The Finnish Comics Phenomenon

Excerpt from Marko Turunen's comic in š! #8 'Midnight Sun'

Ville Hänninen will have a presentation of Finnish comics with lot of visual examples of this vibrant scene in Riga!

Monday, 23.02.2015, 17:30, Birojnīca, Berga Bazārs, Riga, free entry (Facebook event)

"Finland, a country of five million people, has never really witnessed the birth of a comic industry. This also means that Finnish artists are never under any illusions about their future. They know that they very likely have to earn their bread and butter doing something else. And as it will not make them rich, they also do not have to care about making compromises.

Despite or, in fact, because of this Finnish comics have attracted increasing attention during the new millennium. There have never been this many people taking comics seriously, as an art form. Finnish comics artists such as Tommi Musturi, Matti Hagelberg and Amanda Vähämäk are praised for their originality; the crème de la crème of Finnish comics have powerful imagery combined with a powerful story."

Ville Hänninen is comics journalist and critic and the chairman of Finnish Comics Society. Since 1997 he has written articles, reviews and interviews, as well as edited books about comics, including the colossal anthology Finnish Comics Annual 2011. In 2012 he co-curated "Eyeballing! The new forms of comics", the exhibition of contemporary Finnish comics in the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA. In 2014 he wrote Sarjatulta (with Jussi Karjalainen), a non-fiction book about comics and political cartoons in Finland during the Second World War.

Excerpt from Mari Ahokoivu's mini kuš! 'Otso'

Excerpt from Tommi Musturi's comic in š! #18 'Poetry'

Event organized by Zmp Birojs Latvijā in collaboration with the University of Latvia and kuš!. Supported by the Embassy of Finland in Riga.