Sweden: Comics on migration

Migration and xenophobia have become major issues in Europe in the last years. In Sweden there are several groups and artists who use comics as a central tool in this debate.

Some of the titles published by Tusen serier.

Tusen serier (thousand comics)

Tusen serier with comics activists Amanda Casanellas and Mattias Elftorp is a group within the Swedish Comics Association. They broaden the Swedish comics scene with artists of migrant background, and publish graphic novels on the theme of migration. They have published several titles both by immigrant comics creators and Swedish artists. 

Check out their excellent website: http://tusenserier.com/index-e.html

The cover of the anthology.

Serier mot rasism (comics against racism) is an anthology edited by four students at the Comics School in Malmö in 2011. It has 140 pages with comics by 34 artists. The publisher is Optimal. The proceeds of this books go to a network called “Ingen människa är illegal” (no human being is illegal), which supports among other things, paperless migrants in Sweden.

Henri Gylander http://www.henrigylander.com/

Henri Gylander is - besides being a prolific comics artist - an asylum activist. Below is a detail from a four-page comic, published in Asylfanzine by the campaign Asylrätt (Right to Asylum) and in “Komika Antologi #1”. It has also been published in Finnish in the magazine “Voima” 10/2014. He is bilingual in Finnish/Swedish and lives in Gothenburg.

A few frames from the story Sara and Zaran.

Kudos to you, Sweden!

(post by Leif Packalen)