Entrevista de la artista francesa Valérie Prot a Karolina Bang, dibujante de comics sueca.

-What about your political comics? Why did your start?

I’ve always concidered my comics as political because the peronal is political. If i write about my queer life then it gets political because it’s queer even though i only take a cup of coffee in the comic. But for the comic-activism-comics i started when my teacher at comicschool talked about documentary comics and how unusual it is and i thought, hey! i can do that! i’ve always loved to study things i find interesting and want everyone else in the world to see how interesting it is. I tried to found subjects that i wanted to know everything about and that i wanted everyone to know about. It felt like a political mission to make it more easy to learn of these things other than in the university or in a difficult written article.

-Who is your public?

I’ve got different publics for different sorts of comics i think, but i belive the public is mostly queer, female and similar to me.

-What else have you done in the world of comics?

I started with auto-biographical comics which i still find very easy to make. the question is how interesting it is to read only about someones thoughts. i can find it terribly interesting to know so much about someone i haven’t met but sometimes i think it’s more fun to nische yourself. like i do in the cowgirl-comics or in the documentary comics. i’ve also made strips about my friends or how it is to working as a life model.

-How do you move your work? How many books/fanzines have you published?

I’ve made about 7 fanzines and translated 5 of them into english. I find sweden too small and i have too many foreign friends to not find it necessary to give them what my swedish public gets. all the documentary comics are both in swedish and in english and i’ve been published in magazines both in sweden and abroad. one of the most exciting publication right now is that i’m gonna contribute my comic about Radical Cheerleading to The Radical Cheerleading Anthology they’re gonna make in the USA. I also have people who copy and spread my zines in England and Germany and i’m selling them in shops in mostly england and sweden.

-Your plans for the future?

Become a famous comic artist as well as a performance artist, animator, curator, actor and musician. I don’t really have to be that famous but i want to live on the fun stuff i like doing and be recognized and accepted for all the different things that i do. i also want to start hostels all over europe so i can travel more.

-What about fanzines in Sweden? I think there is a lot, there is a big activity, a lot of girls making comics? Can you speak about it?

The fanzine-scene in sweden is quite big i think, both comic-zines and non comic-zines. And there’s loads of good comic artists who’s girls in sweden. the best comic artists in sweden are women i reckon. They’re making books,zines, exhibitions and the theory of why there’s so many feminist comic artists in sweden is maybe that sweden are quite feminist-friendly. it’s a bit weird to talk about since i think it’s so natural.

-Tell me about COW GIRLS?

Cowgirls are my latest big comic-project and it’s hopefully going to be an album. It’s dirty comics about lesbian decadent cowgirls in a fictive world with only cowgirls in it. They include loads of clischés and it’s very ok to read them just because they’re hot.

The comic project is deeper than just comics since i’ve got my country-cowgirl band and dress like a cowgirl everyday. Different cowirl elements effect each other like when a comic-figure sings my country lyric in the comic and I sell the comic when i’m on stage with my band. I hope it’s gonna get even more combined with each other in every way. talking more about the comic i make it beacuse i think cowgirls are hot and that there are too little good dirty comics about girls.

-Is it hard to get   publishers interested?

Comic book publishers are really hard to get interested. The comic world is too small and male-dominated still, but if you look outside the comicworld it’s more easy.

-Have you got a lot of positive response?

Yes! And i love it. I love to think about that people have put one of my comics on their wall and read one comic several times and talk about it with their friends. it feels like i’ve succeeded with something. My best hobby is to look at people while they’re reading my comics.

-Has your books/stories been published anywhere else in the world than in sweden?

Yes, in DIVA magazine from the UK and in Stripburger and soon in a slovenian queer magazine, in an english zine and the Radical Cheerleading anthology in the states and in a polish/ latvian zine.My zines are as far as i know in about 7 different countries.

-What (that have happened to you in your career) are you most proud of?

ooh, so many different things like that i got Trina Robbins as my menthor for my comic activism project, that i got published in the same magazine as Roberta Gregory, that i get to make a quite big exhibition on just female comic artists and that i’ve been published so many times for one comic. but mostly i think i’m most proud of that people actually read my comics and know of me.

-Do you have any diseases?
Not any to talk about. but if i had lived in the stone age i would probably been dead.