swede winning a manga award in Japan, and beginning a new Swedish manga series (we're not spoilt with that many of them, heh...)!
But let's say bye bye to 2013, and... 

✰ Hello 2014! Time for some manga power!! ✰

2012 - in retrospect

2012 was a little bit disappointing... Well, not now that I look back on all the fun things I managed to do this year, but when it comes to all the things I was hoping for but didn't achieve. To defend myself I want to point to the fact that the things that I hoped for that didn't come true was because of others, not me. Sometimes in your life there's things that can't be done because other people don't give you the chance to do them.

I don't blame them though, I blame myself. One day, when I have become more well respected within the industry, I might get all things I hope for. Today, I have to live with the benefit of the doubt from others.

Time for a look back on the milestones of the past year, as I usually do this time around!

Milestones of 2012:

 

• In January I worked hard on finishing all three major comics that I made that year. Good way to start off the year, haha!
  A Sword Princess Tale - chapter 1 (fanzine made for SIS/SPX in Stockholm in April)
  Hooked On You (published in Nosebleed Studio's Seaside Stories anthology)
  A Song for Elise - REMIX: Memories (published in the Boy's Love anthology GUYS!)
  

• February came with a small achivement: my entry for the Japanese manga magazine Ribbon's monthly manga competition resulted in an honorable mention, a prize called もうひと息賞 ("Mou hito ikishou" = one more try-prize). My manga was mentioned in issue #2 this year, you can read the full review here.
  
  
• All through Spring, Summer and Fall, I applied for several artistic funds but recieved null. This was quite dissapointing. I know I can't expect to get any, but it's still heartbreaking every time you get a letter from one of the organizations saying "...you application could not be approved."
  Well, they won't get rid of me that easily! I'll keep trying until I get some!
  
  
• I was aslo teaching at Malmö Univeristy in their English comic course Comics, International Perspectives, specializing in the Japanese manga market. Very nice and fun, I like teaching at the University because it's so professional and enjoyable!
  
  
  
  
• In March and April, the main focus was to finish all the projects before Small Press Expo at Stockholms International Comic Fair (the biggest comic event in Sweden) in the end of April. Nosebleed Studio's book Seaside Stories was to be released, as well as the latest edition of Swedish Comic Sin (book 3) that I'm the editor of.
  Chapter one of A Sword Princess Tale was also sold at the event as a fanzine, and I also began my search for a publisher in these months, both inside and outside of Sweden. Most publishers take some time to think over things, and even though I had a Swedish publisher and a Danish one that was quite interested I wanted more. Back then, my goal with this project was to have at least three or more publishers working with me on this, to make the best out of their collected feedback, and also to get enough pay to have an assistant working with me on this.
  
  
  
  
  
• In the beginning of 2012, my childrens manga Mjau! also got an International deal with Portuguese NCreatures and their manga magazine Banzai.
  
  

• May and June was mostly waiting for replies from the publishers. I had also sent in my second entry to Ribbon in March, and got the results in June: the same honorable mention in issue #6! Read the full review here.
  
  

• I used all the spare time to work with my friend and colleague Elise Rosberg on the coming site NonstopCon, a Swedish community for Asian-fans of all sorts! During Spring and Summer, we worked on the layout, putting up a crowdfunding page (and recieved the full amount in the end!) and planned all the features of the site. Our webb developer Rick worked his ass off all Fall and Winter, but still didn't get it done until December which was our plan. The site is a little late, but it's all becasue we're not okay with just any crappy community site, we want this one to WORK!
  For our Swedish fans, follow the work on our blog.
  
  

• A well deserved vacation was made in July, to my aunt and relatives in Portugal. More inspirational trips made, and lots of photos taken!
  
  

• In September my sister Catarina and I finally finished Nosebleed Studio's new Worppress site! It's so nice to finnaly have a professional and working webshop and also a manga reader with flip-book funtion! Check it out!!
  
  

• I felt I needed to make a trip to some of the bigger comic fairs in the world, both for my self an my career. As I am a big fan of American reality shows (yup, one of my sins), I decided it was time to go to the big land over seas. So, Emil and I went to New York Comic Con in October and I got to talk to Yen Press, a meeting that changed my perspective on things and also my focus for A Sword Princess Tale. I'm no longer pursuing a multinational deal to begin with, but focusing on making something for a Nordic market that might work elsewhere.
  Check the full report here.
  Afterwards, I also made a report from NYCC in comic form for Bild&Bubbla, that will be printed sometime in 2013.
  
  

• For the second time around, I got to teach at Malmö University's comic course in Swedish, Serieteckning och visuellt berättande. Yet again, so rewarding! Teaching is a great way to learn more about your own profession, it forces me to overlook my work process and put it on paper (I make handouts for all courses, I think I should put them here on my page actually).
  I was also teaching at Serieskolan in Malmö, which also feels cool and honoring (they trust me!). The week there focused on storytelling, very convenient because I had just finished a book (John Truby's The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller)  and some self-studies on storytelling!
  
  

• Some Swedish media attention during this year:
  ✎ An interview in City Malmö (nr 2012-08-23) about nerdy hobbies.
  ✎ An interview together with Catarina in Lokaltidningen Lund on the 28th of September.
  ✎ The above shown frontpage and article of Sydsvenskan Omkretsen on the 11th of November.
  
  

• All through the year, Nosebleed Studio visited a lot of manga/comic conventions:
  KodachiCon in Lund (May) - where we sold a lot of our books to our fans in Skåne (the Southen most region in Sweden). I also did my Yaoi presentation again, which was fun!
  UppCon in Uppsala (June) - I did a presentation on my attempts to get into the Japanese manga market, and we sold a bunch of our Swedish manga to many awesome fans, thank you!!
  NärCon in Linköping (July) - I did the Yaoi presentation here as well.
  NowJapan in Vilnius (August) - we where Internationally invited to this Lithuanian convention, cool huh? I did the Yaoi presentation there (very well attended!) and we also did the manga battle tournament, fun!
  AltCom in Malmö (November) - not a manga con, but still fun. We managed to get into the paper as well!
  Confusion in Göteborg (December) - I did the Yaoi-presentation again, and there was a line of people who didn't even get in... It was popular! We met a lot of awesome fans and gained new ones as well.
  
  

•   In the end of the year, comics started calling for me again. I had almost stopped drawing at all during April to October, and now I not only have to make a 32 page manga to Nosebleed Studio's next anthology (sneak peek to the right) but also I need to start making the layout sketches for A Sword Princess Tale! The first 4 chapters are planned to be finished before July and the Swedish and Danish publisher are both eager to have it and so am I! Okay, let's go!!

Hm... I think that's a pretty good summary of my year. I probably forgot some small things here and there, but all in all it's pretty much like this.

This year was disappointing in some ways. I didn't get a contract with A Sword princess Tale as early as I wanted it (I would have wanted to start working on it in the Fall) and the God of funds was not on my side this year. I do survive though, thanks to all the childrens books I have made last year.

But, I'm still pleased with the victories; 2 honorable mentions in Japanese manga magazine Ribbon, the publishing of Mjau! in Banzai, a new homepage for Nosebleed Studio and all in all 90 manga pages finished (and another 60 pages in rough sketch). Not my most productive year, but still pretty awesome!

✰ Okay, onwards to 2013! Let's make history!! ✰