Today's recommendation will differ a bit from the norm. Usually I review one volume and talk about that at length, but today I would like to recommend a whole new publisher. Well, at least new to many, I think. They have been around for more than a year actually, but I still think they are a bit unknown, especially among comics readers in Sweden.
The publisher has chosen the rather strange sounding name Orosdi-Back and publish beautifully retro designed books, for which they have already received awards. The subject matter of this publishing venue is stated as prose, art and satire, and comics quite evidently falls inside this framework as many of their books either contain comics, talk about comics or end up in the border land between comics and other art forms. The book at the top of this blog entry, for instance, is a prose book with illustrations, all by the Swedish comics master Joakim Pirinen. A strange and brilliant collection of eye catching novels, showing that Pirinen sculpts the Swedish language just as good as he draws.
Then there is the book about the British/Swedish comics collective Le Gun, basically a book collection of comics that this group, which includes Swedish artist Emma Rendel, have created. A subtle book with not much in explanation about Le Gun, but pages upon pages of comics and illustrations that give a good insight into this innovative collective's creations.
For me, the most interesting part of what Orosdi-Back is publishing is their line of pocket-size books on comics artists, though. These are essentially sketch-books with a preface written by a journalist or historian.
My favorite among the books published so far has to be the one about the artist Lena Svedberg, an interesting artist whose life was cut short by suicide in 1972 and who today is not mentioned as often as she deserves. This book was a revelation to me, as I had mostly seen Svedberg's art in the renowned magazine Puss, but knew little about her as a person.
