Tag Archive for 'Dansk Tegneserieråd'

Radio Rackham: Pingprisen


Denne gang diskuterer vi Pingprisen! Vi kigger bag kulisserne med Erik Barkman, formand for prisens jury, redaktør på Nummer9 og og adjunkt på Grafisk Fortælling, The Animation Workshop. Der bliver plads til historie, struktur og anekdoter. Lytndenfor, læs mere på Nummer9 og duk op til dette års uddeling d. 27 maj kl 19.30 i Islands Brygge Kulturhus.

Radio Rackham: Dansk Tegneserieråds nye bestyrelse


Jeg er denne gang gæst i mit eget medie, Radio Rackham, nemlig i egenskab af ny formand i Dansk Tegneserieråd. Og jeg har tre andre bestyrelsesmedlemmer med: Marie Raasthøj Hansen, Anders Brønserud og Andreas Nordkild Poulsen. Thomas og Frederik udspørger os om vores planer og ambitioner, samt konkret om håbet om at etablere et tegneseriemuseum, samt om Nummer9 og Pingprisens fremtid. Dertil kommer vi kort omkring problemerne med flare hatte og nepotisme i det danske tegneseriemiljø. Lyt her og læs mere på Nummer9.

Radio Rackham: Tegneseriemuseum?


Den her episode er tæt på. Frederiksbergmuseerne har besluttet sig for at udskille den unikke tegneseriesamling, de i form at Storm P.-museet i 2012 have overtaget fra Anders Hjorth-Jørgensen og hans Tegneseriemuseet i Danmark. Jeg var, samme med Louise C. Larsen og Søren Vinterberg med til at forhandle aftalen på plads dengang og vi troede den hellige grav var velforvaret — at samlingen var sikret for eftertiden og at Storm P.-museet nu havde grundlaget for skabelsen af et egentlig tegneseriemuseum i Danmark.

Det viste sig ikke at være tilfældet. Storm P.-museet fusionerede under Frederiksbergmuseerne i 2013 og det blev efterhånden tydeligt, at midlerne og viljen manglede. i 2018 besluttede bestyrelsen sig så for at udskille Anders Hjorth Jørgensens samling, som de til både vores og Anders Hjorth Jørgensens store overraskelse alligevel ikke havde forpligtet sig til at beholde og udvikle. Der er tale om to fundamentalt forskellige læsninger af overdragelsesdokumentet, som vi oplevede som forpligtende på museumsloven, mens de ser det som en hensigtserklæring. Det eneste bindende i den aftale, er åbenbart at Frederiksbergmuseerne har den fulde råderet og derfor nu arbejder på at afhænde samlingen på bedste vis.

Det er hele dette problemfelt vores episode analyserer nærmere, med venlig deltagelse af inspektør ved Storm P.-museet Nikolaj Brandt, forlægger Carsten Søndergaard og John Kenn Mortensen fra Dansk Tegneserieråds desværre snarligt afgående bestyrelse. Vi stiller os selv spørgsmålet om hvad et dansk tegneseriemuseum kunne være og hvilke konkrete muligheder, der er for fremtiden. Det er grove løjer, men hvis episoden kan inspirere folk til at engagere sig — helst som ny kandidat til bestyrelsen i Dansk tegneserieråd, som jeg stadig opfatter som den bedste mulighed for at formidle en redningsplan — vil noget da være nået.

Lyt med her og læs mere på Nummer9.

Radio Rackham: Dansk Tegneserieråd


I seneste transmission fra Radio Rackham har Thomas, Frederik og jeg inviteret to medlemmer af Dansk Tegneserieråds bestyrelse, Morten Langkilde og John Kenn Mortensen, i studiet til en samtale om, hvorfor de netop som samlet bestyrelse har annonceret at de trykker på den røde knap og går af i flok. Det har gjort ondt at se, hvor skræntende Tegneserierådet har været de seneste år og det er trist, at hele banden nu trækker stikket.

De to forklarer dog fint, hvad deres bevæggrunde er, og hvad man end tænker om beslutningen, synes jeg det som man kan lære er, at en subkultur der næsten udelukkende drives af ildsjæle har svært ved at klare sig, da disse som bekendt brænder ud. Dansk tegneseriekultur i en nøddeskal og sjovt nok grundlaget for hvorfor vi etablerede Dansk Tegneserieråd tilbage i 2009. Vi søgte en institutionalisering af kulturen, der kan sikre den kontinuitet og stabilitet, der fremmer trivslen og faktisk også — det tror je på — innovationen. Det er strenge tider, men vi må jo op på hesten igen på den ene eller anden måde.

Lyt til afsnittet og overveje endelig at engagere dig — ikke bare Tegneserierådet, men kulturen mere bredt har hårdt brug for det lige nu!

Boom PING PING

Nikoline Werdelin for the win!


It’s been a week and half since the big show, but I still think this year’s Ping awards deserve a few words for what little international audience this site still has after months of hibernation.

The Ping awards is an annual set of awards given to comics in Denmark in the manner of the Angoulême Fauves or the American Eisners. Founded by the Danish Comics Council, the awards are a revivification of a differently conceived, hall of fame-type award of the same name which was bestowed on single creators through the early nineties, as well as of the awards programme hosted by the comics biennial Komiks.dk from 2004-2010. The Pings are named after one of the best known characters created by one of the greatest Danish cartoonists, Robert Storm Petersen, aka. Storm P. (1882-1949). Continue reading ‘Boom PING PING’

The New Chairman

Passing the mantle: Thomas Thorhauge and Stine Spedsbjerg at the Danish Comics Council general assembly in March


It happened a few weeks ago, but I figured I should still note it here: we have a new chairman, or rather chairwoman, of the Danish Comics Council. Elected at the general assembly on 18 March, Stine Spedsbjerg succeeds my pal Thomas Thorhauge who had decided to step down. Stine is a successful online cartoon diarist and earns her keep in advertising. She’s enormously enterprising and resourceful — I can’t think of a better person to take over.

The Danish Comics Council was founded in 2009. I was part of the founding group along with a diverse group of comics professionals, and have sat on the board since. Considering that we have had no funding apart from the annual fee paid by members, it’s been a productive five years: we’ve had a hand in the establishment of a state-approved cartoonist’s programme (BA, ‘graphic storytelling’) at the Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark — the first of its kind in Denmark; we’ve managed to place the semi-private Comics Museum archive with a state-recognized institution, the Storm P. Museum in Copenhagen, which secures it for the future in terms of preservation, collection, expansion, research and facilitation; we’ve created an comics award, the Ping, given annually to cartoonists in a number of categories; we’ve undertaken annual registration of all comics published in Denmark, published annually in a small compendium; we’ve arranged two conferences at the University of Copenhagen, one of which helped stimulate the establishment of the Nordic Network for Comics Research (NNCORE): we’ve partnered with the ambitious Danish comics biennial Copenhagen Comics; we’ve brought comics to wide audiences through live cartooning and other activities; and quite a lot more.

While Thomas takes a well-deserved breather (though remaining at the Council’s board), there is plenty for Stine to get up to. The Comics Council is still essentially an unfunded organisation and other affiliated groups such as Copenhagen Comics will also depend on more steady sources of funding to survive — the hope is eventually to secure larger, ongoing partnerships with possible patrons, as well as with the Danish State to help secure an institutional infrastructure for Danish comics in the future. And I know Stine also has ambitions for preaching the comics gospel to a much wider audience than is currently the case.

Here’s to the next half-decade!

Photo: Henrik Conradsen

Comics at the Copenhagen Book Fair


Once again, the Danish comics grassroots are banding together to create a large area devoted to comics at the Copenhagen Book Fair, Bogforum. The Danish Comics Council is teaming up with a number of other organisations to bring to the guests lots of comics goodness, including live drawing, interviews, workshops and much more. I’m not yet sure I will be able to attend myself, but I may drop in, and if I do I expect to see you there!

More info (in Danish) here and here. And Malene Hald has an overview of everything comics related (including stuff taking place outside the comics area) at the fair.

Images from the comics area at last year’s Bogforum, including a pap of internationally acclaimed director Bille August reading comics.

Hype: Copenhagen Comics 2013


This year sees the fifth international comics festival in Copenhagen, this year under the name Copenhagen Comics. I’m biased, but I think the organisers have put together a truly impressing program this year, topping even that of 2010, which was stellar. It’s on the weekend of June 1-2 at Øksnehallen in Copenhagen, with additional events on Friday 19.

Among the international guests are Anke Feuchtenberger, Jaime Hernandez, Melinda Gebbie, Emmanuel Guibert, and Jiro Taniguchi, while on the genre side, people like Jill Thompson, Brian Azzarello, Frazer Irving and Charlie Adlard are representing. As usual, there’ll be tons of events, interviews, workshops, exhibits, and all that.

In addition, we at the Danish Comics Council are planning an academic colloquium at the University of Copenhagen on Friday 19, free and open to all. The theme is teaching comics and comics as teaching tool. An international panel of scholars and cartoonists will be present and yours truly will be on hand to conduct an artist talk with Adlard, about storytelling, The Walking Dead, and cross-media success.

The culmination of the weekend, however, will no doubt be the Ping Awards ceremony on Saturday night. Last year, the the Danish comics website Nummer9.dk and the Danish Comics Council launched this new industry award, named after the beloved Storm P. character from the strip Peter og Ping, in collaboration with the Storm P. Museum. After a sold-out smash of a party last year, we’re looking forward hopefully to topping ourselves with an even more ambitious show. Read more about the show, the awards and the people behind at the Ping website (and on Facebook), and buy your ticket now, before they sell out.

Above: Bunker denizen Thomas Thorhauge’s festival poster. See his process report here.

Flix: The Comics Museum at Storm P.


As recently noted in this space, the holdings of the Danish Comics Museum, collected over three decades by its founder Anders Hjorth-Jørgensen, have now entered the Storm P. Museum in Copenhagen. In short, this means that its future is secured at a State-approved institution with everything that implies in terms of conservation, development and research. A milestone event in Danish comics and one we in the Danish Comics Council, who have helped midwife the process, are happy to see come to fruition.

These photos provide at panorama of the guests at last night’s reception, pretty much a who’s who of a certain set of generations in Danish comics. Many of the creators, editors, publishers, and retailers of the seventies and eighties, contemporaries of Hjorth-Jørgensen, showed up to celebrate. It was great to see them all. A the mic, Iben Overgaard, director of the Storm P. Museum, initiated the proceedings, and she was followed by Thomas Thorhauge, chairman of the Danish Comics Council, and Hjorth-Jørgensen himself, both of whose speeches are excerpted in the videos below. Continue reading ‘Flix: The Comics Museum at Storm P.’