Swedish Sundays

Good news everyone!

About 1/3 of Tieten met haar is about to relocate to Sweden for the months of october and november.

Mathilde and Valentine will work on a common book project in Malmö at the comics center 'Seriefrämjandet' during a CUNE residence. Follow their adventure with a feature on the blog every sunday!

FILE PHOTO

it's raining outside the karaoke bar: TMH in Brussels

by Val & Jana
photos: Mathilde 

No, this time we didn't go very far. We took our bags full of books for a 45mn ride to the capital. I sat in the car with Dries and we discussed, amongst other things, his thought-provoking stickers. "You should put your name on it. They're so anonymous" I told him.
"I don't want to be known as the dick guy..."

a satisfied customer and a famous sticker

When we arrived in cultural center 'Maison des cultures' in Saint Gilles, Alice Milani (La Trama) was already there. We shared a table with our two collectives' publications. Our paths often cross and Mathilde Vangheluwe and I had participated to their new project Coppie Miste, a series of five little books, each made by two different authors. During the three days of the festival, we also came up with new ideas for collaborations, which goes to show that sitting behind tables is not wasted time.

One thing we noticed immediately in Cultures Maison: the quality of the books on display was very high. There were well known publishers of great books, such as FRMK, Bries and Nobrow, but also quantities of small publishers and collectives which gave a good idea of what is happening in Belgium now. I bought amongst other things Belgian cartoonist Steve Michiels' new book, Crépuscule Civil : 164 pages of darkness, crime, mystery, absurdity, humor, nudity and bar fights.

There was a fabulous exhibition by KutiKuti (Finland) downstairs. Monsters of bright colored cardboard were coming out of the ground and beautiful work was hanging on the walls.
A personal favourite is the work of Amanda Vähämäki with her sensitive lines, blurred smudges and lively expressions. She has been edited in french by FRMK and co-founded the italian collective Canicola.

After the first night was done, people were scattering and we went to a karaoke bar with the good people of Salade de Frites, a collective from Liège. In the bar, everybody was singing together and fighting for the microphone. French classics and some Britney Spears.  It's my Life was sung by a girl who really meant business - eat your heart out, Bon Jovi. A muscly bouncer was there to make sure the fun was not getting out of control.
"No sitting on the tables"

On saturday, there was a presentation about GRANDPAPIER, an online comics platform by l'employé du moi. Another project by l'employé du moi is this online catalogue of fanzines you can print at home, for free. Using the same simple folding system we used for our summer edition.

Sunday was rainy and sticky. Still, the typical Belgian weather didn't stop the crowd eager to buy books : the weekend ended on a high note. With that in mind, through the bad weather, we went for last drinks with new friends, already thinking about the next festival.

september releases

A little package filled with colorful holiday stories against the sad Belgian autumn weather. 

Black and white on color paper, A7, 5 euro. Featuring work of Jana Vasiljević, Chiara Lammens, Mathilde Vangheluwe, Nina Vandenbempt, Valentine Gallardo, Delphine Cuelenaere, Nina Vandeweghe, Lukas Verstraete and Thijs Desmet 

and a cocktail umbrella

Tomorrow I'll be Gone by Valentine Gallardo,
A4, color, softcover, 42 pages, €15

+numbered edition of 10 in hardcover, €20 


(thanks to Martin Cramatte for the pictures)

Tits in HEL - Helsingin sarjakuvafestivaalit

By Vali

drawings: Charlotte Dumortier 

Last thursday, I left Belgium for the comics festival in Helsinki with fellow comic book artists Thijs Desmet and Charlotte Dumortier, both regular TMH contributors. Upon arrival at the airport in Helsinki, we learned our first word in finnish: Kiitos (thank you). As it was written on a garbage bin, we were a bit unsure at first if it meant "thank you" or "garbage bin".

some disturbing candy found in a vending machine at Helsinki airport

We were kindly hosted by hard-working festival coordinator Kati and by local cool kid Tiia. At Kati's place we met Chantal Malambri from the crack! festival in Rome which we attended earlier this year.
Kati told us about a party for the release of the new Kuti magazine. "My friend is the DJ. His name is DJ Kalakukkos. That's a traditional dish, it's like a fish in a bread."

That night we ran into canadian artist Julie Delporte. She was a guest at the festival, presenting her new book Journal ( Koyama press), a colourful diary that first appeared in french on her blog. The theme of this years' festival was North America, and guests included Michael DeForge, John Martz, Philippe Girardin, Joe Ollmann, Lili Carré and Howard Chacowitz.

DJ fish in bread

At the tent, we were located between David Kerr from Glasgow and the polish representative for the festival Ligatura in Poznań, Magda. Our other neighbors included kuš! from Latvia and Manuel 'Lolo' from Spain, who owns the coolest gallery in Madrid, Watdafac. There were some Simon Hanselmann originals on his table and we were dying. Apparently Lolo also means "really big tits" in finnish. "Everybody laughs when I tell them my name." We also had our share of hairy tits-related reactions. Somebody thought we were called "heritage". I'm happy we're not called heritage.

We looked around and were amazed by the number of men with long hair and long beards. "Vikings", said Thijs. The style of the Helsinki people was absolutely mad compared to Belgium. While we were sitting at the table, we spotted rainbow hair, a flower dress on a big man whose cap said I'M NASTY, a skinny man in impossibly tight and shiny latex pants, school girls from a school in hell, a man who had shaved his hair like he put his head in a toaster, and many more. It was refreshing and heartwarming to see all those true anti-conformists.

Somewhere in between selling books, we met a guy from Antwerp called Grimm, who emigrated to Helsinki. To our great amusement, his friend made up finnish-sounding nicknames for us. He had some problems with Thijs: "what's his last name? Okay, he can be Smit".

On friday there was a drawing battle at a club called Dubrovnic. The canadians were battling the fins in a ruthless combat that involved trashing eachother's drawing at the end. A man in a black suit, torn leggings and pilot goggles called "Black Peider" (not spider) was running the show beautifully. He was also playing in the band on saturday's event in a place called Mascot. The canadians won by writing CANADA all over the fins' drawing, and some drinking and dancing ensued.





We were staying in Malmi, "the ghetto". There were lovely little wooden houses with gardens, squirrels , hares and a hedgehog. "OOOh what IS that" screamed Charlotte as she first spotted the prickly little creature running in the grass. "Mi amore" shouted Chantal. "Ouch", I said, as I tried to pet it.
The poor animal waited patiently for the drunken girls to go away. "In finnish, it's called Siili", Kati explained.

The limited finnish we learned so far didn't help us to order a pizza in Malmi. We tried to explain 'vegetarian' to somebody who didn't speak english by drawing pictures of animals that we crossed out. In the end he called his colleague and the pizza was ordered through the phone.
Other culinary experiences included a chinese restaurant named Bamboo center. It was run by a small bossy lady who made herself known by shouting "chopstiiiicks! who wants chopstiiiicks!"
For nine euros I got a delicious, full plate of curry tofu.

We also tasted 'Salmari', liquid salty licorice with alcohol. Charlotte and I agreed it was the best drink that was ever made. Another popular finnish drink is Lonkero, which contains gin, means "tentacle" and was introduced especially for the 1952 summer Olympics as a compromise during the prohibition.

On the last evening, we said goodbye to all the sweet people we met, and almost missed our train back to the ghetto. Thanks to Tiia who looked up the schedule, we were saved from freezing to death in the finnish night (just kidding, the weather was actually better than in Belgium).

The organisation of the festival was incredible. We are so thankful to everybody who worked so hard to make it all possible. It's our hope to come back next year!

TMH at Festival Cultures Maison#4

Buongiorno hairy kitty fans!

this friday, saturday and sunday you can find us at the amazing comics festival in Brussels, selling our new summer edition, as well as Valentine's new book Tomorrow I'll be Gone, and of course our famous dickers by Dries Warlop, old editions and a lot of other interesting comics.

13, 14, 15 septembre 2013 à la Maison des Cultures de Saint-Gilles, rue de Belgrade 120, 1060 Bruxelles

be there or be hairless!
sun fishes and unwashed dishes x