Changing trains

TGV

On a train to the gates of the Magical Kingdom - EuroDisney. Changing trains there for CDG. Over all Angouleme was excellent. Got to spend a lot of time at the booth of my great French publisher L'association. Met some old friends and made some useful contacts. Now I keep my fingers crossed for the chance to see Mickey. Excelsior!

Time

After Läskimooses I still have time for 5 or 7 projects. A few more if I'm lucky, a few less if I'm not. I try to make at least one of them really good. Good in some lasting way. And I don't know yet how Läskimooses will be. It'll be finished perhaps. At the moment that's enough for me.

Angouleme

Been here now for 24 hours and it's as crazy as ever or I don't know. Lots of people you see quite seldom and then you try to say something that is not idiotic to at least one or two. Anyways... Could've done a few more signings, but maybe tomorrow.

29

While I struggle with the LDC book, issue 29 is getting ready for the press. It's one of my favorites as is issue 28 that will reach subscribers later this week. Direction. Finally I think I found it for the LDC book.

It varies

Sometimes I feel I have no patience for the so called Finnish comics scene. Sometimes I don't think about it at all. It varies.

Slowly

Everything proceeds slowly. I have a book coming out from LIKE by me and Riikka Ala-Harja and now finally all bits and pieces have come together. The LDC book proceeds equally slow and doesnt have much of a structure. Send me money and help me to get back to LÄSKIMOOSES.

Photoshopping

Try

Secret

Let's keep this a secret, but Läskimooses has now reached 700 pages. Meanwhile: some reviews here and there, mostly quiet. I am repeating myself, but: Läskimooses is meant to be a comic book not a graphic novel. IF there is going to be a book of 1200pgs someday, it won't be the thing as the thing is. Therefore all the press at that stage is totally unnecessary. When Läskimooses comes out as a book the show is already over.

So

So apparently things started to move with the LDC book. I have some pages finished now and I feel I have a direction.

Little Nellie

Talk

There has been some talk somewhere I don't know where and none of my business. But. The so called comics finlandia award. I myself have stated a wish to my publisher that none of my books should ever participate to this competition. Reasons are totally irrevelant. Luckily he agrees and this has been and will be the case with all my books. Also with the maybe someday forthcoming Läskimooses book. Nuff said

Talk

There has been some talk somewhere I don't know where and none of my business. But. The so called comics finlandia award. I myself have stated a wish to my publisher that none of my books should ever participate to this competition. Reasons are totally irrevelant. Luckily he agrees and this has been and will be the case with all my books. Also with the maybe someday forthcoming Läskimooses book. Nuff said

Backcover or something

Classes

Teaching suits me. It's for me a better source of income than illustration and I learn a lot doing it. Even if Läskimooses became a huge hit I would probably keep my classes.
This spring for the first time I teach comics expression 2 at aalto on wednesday mornings. Wednesday evenings I have comics expression one going and a new one starting soon. On tuesday evenings I have a freehand drawing class starting, probably in march. I would need one class at least one clasd more, either on monday evening or thursday.

Le Dernier Cri

So I'm supposed to do a book for LDC and it's great. But I keep getting these half-great ideas that  keep me half-motivated. Now I really should start making progress, but instead I'm changing directions. And it would feel so much easier to start issue 30 and even easier to start issue 31. So... Again I have a completely new sort of an idea... Or two. Crap. I'll be wiser on monday.

Know

Don't know... Sometimes I feel I could just drop this. Let the secrets remain secret. The start has been hard after the holidays. What makes it even more difficult is that I should do this one special issue first. And although I know what I would like to have in it, it's still vague somehow. To make it even harder: the next actual issue is a Mars story for a change and those require an entirely different attitude to draw and write than what I've been doing in the last ten or fifteen issues or so. But I did a couple if panels that are not bad so that at least is good.

Issue special

Illustration

For years I haven't done illustrations. All this contract/rights nonsense came along and it started to feel it's not worth of the aggravation. And then I also lost interest. For the many years I was doing illustration I only once had a regular spot and that really made all the difference. Although it only paid 50€ for an illustration (300FiM that time ) it came every week and it was regular income. After that thing I never got a spot to work regularly and just before I more or less stopped doing illustrations I was doing maybe 2 or 3 in a year, which wasn't very much. And teaching just seemed to work better for me. It was steady and it wasn't draining energy from the same source as my own work. So teaching and the grants provided for me a better income than illustration.
Now I still wouldn't mind to have a steady spot to draw for. At this specific stage of time I would be quite eager  to do some portraits or reportage drawings for the press. But it seems illustration is not needed so much anymore. Maybe I should go out looking.
This anecdote from two years back  pretty nicely sums up my feelings towards illustration:
I was on a holiday in Rome when I get an e-mail from NY Times (web version) asking me to illustrate a text. Sketch was needed the same day and the illustration by the next. I imagined that they wanted my scraperboard work since that was what I was known for. I mulled it over: I didn't have any material with me and I didn't have access to a scanner. So I wrote back telling that this time it would be impossible for me to do this. They never answered my mail.
Yes, for sure someone would've interrupted the holiday and found a way to do something with whatever there's around. I however never felt sorry for not doing this. I still don't see it as an missed oppurtunity to a new career in US.

That was the second or third time I said NO to a job offer. This is probably something you're not allowed to do when you're a freelancer.

But now, if you have a spot where you need portraits of people or some more realistic sort of drawing of landscape or scenery, I might quite well be interested. Just contact me. mattihagelberg@gmail.com