Finland: Collection of comics by the Open Minds -group

"This is our home" - "It is a boy".  Detail from a comic made by Anna S.

Västra Nylands Folkhögskola is a Swedish-language Open College in the western part of Finland.  Together with Kårkulla, a resource center for mentally handicapped, they run a program called Open Minds. As part of the program, World Comics Finland was invited to arrange a two-day workshop for a group of mentally handicapped women.

The workshop took place in Karis in October 23-24, 2012 with 12 participants. They were enthusiastic about the possibility to express their views and tell their stories in grassrooots comics, and they grasped the idea of the medium quickly.

Leif Packalen ran the workshop together with coordinator Kia Orama. In addition, the participants had personal assistants who helped them with things like spelling. But they did not need any help with their stories which were based on true and moving experiences, and hopes for the future.

Grassroots comics can be used in a number of ways. This was a very promising opening.

Have a look at the collection: download the pdf-file (2,8 MB)

1001 Comics you must read before you die

The covers of the UK (left) and the US (right) editions of the book.

This impressive book (960 pages!)  was first published in English in 2011. The book’s editor Paul Gravett describes it as an attempt at an historical survey of the best or most significant works in the medium.

1001 Comics came out in 2012 in French (Flammarion), with an intro by Benoît Peeters and with around 100 entries substituted by Nicolas Finet and his team with French titles. It also came out in Spanish from Grijalbo, using all the original entries from the English-language version.

In October 2012, Olms in Germany published their version of 1001 Comics, edited and with a foreword by Andreas Knigge who also replaced some 100 entries with German comics. 

This year, editions are being planned in Italy, the Czech Republic and Brazil, hopefully by the autumn. 

As it reaches more and more people in more and more languages, 1001 Comics is proving a valuable tool to open readers' minds to the wonders out there in the wider world of comics, past and present. 

Get hold of the book and enjoy reading about the medium of comics from a global perspective. More on: http://www.paulgravett.com/index.php/books/detail/category/1001_guide/