Kolor Klimax cover illo by Aapo Rapi

Below you will find links to hi-res images from the book, ready for publication, as well as other resources that might be helpful. Please let us know if we can help you with anything else. And enjoy the book!

Resources
Selection of hi-res images from Kolor Klimax.

As mentioned in this space once or twice, Kolor Klimax — Nordic Comics Now, edited by this site’s owner Matthias Wivel, is now available in bookstores across North America, and thus the rest of the world. To mark the official release, I decided to ask him a few questions on the book, the project and the future.

Why a Nordic comics anthology? Why the US? And why Fantagraphics?

The idea came from the Finnish Comics Society. They’ve been running an international initiative called Nordicomics — which includes exhibitions and workshops — for a number of years now, and figured that publishing an anthology series in English would help their mission to promote Nordic comics internationally. The idea is that this is the first in a series of books with rotating editors, under the general helmsmanship of Kalle Hakkola of FCS, who is responsible for Nordicomics. The second book is already being planned and will be totally different from Kolor Klimax in concept as well as content. As I understand it, the idea is that every book will be a stand-alone work.

As for Fantagraphics, I basically bit the idea from you. As I’m sure it did for your Danish anthology From Wonderland with Love, it just seemed the obvious choice — besides having been one of the best American comics publishers for decades, they’re consistently the most interested in supporting grass roots projects such as this one, as long as the quality is there. And co-publisher Kim Thompson is half Danish and knows about and is interested in Nordic comics already.

From Jenni Rope's "The Island 2"

I know that the theme will be children’s comics but that’s about the extent of it, and this may have changed since I last heard about it.

How did you select the contributors? What picture of the Nordic comics scene did you wish to paint, consciously or subconsciously?

Putting together a good anthology is similar to making a good mixtape. Whatever the individual merits of a piece, it won’t do to include it if it doesn’t somehow work for the anthology as a whole. There has to be a consistent idea or tone to the book, which doesn’t mean that there can’t be dissonance — there’s some of that in Kolor Klimax, and I think for the better — but the individual parts still have to generate something greater than their sum. It’s incredibly difficult to achieve, but also a lot of fun.

It was of course important that all the contributions were of high quality, that they weren’t so long as to destabilize the book’s anthology concept, and that the work included was current. Other than that I had no specific criteria for inclusion — what was important was that each contribution presented a strong, original, personal vision. One of the advantages of the relative lack of a lucrative comics mainstream in the Nordic countries is that many of talented people who decide to make comics anyway, do it to pursue their own muse, often in decidedly non-commercial ways. Although the output is necessarily meager because cartoonists have to make their living doing something else, it also results in comics of remarkably high quality. I think the book demonstrates this, even if it also includes contributions from a few strongly consolidated, popular cartoonists.

From Bendik Kaltenborn's "The Great Underneath"

As it happened, the book is a combination of new comics made especially for it and others recently published elsewhere. Only one piece is somewhat older. The contributors include a handful of the people who broke new ground for comics in the seventies and eighties, as well as a number of the nineties innovators, but since the focus is on current work, the majority are younger artists — the ones making waves today.

In the book’s introduction you say — broadly speaking — that Swedish comics are autobiographical and in social realist, Finnish comics are experimental, and those from Norway and Denmark are only now being liberated from each their mainstream yoke. Is this a characteristic you would apply to the book’s contributions?

From Thomas Thorhauge's "Suicide Joe vs. The Dead Tree Press"

What were your deliberations when planning the book’s structure, the sequence of the individual stories?

It has to work. It’s a question of feeling rather than principle. One important choice was designer Frederik’s Storm’s decision occasionally to insert blank pages between individual contributions. This meant that we were able to start each comic on the left-hand or right-hand page that worked best for it without having to worry about the overall sequence. It also gives the book a nice sense of punctuation, enhancing the reading experience.

Are there artists who especially surprised you when handing in their contributions?

Yes, I think Bendik Kaltenborn went in a bold new direction with his disturbing “The Great Underneath.” It still has his signature humor, but this is new territory. Johan Krarup’s “Nostalgia” perhaps didn’t surprise me as such, but it is presents his ablest handling of concept and execution to date. Gitte Broeng and Mikkel Damsbo’s “Relocating Mother” is also an innovation in Nordic comics — a very fine synthesis of the visual and the literary. And Thomas Thorhauge’s “Suicide Joe vs. The Dead Tree Press” is a remarkably angry, trenchant piece for him, not the least when seen in relation to his earlier work. It ends the book with a bang. There’s plenty of other material in the book that I love just as much, but these were the most surprising, each in their way.

Johan F. Krarup’s “Nostalgia” was nominated for a Ping Award for Best Danish Comic, and Mikkel Damsbo & Gitte Broeng’s story was accepted at the Charlottenborg gallery’s spring exhibition. Are there any other entries in the book that have had a life of their own outside of the book?

From Joakim Pirinen's "This Is My Life"

In the 60s and onwards, Color Climax was the name of a world famous Danish producer of porn. Is there a statement of intent in the book’s title or is it just an amusing throwaway reference?

I guess it plays on some of the most persistent prejudices about the Nordic countries in the world at large. It also reconfigures a great title from something not only sordid, but repellent, to something that might still be sordid, but is also beautiful. There’s a belief in the transformative power of art somewhere in there.

Above is the publisher’s promotional video. See photos from and of it here, and check out its Facebook page here.

Almægtig
[A God Somewhere]
by John Arcudi and Peter Snejbjerg
G Floy Studio

Technically a Danish edition of the American edition by DC/Wildstorm, Almægtig is drawn by Denmark’s hardest-working man in mainstream comics showbiz, so let’s call it Danish too. Snejbjerg finds in Arcudi’s smart script about an ordinary man who gains godlike power a perfect match for his sparse chiaroscuro style. Arcudi’s elegant mix of human incident and big ideas challenges Snejbjerg most of the time to work with nuance and precision in place of the pyrotechnics that are otherwise the stock in trade of American genre comics. An intelligent and unpretentious take on that most hackneyed of genre exercises, the “realistic” superhero story, congenially visualized.
 
 
 
Glimt
[Glimpses]
by Rikke Bakman
Aben Maler

A beautifully realized suite of childhood recollections woven into the narrative framework of a single summer’s day spent at the Danish west coast when the author was six. Evocatively drawn in colored pencil, Glimt conveys a gripping sense of being there, as a child, with the glimpses of the adult world beyond the curve of age.

Here’s a preview:

Read “Relocating Mother” in KOLOR KLIMAX. Available now.

Kolor Klimax cover illo by Aapo Rapi

Look for it in your nearest comics store or wait for its bookstore release coming up!

Here’s a preview:

King ind forbi til ferniseringen og hils på kl. 19-22!

Johan F. Krarup, Henrik Andreasen and Marianne Eskebæk Larsen at the release party.

Same day saw a fine review by Bart Beaty, published at Comics Reporter. I was happy to see that he noticed not only some of the consolidated talents, but some relatively new ones, Johan F. Krarup and Mikkel Damsbo/Gitte Broeng, who I also think contributed really outstanding pieces to the book. Here’s a pull quote from Bart:

“Ultimately, there is no way not to recommend Kolor Klimax. It showcases a wide range of extremely talented cartoonists, and will open your eyes to a whole world of comics that get far too little attention. Something to anticipate for Spring.”

Kolor Klimax cover illo by Aapo Rapi

I will be talking about a lot more here and elsewhere, but if you’re in Helsinki do stop by, pick up a copy and meet some of the contributors. Stay tuned for news on other events related to the book and eventually for the American release in the Spring of 2012

Here’s the text I wrote for the press release:

KOLOR KLIMAX unites twenty-two Nordic artists to present the best in Nordic comics right now. Focusing on work from Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, it offers a wide range of approaches and genres displaying amply the diversity and innovation in comics today.

Despite their small size and language groups, the Nordic countries have long had a strong comics culture. The per capita readership is remarkably high and distinct national traditions were shaped during the course of the last century, spanning the field from traditional newspaper strips to small press experimentation. And while the mass markets of the last century have declined, today’s Nordic comics are healthy and ever-diversifying embracing everything from the generalist graphic novel to avant-garde cross-pollination with the fine arts.

KOLOR KLIMAX focuses on personal creation, made independently of the traditional genres. It unites a very diverse field of short stories by the following artists: Mari Ahokoivu (F), Vanessa Baird (N), Mikkel Damsbo & Gitte Broeng (D), Joanna Rubin Dranger (S), Joanna Hellgren (S), Bendik Kaltenborn (N), Kolbein Karlsson (S), Peter Kielland (D), Johan F. Krarup (D), Tommi Musturi (F), Christopher Nielsen (N), Emelie Östergren (S), Signe Parkins (D), Joakim Pirinen (S), Ville Ranta (F), Aapo Rapi (F), Jenni Rope (F), Mårdøn Smet (D), Rui Tenreiro (Mozambique/N), Thomas Thorhauge (D), and Amanda Vähämäki (F).

Edited by art historian Ph. D. Matthias Wivel, KOLOR KLIMAX inaugurates a series of Nordic anthologies under the auspices of the Finnish Comics Society’s Nordicomics intiative. It is published in partnership with seminal American small press publisher Fantagraphics Books. By making it available on the American market and, by extension, for worldwide bookstore distribution, it aims to expose an international audience to the best in Nordic comics today.

Kolor Klimax : Nordic Comics Now, Fantagraphics Books 2011, 256 pages in color, suggested retail price $29.99.