Today sees the release of hip hopper Dogge Doggelito’s new album Superclasico! Looking inside the album booklet, you can find an illustration done by Yokaj Studio, showing a mangafied Dogge (click here for a bigger picture).

It all started when Dogge contacted us sometime during the summer, just when he was putting the finishing touches on the album. He was looking for artists who could draw some cool illustrations for his booklet. Of course, we thought it was a fun idea, so we went to Studio Barbarella (a recording studio where musical souls in Botkyrka can make music), to get to know Dogge and his world better.

Upon entering Studio Barbarella, you’re greeted by a large Alby sign. It was like being welcomed home, as both Yosh and Soya were brought up in Alby, with Kajfa having lived there for a short period as well.

Cool toys (tools) can be found at a recording studio!

Dogge sat down by the keyboard, absently hitting some keys, while he told us about himself.

Left: A recording booth.
Right: Dogge and his hyper dogs, almost scaring Yosh to death when they knocked down a huge speaker over her.<(p>

Summary

It was real fun having worked with Dogge! We’re hoping that his new album, Superclasico, will be a hit. Many of you have surely already heard Rör pÃ¥ Göten, one of the songs which have gotten quite a lot of playtime on radio lately. We look forward to listen to the album when our copy arrives in the mail!

Links

Dogge’s website.!

Studio Barbarella

There’s currently a big ongoing campaign in Stockholm called Okejsex.nu (”Okaysex”). Its purpose is to inspire young people to discuss and think about what they consider to be okay sex. The campaign is sponsored by, among others, Operation Kvinnofrid and the Swedish police. A couple of Swedish comic artists have been asked to participate in it by drawing comic panels for the posters, one of them is Yosh of Yokaj Studio. Their (the artists’) pictures will be shown on various places around Stockholm, as posters, ads, in the subway and newspapers. We got a couple of shout-outs from our friends on where to find these posters, so we couldn’t help ourselves but to look for them as well!

Wow! Those of you who have read some of Yosh’s manga know that she likes to set her stories in a subway/metro setting. Needless to say, it felt extra fun for Yosh when she saw her picture set up on a huge ad space at Skanstull station. Back when she drew her first subway-manga (pictured above) and pasted her own pictures onto the ad spaces, she had no idea that it would become real some day!

We found small posters inside the train.

And also on phone booths! Awesome.

It’s a special feeling, seeing one’s own characters in the same size as oneself.

Check out the other artists’ pictures! The participants are: Martin Kellerman, Malin Biller, David Liljemark and Liv Strömquist.

Links

Okejsex.nu’s premiere. (short segment done by SVT) - Yosh’s picture gets a lot of showtime!

We’re back from the comic festival in Malmö! Have no idea what we’re talking about? Well then, here’s a short briefing of the event! There is currently an art exhibition down in the Comic City Malmö. The theme of the exhibition is “East meets West”. Along with the exhibition, visitors could try their hand in art contests, see movies and join the various workshops among other activities during the festival. One of the highlights was the Saturday, where people could listen to talks and debates, see the cosplay contest and meet with guests from Japan (among others) and even listen to a live interview with Yokaj Studio on stage!

Poor DoraJen had to take the train from Uppsala to Stockholm early on Saturday to meet up with the rest of us. By eight o’ clock, we were all sitting on the train heading down to Malmö. The trip though, didn’t go as peaceful as we had imagined. There were several occasions where the train had to force a stop due to fallen trees over the reels and errors with the computers which had to be restarted to function normally…

Despite all this, we had no problem entertaining ourselves! Soya had bought a new toy named Gorillapod. It’s a flexible tripod with movable joints, great for setting up the camera on weird angles. As you can see, it kept us busy!

Kajfa, though, thought the Gorillapod was better suited as a PSP-holder.

And Yosh was busy testing all the fancy functions on her new cell phone.

After a while, the Gorillapod got tired of playing with us. It gave up and went to wrestle down our soda instead. A couple of minutes later spent on waiting, the train started to move again. When we reached Malmö we were almost an hour late!

Finally reaching the culture hall Mazettihuset (where the festival was held), we discovered that we only had a couple of minutes to prepare ourselves for the interview! Luckily, the organizers had already heard about the train delay, and so our interview was postponed to an hour later than scheduled. On stage at that time was Sean Michael Wilson, a comic book author living in Japan!

Mangaka Misako Rocks! was kind enough to take our spot when we got delayed. Misako is a mangaka living in New York. At the festival, she spoke about her upbringing in Japan and her manga work.

After Misako, it was our turn to enter the stage. We were interviewed by comic journalist Fredrik Strömberg, who was curious about the inner structure of the studio.

We went to check out the exhibitors and the sales booths after the interview.

We bought Misako Rocks!’s manga biography “Rock n’ Roll Love”. She gave us a cliffhanger during the presentation earlier, so we couldn’t help but buy it as soon as we had the chance to!

Misako Rocks posing with an autographed Yosh! Teckna manga!

There were even more stage talks later on. The Saturday guests on the festival got up on the stage again to discuss about what the West can learn from manga. From left: Comic book author Sean Michael Wilson, the British manga expert Paul Gravett, our own Yosh from Yokaj Studio and mangaka Misako Rocks!

Unfortunately, Soya and DoraJen had to leave Malmö on the same day. They never managed to hear the whole discussion session.

Yosh and Kajfa went to eat dinner with the organizers and the other guests. They talked about everything and anything, from comics to maypoles!

Summary

The festival was much more fun than we had imagined, and we were positively surprised by this! It was a nice initiative to have invited all these interesting guests from across the world. Getting to know them was the best part of this event!

Thanks

Thanks go to ISV seriefrämjandet and Fredrik Strömberg for inviting us. We also want to thank Axel Trumpfheller, who was kind enough to take care of us, making sure we didn’t get lost in Malmö. Thanks to Jens from Oxeye, who helped us take pictures!