Exclusive interview to Finnish artist - Terhi Ekebom

I've decided to make more interviews/coffee talks (as I'm naming them) to comic book artists that marked my life as a simple teenager like Finnish artist Terhi Ekebom, who's always an excellent artist to chat with.

Here's the interview below, hoping that readers like it.

Many thanks Terhi

01) You're a Finnish artist.

  How do you "see" yourself as an artist that was born in a country as beautiful as Finland full of Nature? 

Do you think that Nature influences the work and how Scandinavian artists "see" the world? 

Nature has influenced me a lot. 

My childhood home was surrounded by forests, small sand roads and fields. 

There was also a lovely river close to that place. 

I spent lots of time outside playing with other children or exploring nature by myself. 

Even the darkest forests were a place to play. 

The cycle of year affected what kind of things you were able to do. 

This has formed my feelings towards nature, seeing myself as a part of it.

Nature is never a passive thing in my works, I think you could very well say that Scandinavian artists have a natural and relaxed attitude towards nature, since it is accessible for us.

02) You've a master of arts, I remember seeing and reading some of your works in Portugal that were randomly distributed here by Napa Books and I just loved "A cow's dream" in 2002 and you were one of the best artists that I've seen being published by Napa.

 Were you pleased with Napa Books as a publisher?

Thank you. Napa has been very innovative and an artistic publisher with good distribution around the world. 

Yes, I have been very happy with them all the time that I have been on board with them.

03) Your work was also published in Italy, Portugal, France, Brazil and Holland.

How do you "see" your inner world transformed into work being spread in several countries? 

The hardest line to cross is within yourself when you are telling very intimate stories, but it's all worth it.

 It is wonderful that the stories can continue their existence around the world. 

That's the way I hope this will continue. 

04) Your graphic design and storytelling is excellent and it does releases in the reader sensitive emotions and delicate feelings.

Can you tell us a bit of your creative process as an artist? 

In my stories I explore feelings and settings that I find touching.

I have multiple starting points and from there I let the story grow to all necessary directions. 

I need to do some gardening in the process, trimming and axing it on the way.

I can get lost, but I try to be honest and strong.

It is a real difficult work and very hard, but in the end of it all I love it.

05) I remember reading and seeing some of your work in Portuguese Quadrado magazine and I've got a feeling of visual poetry.

 Are words important in your work? 

I want to tell my stories with poetic logic. 

I enjoy and respect creative language. 

Since last spring I have been listening to Proust's audio book "In Search Of Lost Time" every night. 

If I could live several lives I would dedicate some of them to writing. 

Storytelling is different with or without words, with or without pictures.

06) You create several artworks such as illustration, book covers, graphic design, fine arts and you even do live paintings in public places.

Free expression is my favourite way in all of them, but it happens so seldom that you might forget how it's done if there has been lots of commissioned works. 

Commissioned works often offer interesting challenges and really give exercise to your creativity by giving borders and limitations within you must execute the artwork. 

Some projects are much shorter than others, some take years. 

Combining them helps you both remember how to concentrate and go deeper and also gives you the feeling of getting things done and letting them go faster.

07) Can you tell us who your favourite artists are in arts and your influences in it? 

Tove Jansson, Helene Schjerfbeck, David Hockney, Louise Bourgeois, Edward Munch, Käthe Kollwitch,Odilon Redon, Mattotti, Dominique Goblet.

These are the ones who I remember instantly. 

At different ages different artists have been important to me.

When I was younger I thought I was going to be a painter, but storytelling led me to another direction.

8) Do you like creating narratives for books or comic books? 

How do you see them after they're published?

I have stories in my head that can never find their way out, since my drawing technique is so slow. 

I also want to proceed slowly. 

I think that life changes so fast and randomly that it's wonderful to have something developing at a peaceful pace. 

Making stories is also a way to explain life to myself. 

I would also like to write stories but life seems to be too short for mastering everything.

The published books make me happy, but I don´t remember them so well anymore. I am living in the world of my upcoming story already. 

Maybe the stories come from the same world, but I'd like to find a new path.

9) I really don't know if you ever visited Portugal, but I remember seeing in Lisbon some exhibitions with works by you, Marko Turunen, Matti Hagelberg among many others and the one that I've loved more was yours.

How do you "see" Portugal as a country?

I have visited Portugal three times. 

Once for a holiday in Figueira da Foz and twice in Lisbon. 

The other time in Lisbon was just for the exhibition you mentioned, the other we were making a theme number for a small cultural on line magazine Neliö. 

I can't find it online anymore since it was over ten years ago (!). 

I enjoyed the food, bars, azulejos, fado, sea, houses and the spirit of the people. 

I think they were somehow happy and sad at the same time, in a strong and sensitive way.

 I have also illustrated the cover of the cultural travel guide to Portugal (Tuhansien portaiden lumo. Kulttuurikierroksia Portugalissa. Helsinki: Avain, 2007. ISBN 978-952-5524-38-3). (=The Charm oh the Thousands of Stairs?)

I know how to say "eu não falo português", but I adore the country.

10) Can you tell us a bit of your current and upcoming books or artworks that you recently created or that you are planning to create? 

I am just within months getting my next comic novel ready to be printed. It's going to be a "sister book" to my latest work "The Ghost Child". 

The scenery of the book is once again forest, but there's more to it than just the trees and the landscape. 

There's human tragedy combined with a mystery in nature. 

I am also preparing an exhibition of my serigraph works. 

The opening is in few weeks, so it's a bit busy just now.

Exclusive interview to American artist Brian Biggs

I've decided to make more interviews/coffee talks (as I've named them) to comic book artists that marked my life as a simple teenager like American artist Brian Biggs, who's always an excellent artist to talk with.
Here's the interview below, hoping that readers like it.
Many thanks Brian




1) I remember being with you in Porto at a comic book festival and I've bought "Frederick & Eloise: A love story" published by Fantagraphics in 1993 which I've found awesome in graphic and storytelling terms.

Frederick & Eloise: A love story

Do you've any memories of Porto in your mind?


Yes yes, of course. Many memories. Ribeira Square, every evening after the festival. Ponte Luis I, which was like no bridge I’d ever seen. My first taste of Vinho Verde at the hotel bar.  Walking to Praia de Luz with Jason Lutes and Tom Hart. Bacalao. Every day, Bacalao. It was just an amazing and unexpected eleven days.

Ribeira Square

Ponte Luis I

2) In the 90's you created also "Dear Julia" that's an amazing book and that in 2002 turned into a short movie.
As an artist how do you see a comic book that is a static art form that was created by you being turned into a movement art form?

There are many similarities between comics and film. But also, each has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, film has sound. A lot can be done with a soundtrack and music. However, comics has time on its side. Film is, for the most part, linear. You’re on the clock as designed by the director and editor. You can't linger on a scene longer than they want you to. Where in comics, the reader can sit and look at a page or a panel for as long as he or she desires. A good comics writer can use this to his advantage. In Dear Julia, I built in a lot of detail and answered a lot of questions that I haven’t even asked yet in the first 20 pages. I knew the reader could stop and go back, thinking “wait a minute…”
I suppose today, watching film on a DVD or on a modern television, a viewer can pause and rewind, but that’s not as the director meant it to be. It has to keep moving.

3) Can you tell us what were the major influences while creating these books?


Edward Gorey. The films of the Coen Brothers, especially Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing. Federico Fellini. Tardi’s comics. Photographs by Lartigue. Riding public transportation in Paris and San Francisco. Early songs by R.E.M. I’m sure there are more — but it was 20 years ago.

Edward Gorey

Tardi

Coen Brothers

Lartigue

4) You also worked in illustration that's a different media from comic books.

How do you see the works that you've done for Illustration as art pieces? 

I don’t, really. There is a lot of craft that goes into them, and I’m sure many people (myself included) are fans of illustration. But I don’t know if it’s “art” in the way you mean. And it’s not mean to be. Some illustration, just like some architecture, advertising, and design, can transcend its initial purpose to become something “more,” and I guess one might call that art. But I don’t think I ever made anything like that for a commission.

5) How do you describe yourself as an artist? 

When people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m an illustrator. It’s on my government tax forms. “Illustrator.” My drawings serve purposes and are meant to be printed, reproduced, and consumed. I write stories so that I can draw pictures for those stories. I draw pictures for other people’s stories. It’s what I enjoy. At times, I’ll produce a piece of work that is meant to stand alone, or be hung on a wall. But I still like it if I can get it printed or disseminated in some way. It’s what I like.

6) What are your favourite books and movies? 

Favorite Movie: Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Other favorite movies that I can go back and watch any time and enjoy: Brazil, Miller’s Crossing, Delicatessen. More recently, I really loved Dunkirk, for the way it told its story in three separate timelines. I thought that was brilliant.

Favorite Books: Lately, I read a lot of science fiction short stories. But rarely do they stay with me. I remember being quite struck several years ago the first time I read Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations.” Find it, check it out. As far as novels, the most recent book I read that I just couldn’t wait to get back to was The Book of Strange New Things, by Michael Faber.

7) Now you work in children books.

How do you see children books in comparison to comic books? 

Well, at their simplest, they’re just words and pictures, right? With both picture books and comics, the pictures make no sense without the words, and the words can’t work without the pictures. They both do some heavy lifting.

I often have trouble writing for the appropriate audience when I write for kids. I have a tendency to get a little weird, and have to rein it in; or else I overcompensate and write too simply, too boring, thinking “oh I couldn’t get away with that.” And then I see books come out where the author or illustrator got away with it. So while my “voice” in comics was there from the start, I feel like I’m still finding it in children’s books.

8) As an american citizen that travelled to Europe.
Do you see Europe different from the U.S.A?

Yes, sure. But both have changed a lot in the time since I first traveled. My first experience overseas was my third year of college when I moved to Paris for one year. I’d never been out of the USA before then, and it was quite a first taste. It taught me a lot about who I was and where I’m from. During that year I spent two weeks in Tunisia, traveling with friends, which put me in place even more. My rosy view of being an American really changed there, and I saw what romanticized ideas of the world I’d grown up with.

But you asked about Europe. When I was there, in the late 80s, I thought I’d live in Paris or Europe for my life. I loved the center-stage that art and culture took. It wasn’t a thing you left your normal life to go see or do, it was all around. It was always right there. Everything seemed so much more sophisticated and interesting to me than where I was from.

9) What was the artwork created by you that really pleased you?

The first was certainly Frederick & Eloise. It was the first thing where I realized I had a voice, something to say, and an interesting way of saying it.

But i’ve been drawing pictures for 25 years since then, with literally thousands of drawings. I’m sure there are at least a few in there that really made me happy. Some of the really busy scenes I drew for my Everything Goes series of children’s books were very satisfying.

10) how do you see comic books nowadays? Do you read some?  

Not much. It’s weird to read the Eisner nominations every year and still see so many names that were on that list in the 1990s. Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, and so on. I often read something that someone recommends and think it could have been written in 1995. There are some newer names, like Jillian Tamaki and Eleanor Davis, whose work I like a lot. The books by Isabelle Greenberg are wonderful. And I buy anything Tom Gauld makes. 

In the end, I think this is less a statement of the quality of what’s out there (I’m sure there is a lot of amazing stuff) and more to where I am in life.

Chris Ware

Dan Clowes

Eleanor Davis

Isabelle Greenberg

Tom Gauld