Dansk Tegneserieråd – the metabunker

5 MILLIONER TIL TEGNESERIENS HUS

Matthias Wivel — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:02:39 +0000

Som et led i Kulturministerens litteraturhandlingsplan, som er blevet annonceret i dag, får Dansk Tegneserieråd 5 mio. kr. over de næste to år til at etablere Tegneseriens Hus.

Der gik lige et par minutter før det gik op for mig, at den var god nok. Det her er en stor tillidserklæring og et rygstød til det arbejde vi siden Rådets stiftelse i 2009 har gjort for at etablere Tegneseriens hus med lønnede medarbejdere, der kan understøtte tegneseriekulturen og begynde at etablere en egentlig kulturel infrastruktur for tegneserier og relaterede kunstarter i Danmark.

Udgangspunktet for bevillingen er det arbejde, vi allerede har påbegyndt og som fortsat er et hovedfokus, med at afsøge og udviklede den rolle, tegneserier kan spille i en højnelse af læselysten blandt børn og unge.

Vi glæder os meget til at udvikle denne helt afgørende del af vores virke i samarbejde med de mange aktører i det danske undervisnings- og kulturliv, der arbejder på dette område.

Nu skal vi for alvor i gang!

Læs mere på Nummer9, Dansk Tegneserieråds LinkedIn, på Rådets hjemmeside og kig ind hos Kulturministeriet og læs handlingsplanen!

En stor tak skal her gå til nære samarbejdspartnere i Rådet Malene Hald, hvis idé igangsatte hele processen, Marianne Eskebæk Larsen, min forgænger på posten, som har været uvurderlig sparringspartner hele vejen og sideløbende siddet med i Kulturministeriets Arbejdsgruppe for litteratur, hvis anbefalinger har været afgørende, og Árni Beck Gunnarsson, som har været involveret i netop Rådets undervisningsrelaterede arbejde, men naturligvis også til de mange, mange andre, der har bidraget til vores arbejde de sidste år.

Billede fra Copenhagen Comics 2024 med kulturminister Jakob Engel-Schmidt, taget af Carsten Olsen.

Radio Rackham: Danske tegneseriers tilstand

Matthias Wivel — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 23:21:18 +0000

Der er gået alt for længe siden vi sidst har lagt en episode online. Det skyldes tekniske og logistiske vanskeligheder og det var faktisk en anden episode, der skulle have fyldt dette, vores spot nr 100, men den her var for vigtig: en diskussion af den rapport, jeg sammen med Malene Hald og Árni Beck Gunnarsson, der begge gæster episoden, samt en masse andre har forfattet om den danske tegneseriebranche og -kultur på opfordring af kulturminister Jakob Engel-Schmidt. Kristian Bang Larsen, vores gode kollega fra Nummer9 medvirker også!

Du kan læse rapporten her, læse mere på Nummer9 og lytte nedenfor:

Radio Rackham: Pingprisen

Matthias Wivel — Mon, 08 May 2023 21:49:41 +0000

Denne gang diskuterer vi Pingprisen! Vi kigger bag kulisserne med Erik Barkman, formand for prisens jury, redaktør på Nummer9 og og adjunkt på Grafisk Fortælling, The Animation Workshop. Der bliver plads til historie, struktur og anekdoter. Lytndenfor, læs mere på Nummer9 og duk op til dette års uddeling d. 27 maj kl 19.30 i Islands Brygge Kulturhus.

Radio Rackham · Fokus: Ping prisen

Radio Rackham: Dansk Tegneserieråds nye bestyrelse

Matthias Wivel — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 09:36:27 +0000

Jeg er denne gang gæst i mit eget medie, Radio Rackham, nemlig i egenskab af ny formand i Dansk Tegneserieråd. Og jeg har tre andre bestyrelsesmedlemmer med: Marie Raasthøj Hansen, Anders Brønserud og Andreas Nordkild Poulsen. Thomas og Frederik udspørger os om vores planer og ambitioner, samt konkret om håbet om at etablere et tegneseriemuseum, samt om Nummer9 og Pingprisens fremtid. Dertil kommer vi kort omkring problemerne med flare hatte og nepotisme i det danske tegneseriemiljø. Lyt her og læs mere på Nummer9.

Radio Rackham Â· INTERVIEW Mød den nye bestyrelse i Dansk Tegneserieråd!

Radio Rackham: Tegneseriemuseum?

Matthias Wivel — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 17:43:54 +0000

Den her episode er tæt på. Frederiksbergmuseerne har besluttet sig for at udskille den unikke tegneseriesamling, de i form at Storm P.-museet i 2012 have overtaget fra Anders Hjorth-Jørgensen og hans Tegneseriemuseet i Danmark. Jeg var, samme med Louise C. Larsen og Søren Vinterberg med til at forhandle aftalen på plads dengang og vi troede den hellige grav var velforvaret — at samlingen var sikret for eftertiden og at Storm P.-museet nu havde grundlaget for skabelsen af et egentlig tegneseriemuseum i Danmark.

Det viste sig ikke at være tilfældet. Storm P.-museet fusionerede under Frederiksbergmuseerne i 2013 og det blev efterhånden tydeligt, at midlerne og viljen manglede. i 2018 besluttede bestyrelsen sig så for at udskille Anders Hjorth Jørgensens samling, som de til både vores og Anders Hjorth Jørgensens store overraskelse alligevel ikke havde forpligtet sig til at beholde og udvikle. Der er tale om to fundamentalt forskellige læsninger af overdragelsesdokumentet, som vi oplevede som forpligtende på museumsloven, mens de ser det som en hensigtserklæring. Det eneste bindende i den aftale, er åbenbart at Frederiksbergmuseerne har den fulde råderet og derfor nu arbejder på at afhænde samlingen på bedste vis.

Det er hele dette problemfelt vores episode analyserer nærmere, med venlig deltagelse af inspektør ved Storm P.-museet Nikolaj Brandt, forlægger Carsten Søndergaard og John Kenn Mortensen fra Dansk Tegneserieråds desværre snarligt afgående bestyrelse. Vi stiller os selv spørgsmålet om hvad et dansk tegneseriemuseum kunne være og hvilke konkrete muligheder, der er for fremtiden. Det er grove løjer, men hvis episoden kan inspirere folk til at engagere sig — helst som ny kandidat til bestyrelsen i Dansk tegneserieråd, som jeg stadig opfatter som den bedste mulighed for at formidle en redningsplan — vil noget da være nået.

Lyt med her og læs mere på Nummer9.

Radio Rackham Â· Fokus: Et tegneseriemuseum i Danmark?

Radio Rackham: Dansk Tegneserieråd

Matthias Wivel — Sun, 16 May 2021 19:18:35 +0000

I seneste transmission fra Radio Rackham har Thomas, Frederik og jeg inviteret to medlemmer af Dansk Tegneserieråds bestyrelse, Morten Langkilde og John Kenn Mortensen, i studiet til en samtale om, hvorfor de netop som samlet bestyrelse har annonceret at de trykker på den røde knap og går af i flok. Det har gjort ondt at se, hvor skræntende Tegneserierådet har været de seneste år og det er trist, at hele banden nu trækker stikket.

De to forklarer dog fint, hvad deres bevæggrunde er, og hvad man end tænker om beslutningen, synes jeg det som man kan lære er, at en subkultur der næsten udelukkende drives af ildsjæle har svært ved at klare sig, da disse som bekendt brænder ud. Dansk tegneseriekultur i en nøddeskal og sjovt nok grundlaget for hvorfor vi etablerede Dansk Tegneserieråd tilbage i 2009. Vi søgte en institutionalisering af kulturen, der kan sikre den kontinuitet og stabilitet, der fremmer trivslen og faktisk også — det tror je på — innovationen. Det er strenge tider, men vi må jo op på hesten igen på den ene eller anden måde.

Lyt til afsnittet og overveje endelig at engagere dig — ikke bare Tegneserierådet, men kulturen mere bredt har hårdt brug for det lige nu!

Radio Rackham Â· Fokus: Dansk Tegneserieråd

Boom PING PING

Matthias Wivel — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 22:34:56 +0000

Nikoline Werdelin for the win!

It’s been a week and half since the big show, but I still think this year’s Ping awards deserve a few words for what little international audience this site still has after months of hibernation.

The Ping awards is an annual set of awards given to comics in Denmark in the manner of the Angoulême Fauves or the American Eisners. Founded by the Danish Comics Council, the awards are a revivification of a differently conceived, hall of fame-type award of the same name which was bestowed on single creators through the early nineties, as well as of the awards programme hosted by the comics biennial Komiks.dk from 2004-2010. The Pings are named after one of the best known characters created by one of the greatest Danish cartoonists, Robert Storm Petersen, aka. Storm P. (1882-1949).

The Pings are a collaboration between the comics site Nummer9, the comics magazine Strip!, the Animation Workshop in Viborg (where a major new cartooning programme was launched last year), and the Storm P. Museum in Copenhagen, and the comics festival Copenhagen Comics. They are awarded in a number of categories in the same manner as so many other awards of their kind.

Ping statuettes lined up, waiting for the winners

This year was the third consecutive the revivified Pings were awarded. It happened at the concert hall Vega in Copenhagen. In a remarkable step up, the Hall of Fame award, given to a cartoonist or other comics person for their life and work in comics, was hosted by the Danish minister of culture, Marianne Jelved, one of the most respected veteran politicians in Denmark. The award went to Nikoline Werdelin, author of the great comic strip Homo Metropolis, which has been running intermittently in Danish newspapers since 1984. (I’ve written an introduction to her and her work here). She was also given the most prestigious award of the night, that for ‘Best Danish Comic’ for her latest collection of Homo Metropolis strips. The Pings, in other words, turned into a celebration of one of Denmark’s greatest living cartoonists.

Among other notable awards, the one for best editorial cartoonist (which was a new category added to the roster this year) went to the incomparable Philip Ytournel who has done more than any other to innovate within his genre in the last half decade or so with his hilarious, formally inventive and frequently intelligent work for the daily Politiken. Last year he upped his game when he wrote and drew an entire installment of the paper’s books section devoted to the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard on the 200th anniversary of his birth.

Minister of culture Marianne Jelved and Nikoline Werdelin

The award for ‘Best international comic’ published in Danish went to Emmanuel Guibert’s La Guerre d’Alan (aka. Alan’s War), while that for ‘Best international comic’ (ie. not published in Denmark yet) went to Joe Sacco’s The Great War.
Here’s a full overview:

Best Danish Comic: Homo Metropolis 2010-2012 by Nikoline Werdelin

Best International Comic in Danish: Alans krig by Emmanuel Guibert

Best International Comic: The Great War by Joe Sacco

Best comic for children/young readers: Pssst! by Annette Herzog and Katrine Clante

Editorial Cartoonist of the Year: Philip Ytournel (Politiken)

Best Danish online comic: Det sarahkastiske hjørne by Sarah Glerup

Best Danish Debut: Troldmændene fra Vestmannaeyjar by Thomas Mikkelsen

Hall of Fame Award: Nikoline Werdelin

Full disclosure: I sit on the organising committee of the Ping awards and was part of the jury. The Ping is a critics award: nominations are made by contributors to Nummer9 and Strip! while the jury is composed of three more or less continuing members (representing the Danish Comics Council, Nummer9 and the Copenhagen Comics) and four rotating members selected for variety and expertise.

Philip Ytournel with his award

Read more and see photos from the show (there will also be a special video at some point) at the Ping website and Facebook page. Photos by Alexander Almegaard and Niels Larsen.

The New Chairman

Matthias Wivel — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 20:01:54 +0000

Passing the mantle: Thomas Thorhauge and Stine Spedsbjerg at the Danish Comics Council general assembly in March

It happened a few weeks ago, but I figured I should still note it here: we have a new chairman, or rather chairwoman, of the Danish Comics Council. Elected at the general assembly on 18 March, Stine Spedsbjerg succeeds my pal Thomas Thorhauge who had decided to step down. Stine is a successful online cartoon diarist and earns her keep in advertising. She’s enormously enterprising and resourceful — I can’t think of a better person to take over.

The Danish Comics Council was founded in 2009. I was part of the founding group along with a diverse group of comics professionals, and have sat on the board since. Considering that we have had no funding apart from the annual fee paid by members, it’s been a productive five years: we’ve had a hand in the establishment of a state-approved cartoonist’s programme (BA, ‘graphic storytelling’) at the Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark — the first of its kind in Denmark; we’ve managed to place the semi-private Comics Museum archive with a state-recognized institution, the Storm P. Museum in Copenhagen, which secures it for the future in terms of preservation, collection, expansion, research and facilitation; we’ve created an comics award, the Ping, given annually to cartoonists in a number of categories; we’ve undertaken annual registration of all comics published in Denmark, published annually in a small compendium; we’ve arranged two conferences at the University of Copenhagen, one of which helped stimulate the establishment of the Nordic Network for Comics Research (NNCORE): we’ve partnered with the ambitious Danish comics biennial Copenhagen Comics; we’ve brought comics to wide audiences through live cartooning and other activities; and quite a lot more.

While Thomas takes a well-deserved breather (though remaining at the Council’s board), there is plenty for Stine to get up to. The Comics Council is still essentially an unfunded organisation and other affiliated groups such as Copenhagen Comics will also depend on more steady sources of funding to survive — the hope is eventually to secure larger, ongoing partnerships with possible patrons, as well as with the Danish State to help secure an institutional infrastructure for Danish comics in the future. And I know Stine also has ambitions for preaching the comics gospel to a much wider audience than is currently the case.

Here’s to the next half-decade!

Photo: Henrik Conradsen

Comics at the Copenhagen Book Fair

Matthias Wivel — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 23:57:32 +0000

Once again, the Danish comics grassroots are banding together to create a large area devoted to comics at the Copenhagen Book Fair, Bogforum. The Danish Comics Council is teaming up with a number of other organisations to bring to the guests lots of comics goodness, including live drawing, interviews, workshops and much more. I’m not yet sure I will be able to attend myself, but I may drop in, and if I do I expect to see you there!

More info (in Danish) here and here. And Malene Hald has an overview of everything comics related (including stuff taking place outside the comics area) at the fair.

Images from the comics area at last year’s Bogforum, including a pap of internationally acclaimed director Bille August reading comics.

Hype: Copenhagen Comics 2013

Matthias Wivel — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:49:51 +0000

This year sees the fifth international comics festival in Copenhagen, this year under the name Copenhagen Comics. I’m biased, but I think the organisers have put together a truly impressing program this year, topping even that of 2010, which was stellar. It’s on the weekend of June 1-2 at Ã˜ksnehallen in Copenhagen, with additional events on Friday 19.

Among the international guests are Anke Feuchtenberger, Jaime Hernandez, Melinda Gebbie, Emmanuel Guibert, and Jiro Taniguchi, while on the genre side, people like Jill Thompson, Brian Azzarello, Frazer Irving and Charlie Adlard are representing. As usual, there’ll be tons of events, interviews, workshops, exhibits, and all that.

In addition, we at the Danish Comics Council are planning an academic colloquium at the University of Copenhagen on Friday 19, free and open to all. The theme is teaching comics and comics as teaching tool. An international panel of scholars and cartoonists will be present and yours truly will be on hand to conduct an artist talk with Adlard, about storytelling, The Walking Dead, and cross-media success.

The culmination of the weekend, however, will no doubt be the Ping Awards ceremony on Saturday night. Last year, the the Danish comics website Nummer9.dk and the Danish Comics Council launched this new industry award, named after the beloved Storm P. character from the strip Peter og Ping, in collaboration with the Storm P. Museum. After a sold-out smash of a party last year, we’re looking forward hopefully to topping ourselves with an even more ambitious show. Read more about the show, the awards and the people behind at the Ping website (and on Facebook), and buy your ticket now, before they sell out.

Above: Bunker denizen Thomas Thorhauge’s festival poster. See his process report here.

Flix: The Comics Museum at Storm P.

Matthias Wivel — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:50:54 +0000

As recently noted in this space, the holdings of the Danish Comics Museum, collected over three decades by its founder Anders Hjorth-Jørgensen, have now entered the Storm P. Museum in Copenhagen. In short, this means that its future is secured at a State-approved institution with everything that implies in terms of conservation, development and research. A milestone event in Danish comics and one we in the Danish Comics Council, who have helped midwife the process, are happy to see come to fruition.

These photos provide at panorama of the guests at last night’s reception, pretty much a who’s who of a certain set of generations in Danish comics. Many of the creators, editors, publishers, and retailers of the seventies and eighties, contemporaries of Hjorth-Jørgensen, showed up to celebrate. It was great to see them all. A the mic, Iben Overgaard, director of the Storm P. Museum, initiated the proceedings, and she was followed by Thomas Thorhauge, chairman of the Danish Comics Council, and Hjorth-Jørgensen himself, both of whose speeches are excerpted in the videos below.

And finally, here are videos of Thorhauge and Hjorth-Jørgensen speaking at the reception: