2011

HOUSING OF 2011

In the spring of 2011 I moved out of the place where I had been living four and a half years (was it really that long?!!!). I never felt like it was really my home, so it was actually somehow a relief – finally what I’d been expecting to happen any time came true. One of the things I like about moving is that it’s a great opportunity to get rid of all the things I don’t really need. In 2011 I “downsized” from a large room + kitchen to an already furnished and equipped 20 m2 trailer …

That’s right, I spent the summer and fall at a trailer on a small garden plot outside the city. I started renting the place in the summer of 2010, and spent the fall fixing it up. In 2011 finally came the time to live there properly over the warmer half of the year. It was as awesomepants as it sounds, but a lot of the time I was in denial – nooo, there is just no way that my life could be that perfect!!!!1 – so I was mostly focusing on the few negative aspects of the situation, such as loneliness and too much rain and relationship crap and getting lyme disease.

When I moved to Berlin five years ago and my life suddenly was so much better than before, I had a similar depression, so in 2012 my life at the trailer will probably feel even nicer. :3

In any case, unlike my old apartment, my trailer really does feel like “my home”, as much as is possible when you rent a place, anyway. I have a contract that goes one year at a time, so nobody can kick me out anytime soon.

I’ve been planning to write some sort of deeper exploration about all the actually very important political and emotional aspects of my very independent living situation at this place. Some day …

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WORKING OF 2011

The spring was madness. Then, for the rest of the year, I had earned so relatively much money, and I spent so little money on rent, that I could work less dayjobs and focus more on my own art.

Some highlights from my dayjobs this year were Hair Shirt (my first 100% hand lettering job O_o), B. Traven (about the anarchist writer in Mexico), Coraline, and The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book (not yet published).

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PROTESTING OF 2011

I did my own little part in the Arab spring by joining the local protests in Berlin for freedom and justice in Egypt …

Later on I joined “Occupy Berlin” and stared down the Reichstag.

Otherwise, my entire existence is in its own little way an act of protest and resistance against the oppressing powers that be.

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COMICS CREATING OF 2011

I was focusing mostly on Driftwood, my “love child” that I’ve been drawing since 1996. It’s going to be concluded disturbingly soon (I’m in the middle of the last chapter now). I’ll collect the whole comic in a 500 page book next year. Exciting!

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ANIMALS OF 2011

I interacted with lots of different animals in my garden. I found a way to coexist peacefully with the slugs that wanted to eat all my vegetables, and I watched hedgehogs, frogs, toads, spiders and many other little creatures.

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EXPLORING OF 2011

Probably the most interesting abandoned place I explored this year was a Soviet garrison where a tank battalion used to be stationed.

There was even a little Soviet “furgonchik” near the garages:

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EVENTING OF 2011

In Sweden, I organized a live drawing event at SPX11, talked and comic battled at the Gothenburg book fair, and took part in the first ever edition of the Gothenburg comics festival.

Internationally, my zines were exhibited in Paris and I sold some zines at Tampere kuplii.

In Berlin I took part in the 24h comics event, and last but not least I arranged an exciting audio-gustatory-olfactory-sensory-visual performance together with my mum and my sister at the lovely FIGO. (There will be a report soon …)

Here we pose with Mussolini.

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EMOTING OF 2011

Basically I taught myself to accept that I might have bizarre feelings for bizarre people and that it’s all okay if I say so (and if someone says otherwise that’s their problem), and that those feelings are just a sidetrack, anyway, and that I should center my life around the most important thing, which is drawing my comics, and the things that are necessary for being able to draw comics, which is earning just enough money from dayjobs, and having a place where I can be alone and in peace and focused.

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DISAPPOINTING OF 2011

The rainy summer. Not much solar power. Rotting tomatoes. Weird spinach, carrots and radishes. ;_;

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SURPRISING OF 2011

I finally tracked down my object of obsession – the piggy in the bathtub!!!! Unbelievable.

And maybe most surprising of all, I decided I’m going to learn to play the dombra. Maybe it’s my 30 years crisis. I’ve never learned to play any instruments properly, but I’ve always kind of wanted to, and yet I’ve been making stupid excuses as for why not. I’ve ordered a dombra now, but it’ll take a month or two until I get it. :3