The cartoonist shared with us where the inspiration for beginning his strips came from: “I started making comics in 2017 when I was on exchange in Aarhus University, Denmark. I was procrastinating from my PhD thesis, and I started making weird comics where different characters from the sagas would say controversial things that would only really make people who know something about the Icelandic sagas laugh. Slowly I realized that while I don’t draw or paint well, I really like doing it, so I started experimenting with color.” More info: Instagram | bsky.app | Facebook | socel.net While I feel like I have a very specific style, in which most of my comics are drawn, I also like making The New Yorker style black and white cartoons, for example, or weird abstract stuff. I also have three recurring storyworlds that (usually) aren’t Viking-related.” Recently, I started doing a lot of stuff about UFOs and aliens, because I am very much pro disclosure and think that not enough material is being done about that that isn’t meant to ridicule the topic. That being said, it is a real struggle to avoid probing jokes.” Sometimes I concentrate VERY HARD, saying ‘okay, today you are making a New Yorker cartoon. THINK OF SOMETHING RELATABLE!’ or sometimes I’m just ‘I hate the world today and everything is falling apart, make a comic that will showcase that’. It’s kinda like my mind is my own private ChatGPT. Which, I guess, is actually what minds are. I haven’t used ChatGPT or other LLMs for making comics (except for one case where I made a comic about ChatGPT making comics); the way I see it, as long as I am using my brain power to create, it might be less good than what AI can think of, but it’s more fun for me. Often I’ll ask my wife to think of a punchline, and it’s usually much funnier than anything I can think of.” Ever since I started making comics, though, there are really countless influences and I am afraid of not mentioning someone and breaking their tiny hearts. I guess Brad T Jonas (@bradtjonas) is a huge influence, the beauty of his craft is just breathtaking, and he manages to make depressing stuff feel hilarious. Julia Gootzeit (ohmyghoulia) and Yaplaws (@yaplaws) taught me a lot to not look at the page as something stale but rather as a part of the creation. Recently I started admiring The Other End Comics (@neilkohney) for the brilliant way that he constructs narratives, as well as his hilarious drawing style, something that Delphini Comics does amazingly as well (@delphinicomics). My buddy Richard Klos (@custardfist) makes NSFW comics that often trigger me, but I just love the way that he approaches stories, puns, and drawing, and it helps when you know that behind it all is a very good person.” Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
