Author: Fredrik Strömberg

Fredrik Strömberg is a journalist, author and historian, who has studied comics since the early 1990’s. He is one of the editors of Bild & Bubbla, Scandinavia’s largest as well as the world’s second oldest magazine about comics, and the Chairman of the Swedish Comics Association. He writes regularly for newspapers and magazines about comics, heads the Comic Art School of Sweden and sits on the editorial board for the International Journal of Comic Art. Among the books he has written are the English language Swedish Comics History, Black Images in the Comics, The Comics Go to Hell and Comic Art Propaganda. Strömberg lives in Sweden and is currently working on a number of new books about comics.

Skuggfärd by Magnus Engström My rating: 3 of 5 stars Magnus Engström made his debut in 2011 with the graphic novel Luftspår (Air Track), an experimental detective story with existential dimensions. Skuggfärd (Shadow Road) is a kind of sequel, in the sense that it once again contains a detective/thriller story used as a tool to…

Spirou – Den kompletta samlingen 1972-1975 by Jean-Claude Fournier My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is the tenth chronological collection of the classic Belgian adventure comic Spirou and Fantasio, and includes three albums from the early 1970s. The creator of this epoch, Fournier, inherited the comic from André Franquin, whom most view as the…

Spirou – Den kompletta samlingen 1988-1991 by Tome My rating: 4 of 5 stars The classic Belgian album series Spirou and Fantasia was created in the 1930s and since then a number of different comics artists have shouldered the responsibility of creating this humorous adventure comic. After a number of years when the series was…

Breve til Satan by Tome My rating: 3 of 5 stars The second volume of the Spirou writer and artist Tome’s crime comic Soda. This is an improvement compared to the first volume, both in terms of the script and the art. The story mostly comprises of a flashback, a so-called origin story, in which…

The Walking Dead, Vol. 14: Ingen utväg b y Robert Kirkman My rating: 4 of 5 stars The fourteens volume, and still an adrenaline rush… You’d think that Kirkman would have milked this post apocalyptic zombie concept for all its worth by now, but he still manages to get me involved in the lives of the…

Den tavse engel by Tome My rating: 3 of 5 stars The first volume of the Spriou artist and writer Tome’s “other” album series, Soda. In France, there are so far thirteen albums since the debut in the late 1980s and the comic is on its third artist by now. Soda is based on the…

Arne Anka: Mentala selfies by Charlie Christensen My rating: 4 of 5 stars Charlie Christensen is back with the twelfth collection of the cult comic Arne Anka. These volumes are nowadays only partly collections of the short comics that Christensen makes for a Swedish newspaper, which as always contain satirical comments about our time, presented…

Sockerärter by Tinet Elmgren My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a little gem of a graphic novel. Set in Russia after a world war in the near future that seems to have wiped out most of humanity (here made up of anthropomorphic pigs…) and most of the technology. A small group of survivors…

Helt enkelt Samuel by Tommi Musturi My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Finnish artist Tommi Musturi creates wordless, symbolic comics, often with four square panels per page and images brimming over with imaginative details and richness of color. Inspiration can be discerned from Hergé and Joost Swartes ligne claire, but also from Jim Woodring’s…

Lönnmördaren by Raoul Cauvin My rating: 3 of 5 stars Yet another volume in the album series Les Tuniques Bleues (The Blue Tunics), and as per usual, it´s a traditional, well-made comic in the classical French-Belgian album tradition. The plot is pretty thin – someone within their own ranks is trying to assassinate General Ulysses S.…

Jag håller tiden by Åsa Grennvall My rating: 5 of 5 stars Åsa Grennvall is back with a sequel to the critically acclaimed Deras ryggar luktade så gott (Their backs smelled so good). In a sense, this book starts right where the previous one ended and deals with how Grennvall starts her own family and…

I’ve stayed away from blogging etc. for the summer, focusing on family and my thesis, so I completely missed out on the fact that my latest review was published in the Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

Planning to update my knowledge on the bourgeoning Indian graphic novel market during the next year or so. Thanks to Sumit Kumar and Thomas Karlsson for getting me started with this little gem.

Marsupilamis vrede by Fabien Vehlmann My rating: 3 of 5 stars The latest Spirou and Fantasio album is a trip down memory lane for us who have followed this series for a long time.

As those of you working as comics artist, journalists, editors or authors know, there can be long bouts of work with little or no obvious payoff. And then there’s periods when everything just comes together and your mailbox (physical and digital) is filled daily with new publications. That has been the case for me these…

Blå blues by Raoul Cauvin My rating: 2 of 5 stars Yet another album with Les Tuniques Bleues (or Blåfrakkerne as they are called in Danish). There are 59 albums so far, and even if the creators are aged by now it seems they are not about to quit producing an album a year, like…

Utgrävningen by Max Andersson My rating: 5 of 5 stars When it got this new graphic novel by Max Andersson, actually the first since Pixy, which was published an astonishing 25 years ago, I was really elated. For me Pixy was one of the major eye openers to the potential of comics and I have…

En blårock saknas by Raoul Cauvin My rating: 3 of 5 stars A story that begins promising and has great potential, which unfortunately is sorely misspent by scriptwriter Cauvin at the end. The idea of alternative, subjective versions of the chaotic reality during a battle is inspired, although no one who reads this long-running series…

Gömstället by Raoul Cauvin My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the 38th album of the Les Tuniques Bleues and the artist Lambil is as good as ever in his somewhat more realistic version of the dynamic Marcinelle-style. Sometimes I feel, however, that the script writer Cauvin has lost some of his edge thorough…

Just visited to the local library, and found comics artist and professor Gunnar Krantz reading my book Seriebiblioteket (The Comics Library).

Världens bästa morfar by Tome My rating: 3 of 5 stars Le Petit Spirou is a spinoff of the classic Belgian comic Spirou and Fantasio, about the protagonist as a child, probably set somewhere during the 1950s and actually more successful than the main series. Le Petit Spirou is made by the duo Tome (Philippe…

Everything is right now coming together, after months of working all hours, all days of the week. Here’s the brand new issue of SJoCA, with a beautiful cover illustration by the inimitable Nina Hemmingsson.

A new teacher’s guide by yours truly was just made available online. It’s in Swedish and geared towards teachers in Swedish primary school, containing sections on why comics should be used in the classroom, how this matches the instructions in the government’s policy documents etc, as well as more practically oriented tips on workshops for different levels…

Spirou 1984-1987 by Tome My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Danish-Swedish publisher Mooz continues the publication of hardcover collections with the classic French children’s comic Spirou. This volume contains three albums from the 1980s by Tome and Janry. This creative team was clearly the heirs to the undisputed master among Spirou artists, André Franquin,…

More brand new books with contributions by yours truly. This is the second book from the Swedish Comics Archive, focusing on the comics culture in Sweden in the 1960s. I’ve contributed an interview with pioneering comics historian Sture Hegerfors, and an article about the likewise pioneering female comics artist Ulla van Rooy, who illustrated a…

It’s that time of the year when all the hard work that you have put in throughout the winter/spring comes to fruition. There are no less than five publication with material by your’s truly out or about to be published, and now the artist talks that I did at the comics festival in Stockholm are…

Ljusförgörerskan by Li Österberg My rating: 4 of 5 stars The second graphic novel with Li Österberg’s contemporary take on the Greek gods, and a much better, more coherent story than that in the first, Nekyia. We here follow the young woman Persefone, a minor goddess who is the daughter (and granddaughter…) of the god…

Spirou 1969-1972 by Jean-Claude Fournier My rating: 3 of 5 stars The Danish/Swedish publisher Mooz continues the publication of hardcover collections with the classical French album comic Spirou and Fantasio. This volume contains the first three albums by Franquin’s successor, the then young and inexperienced Jean-Claude Fournier. Taking over after the recognized master was surely…

Nekyia by Li Österberg My rating: 3 of 5 stars Re-reading this book in preparation for taking on Ljusförgörerslan (The Light Destroyer), the second graphic novel by Li Österberg set in her version of the Greek mythological world.

Superhästen by Emmanuel Guibert My rating: 4 of 5 stars Ariol is quickly becoming my favourite children’s comic. Guibert constantly delivers scripts that really feel like they depicts the reality of children, as opposed to all those stories about children, written by adults from a safe distance. In this volume, for instance, I loved the…

W obcej skórze by Anna Andruchowicz My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is a weird and wonderful original Polish graphic novel, which title loosely translates to “In a foreign skin”. It’s an eerie, silent story of a wolf in a forest populated with a combination of traditional animals and what looks like huge fantasy…

Den svarta undulaten by Lars Sjunnesson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Lars Sjunnesson is one of Sweden’s most internationally well-known and respected comics artists, which is not surprising. Since his debut in the 80s, he has consistently created provocative and distinctive comics with high artistic integrity. Sjunnesson’s most famous characters are the permanently agitated…

Palimpsest by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom My rating: 5 of 5 stars Palimpsest is an autobiographical graphic novel about a Swede who was adopted from Korea searching for her origins. Sjöblom has previously made shorter comics and illustrated children’s books, but this is her first full-length graphic novel.