Imagine George H. W. Bush referring to Bill Clinton as the White House’s own Fritz the Cat, or Jimmy Carter calling Ronald Reagan the fourth Freak Brother. This highly unlikely scenario came true during a debate on energy politics in the Swedish parliament in 1990. Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, a state bureaucrat with the charisma of a rock, called Carl Bildt, the leader of the Conservative Party, the opposition’s own Socker-Conny ["Sugar-Conny"], after the alternative cartoonist Joakim Pirinen’s brusque antihero. Given that Carlsson, close to 60 years old at the time, was not known for his deep knowledge of popular culture in general and alternative comics in particular, it seems fair to say that his choice of insult was rather surprising. At the same time, it speaks volumes of how deeply Pirinen’s character had established itself in the public consciousness only a few years after its debut. The album Socker-Conny, published in 1985 under the auspices of the magazine Galago, was not only Pirinen’s breakthrough, it was something rarer: a commercially successful alternative comic.
However, nearly 40 years later, sitting in his studio in central Stockholm, Pirinen is reluctant to discuss the character that made him a household name. “Can’t we talk about something else?” he pleads in a voice as gentle as it is determined. Pirinen is neatly dressed in the standard attire of an American college professor: a navy gingham-patterned button down shirt and grey chinos. He speaks eloquently in a soft, low tone that is representative of his introverted demeanor. Pirinen’s unwillingness to once again recount the background to Socker-Conny is understandable, knowing that his name will forever be associated with his most famous creation, much like a band that once upon a time had a hit single which they are still forced to play at every concert. Upon its release, when the album was reviewed in Dagens Nyheter–a Swedish equivalent of the New York Times–the reviewer noted that the bullish and tragic-comical Socker-Conny had already become something of a cult figure and an obvious reference in conversations among young adults.1 Adding to its reputation, Socker-Conny has been adapted into a popular play and was even honored with a stamp by the Swedish postal office in 2008. “And in 2017, he became the 45th president of America,” Pirinen jokes, in a statement not without a grain of truth.
Nevertheless, Pirinen is far from being a one-hit wonder. His collected body of work includes over 20 albums (not counting works of prose, drama, and dedicated art books). A recently published doctoral dissertation on his body of work concludes that since the 1980s he has enjoyed the status of Sweden’s most esteemed alternative cartoonist.2 At the time of this writing, a substantial 400-page summary of his career is fresh from the printer to commemorate the 40th anniversary of his debut album.3 But despite his success on home turf, Pirinen is almost completely unknown outside of Sweden. His work has hardly been translated to any other language than Finnish, with just one album available in French.4 His few appearances in English are scattered across anthologies such as Fantagraphics’ Zero Zero and Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now, and Top Shelf's From the Shadow of the Northern Lights. “My comics may appear too unconventional in the eyes of a foreign publisher,” he explains while preparing a cup of instant coffee. “They lack cohesion, mostly consisting of short stories executed in different styles.”
No foreign interest at all, even for Socker-Conny, which is a single-story album?
- None at all. I think it’s too weird, plain and simple. Perhaps also too localized.
Are the shorter stories a consequence of so many of your comics first appearing in anthologies?
- I’m quite creative, and I quickly get bored with what I’m working on, and I am eager to move on to explore another idea that I may have. Also, I got my breakthrough when I was quite young with Socker-Conny, and after that, my life became scattered. It’s very rare that I have been able to devote myself to one project and work uninterrupted for an extended period. I also had kids, which took a lot of my time. The pandemic was the first time in ages that I felt I could work in peace. I would really like to do an album that tells one long and coherent story, which might be more attractive to an international audience. It’s a dream I have.
Pirinen was born in 1961 and grew up in a middle-class home in Lidingö, an affluent suburb north of Stockholm. His father, who had been sent to Sweden from Finland to avoid the Soviet invasion during World War II, was a dentist with a private clinic, and his mother was a housewife. Pirinen describes his childhood as steeped in comics: “Reading comics was more or less the only thing I did growing up. I read everything I could get my hands on.” His diet of comics included anything from Donald Duck to The Phantom–two titles published in comic book format since the 1950s in Sweden–but also science fiction titles from EC and Franco-Belgian adventure comics like Tintin. However, it was something other than comic books that inspired him to become a cartoonist. At an art exhibition, the artistically inclined Pirinen spotted an image by the internationally renowned Swedish painter Öyvind Fahlström, which he says mesmerized him:
- Fahlström had taken a black & white page from Krazy Kat and transformed the characters into abstract signs while maintaining the panels. At that time, that image was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I’m a big admirer of both abstract art and comics, and Fahlström managed to reconcile the two in a single image. There was no opposition between them, which, to me, meant that I could have my cake and eat it too.
The timing was fortunate. Simultaneously, Pirinen, then a high school teenager, discovered alternative and experimental comics that made a big impression on him. “I was particularly fond of RAW, especially the works of Gary Panter, who struck me as fantastic,” he says. “I read Zap, but I didn’t understand much of it. I liked Freak Brothers, though.” Panter, in combination with Gilbert Shelton, Mark Beyer, and a bit of George Herriman, are also the most visible influences in Pirinen’s work, which is characterized by large panels, loose line work, and generous use of ink.
Pirinen’s debut in the comics scene coincided with the emergence of adult comics in Sweden. He published some of his first comics in a newly launched Galago, which remains an important forum for alternative comics in Sweden today. “I was approached by its founder and editor, Rolf Classon, in 1979, who told me that he was starting a new magazine and wanted me to contribute something. I did a few strips, they looked terrible, but after that, I was immersed in doing comics.” In his recently published autobiography, Classon describes how he discovered Pirinen through a mutual friend who knew about a talented 16-year old who drew strips for his school paper. The next day, Classon phoned Pirinen to ask if he had any pages to show. Too shy to meet Classon, Pirinen instructed him to pick up the pages from his mailbox. While Classon stood in front of Pirinen’s childhood home, he spotted someone peeking from behind the curtain, whom he suspected to be Pirinen.5
- It was my sister behind the curtain. I was too afraid to even stay at home, so I had gone into the city.
His comics did not disappoint. Classon writes that they were the best he had seen from a Swedish cartoonist at the time, almost at the level of his favorite American underground artists. Pirinen would go on to become a mainstay in the pages of Galago and soon became part of its editorial group. In terms of subject matter, Pirinen’s earliest work contained all the ingredients that have endured throughout his oeuvre: anxiety and dark, twisted humor drawn in black & white.
What leads you to explore these topics?
- I honestly don’t know. I’m not typically an anxious person, but what I’ve noticed as a common thread among my characters is that they all seem to be lonely individuals. Why I work in black & white is that when I began publishing in Galago, we couldn’t afford color printing. So, I had no choice but to learn how to draw in black & white. Nowadays, that limitation doesn’t apply anymore, as everyone can easily color digitally. I’ve never learned how to do it though, and I don’t think that I have the will to learn it either. However, I’ve always been drawn to the concept of darkness. Even as a child, I enjoyed playing outside in our garden after the sun had set. In one of my books, I wrote an essay about a childhood memory. After visiting a friend who lived higher up on a hill, I would stop at the top of the stairs and peer down, trying to spot our house in the darkness. The landscape was reduced to just a few bright spots, like a rebus. Darkness has always provided me with a sense of comfort.
And what about anxiety?
- I have no idea where it comes from. But when I think about it, there’s also a lot of death in my comics, which I think is a result of when I briefly worked at a hospital as a care assistant right after high school. Part of my job was to take care of deceased bodies. I couldn’t handle working there, so I resigned early. The initial plan was that I would work there until I had to do my military service, which was mandatory in Sweden at that time. I resigned two months in advance, and it was during those eight weeks that I drew my first album.
The album in question was Pirinen’s debut, Välkommen till sandlådan ["Welcome to the Sandbox"], from 1983, a collection of short and absurd stories from the world of children. In his review of the album in Bild & Bubbla, the official trade magazine of the Swedish comics association Seriefrämjandet, renowned editor and critic Göran Ribe wrote: “Declaring a debutant a genius would be imprudent. Yet Joakim Pirinen is more than a talent. He can be compared to today’s leading international comics stars.”6 Similar sentiments were expressed in other outlets. Välkommen till sandlådan was even reviewed by the aforementioned daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter which, as fellow cartoonist Gunnar Krantz writes in his autobiography, was at the time as unlikely as seeing a pig fly.7 The album broke new ground for the medium in Sweden, as mainstream media started to pay attention to comics and review albums—albeit to a limited extent—alongside literature, theater, and art exhibitions. It was also within the pages in Välkommen till sandlådan that Socker-Conny was born. Two years later, Pirinen would devote a full album to his loud-mouthed antihero burlesque.
In the fall of 1984, Pirinen, carrying a brown paper bag with 70 inked pages inside, knocked on the door to Rolf Classon’s apartment. Pirinen laid himself down on the sofa as Classon began to read. “Hours passed, everything was quiet and still. I couldn’t stop reading,” Classon recounts in his autobiography. “Sometimes I thought that I should, that we couldn’t sit here all night, but the story was so suggestive and pushed [me] forward. Something happened on every page, in every panel. It was like a Greek drama that refused to let go of its hold on me.”8 After finishing the final page, Classon concluded that he has just witnessed something completely new; a new genre in the field of comics had been born before his eyes. Socker-Conny would go on to sell 12,000 copies in its first year alone, an unmatched number for an alternative comic in a country of 8 million inhabitants. According to Stefan Helgesson, a professor of literature, the timing of Socker-Conny was perfect, offering him and other like-minded young people an anti-hero to love and embrace during the yuppie era that plagued the 1980s; to read Pirinen at that time can almost be likened to an act of liberation.9
Although you’re sick and tired of the character, it must feel somewhat gratifying to receive such high praise?
- Sure, but for many years, it was simply too much. Every interview I gave was about Socker-Conny. For my latest book, I tried to convince my publisher that the author biography on the back cover should read: “Joakim Pirinen is known as the creator of Socker-Conny and nothing else.” He didn’t buy it, though.
Another reason not to focus too much on Socker-Conny is that Pirinen raised the artistic stakes in later albums. Since the 1990s, he has explored the comic medium in a more elaborate and experimental fashion, including figures, styles, motifs, and various form of interaction between words and images. In every album, he employs a variety of styles and expressions depending on the story. He can draw like a medieval illustrator, as a child, or an abstract artist. Frequently he delves into philosophical themes, sometimes touches on politics, and occasionally adopts an adolescent tone, as if every narrative reflects his mood at the time of creation. However, a common thread that runs through his body of work is that his characters live beneath the black of sky of emptiness. Like the rest of us, their world is filled with impulses from TV shows, news, gossip, celebrities, and the whole whirlwind of politics. But in Pirinen’s world, there is a distance; the characters often appear cold, immersed in a darkness of irony and laughter.
This is particularly evident in the case of one of his most famous creations, the Dead Couple, protagonists of the album Döda paret och deras ”vänner” from 2008. The Dead Couple are two vulgarly rich individuals with potato-like bodies dressed in S/M outfits. Symptomatic of Pirinen’s sharp ear for human alienation and satirical sensibilities, the Dead Couple are trapped in a loveless marriage as they experiment with various sexual fetishes in an attempt to feel a connection. Yet all their attempts are in vain; they cannot stand the sight of each other in their luxurious home surrounded by designer objects and employees from the Global South, whom they treat with contempt. The Dead Couple are Pirinen’s blow against what he sees as a repugnant consumer culture.
- It was a fortunate coincidence that I stumbled upon them. I was without a publisher at the time and wanted to some more experimental work. When I was finished, I thought to myself that I needed to include at least one cartoon character because, well, cartoons are fun. I began to sift through my sketchbooks and discovered these two rather crudely drawn characters with the name “the Dead Couple” written above them. They started to come alive the moment I found them. They live in a large house, are very wealthy, and constantly bicker with each other. Not long after I started drawing comics about these two, my own relationship fell apart, as if my subconscious knew that I was in a bad relationship and wanted to communicate this through the images that I was drawing.
Another addition to his repertoire is autobiographical comics: a mixed bag of childhood memories, dream sequences and artistic struggles, short pieces that offer glimpses into his personal life. Or, at least, that is what one might think. Pirinen’s autobiographical work is imbued with his customary twists and genre play, including an ironic spoof–with a wink to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal–where the Grim Reaper pays Pirinen a visit, but also realistic depictions of grief and loneliness after his divorce. Pirinen’s approach is based on the assumption that being human means being several people at once, where someone’s life only becomes comprehensible when depicted in short snippets at a time and viewed from a distance. A glimpse of the artist as a young man here, a reflection on consumer capitalism there, but also thoughts about the books in his bookshelf, a visit to his childhood home, a memory from nurturing his children, or a reading of French philosopher Michel Foucault. This method of portraying himself and his life in distanced fragments is a technique that Pirinen says that he has learned from Robert Crumb, whose comics he cites as a major source of inspiration.
Is it challenging to decide how much you can and want to reveal of your personal life and inner thoughts?
- Yes, it is. It is true that I went through a difficult breakup nearly 20 years ago, and it was quite tough. I continued to draw unflattering images of my ex in my comics for a long time, although I’ve since stopped. Additionally, I often depicted myself as rather unattractive in my comics. I could stand in front of the mirror and be fascinated by how ugly I am. So, I tried to capture my true appearance. However, when I met my current girlfriend, I stopped drawing these exaggerated unattractive self-portraits. In her presence, I suddenly felt less self-conscious about my looks.
Pirinen’s self-portraits take on various shapes and styles. His depictions of himself are as playful as his comics. His most famous self-portrait is as a teddy bear, reminiscent of Winnie-the-Pooh, with sad eyes. The character has been present in his work since his earliest comics and is instantly recognizable with its checkered flannel shirt, which has become as synonymous with the character as Jean-Christophe Menu’s Breton shirt or Art Spiegelman’s vest. The teddy bear ages alongside his creator.
- I started drawing teddy bears when I was 10 years old, and I’ve continued to do so throughout my career. I’ve never given the teddy bear a name, but it clearly is me. The teddy bear also reflects my affinity for fable comics. The strength of these comics lies in the fact that you can create a distance from the topic by using anthropomorphic characters. I also believe it’s easier for readers to identify with and feel compassion for a fable animal; one tends to be more open to them than to human characters. But no one seems to do these types of comics anymore, do they? The last one in Sweden must have been Martin Kellerman with Rocky.
Quite the opposite, I would say. Anouk Ricard, Simon Hanselmann, Anna Haifisch, Marc Torices are just a few names who all use fable animals in their comics.
- So, my work isn’t painfully outdated, is that what’re you’re saying? [Laughs]
What does your work process look like?
- Firstly, I need an idea. I often come up with ideas while sitting on the subway. As a cartoonist, you train your brain to be constantly open to ideas, always on the lookout for something that can become a comic. When I have an idea, I start creating a script on a computer, where I write down all the text and dialogue. After that, I determine how many panels the dialogue requires, and then I take a piece of paper and begin sketching. The first panel is always challenging, almost daunting, but after a while those feeling start to dissipate, and suddenly I’m immersed in the work. I always start with the panel in the upper-left corner to avoid smudging what I’ve drawn with my hand. I find the craft of cartooning to be quite demanding. I can sketch two pages a day, but then I’m exhausted. Inking, on the other hand, is enjoyable and requires less degrees of concentration. I can listen to music or podcasts while doing it. It takes me roughly six to seven hours to ink a page. So, in a day, I can either sketch two pages during a day or ink one page. That’s my working pace.
Final question: is it still as enjoyable to make comics as when you first started?
- I think so, yes. I enjoy the mundane routine of cartooning. It’s a job, and my subconscious is my employer.
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The post Teddy Bears and Ink: Joakim Pirinen appeared first on The Comics Journal.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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