Allan Haverholm

Throughout 2008 I have been trying to get my head around the site you’re looking at now. Being a newcomer to blogging, I have spent a lot of time fine-tuning the page design, but the end result is evidently cluttered and a bit carried away with all the plug-in possibilities available. In the very near future I will change to a simpler, leaner design and try to focus on the content instead.

Oh, the content you say? Apart from the autoblogging devices (“Daily” Sketchbook pages and Twitter updates) I haven’t been blogging much at all. I’d say it all comes down to two things: Time and routine, or rather, the lack of both. And the less I’ve updated the blog, the bigger the ambition to write substantial posts, meaning that by mid-summer, I was breaking my mind to come up with ingenious subjects instead of posting daily asides about the Swedish summer weather.

That’s somehting to work on, but really, if I’m not blogging it’s because work is eating at my spare time. Astoria has gotten off to a slow start, and I haven’t touched pencil or pen at all over the holidays – but now that I’m back at the studio, things are beginnning to move at a breakneck pace. There will be a b/w demo of Resistansen out this spring, and I have started looking for venues to exhibit the original drawings. I’m thinking one show per song, but then, who’s to say what might show up?

Astoria is getting its own production blog, and I’m basically dealing with the same issue as on this one: Getting the content out in a steady flow. Thankfully, the subject criteria for the Astoria blog is pretty clear (write about the project, its progress, and all things related, as opposed to the quite self-important Change the World-attitude that I’d developed for this here blog) so that should go down pretty well.

I’m getting ready for MoCCA ArtFest this year, but am a bit sad to hear that the festival has outgrown the Puck building, which added a great deal of atmosphere and charm to the event. I’ll be going with a bunch of Astoria samplers for publishers, agents, and everybody who cares to leaf through them, and basically just spreading the Good News … that you don’t need to play an instrument to get down and RAWK!

Tags: Astoria, constructing site, update

Since my regular feature, the daily sketches, have been on hiatus for a couple of days, I thought I'd keep you guys updated on my recent goings-on. In less than a month, Ill be starting my working sabbatical, during which the dirty work on Astoria will be done. I am trying to get my stuff at Gimle Studio packed and put into storage while I'm away at Serieskolan (the Malmö Comic School), where I'll be hanging my hat for the next year or so.

I have prepared a little something for the 50th issue of Danish monthly soon-to-be quarterly Free Comics, and that will likely be my last recess before I've finished Astoria. Sketches of the FC50-short may be up soon, or not. Depends, whether I'll have time to scan them.

The kids are vacationing with their grandparents for the next week and a ½, and I try to make the best of the extra time that affords me, work-wise and off duty. I get a lot of reading done, and I think I've reached the bottom of my accumulated comic pile. Finished Kirby's Kamandi recently (a patchy collection of the original magazines, but all goodness), and will soon be digging into a 1875 book by Kersey Graves, entitled "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviours" that I found on Sacred-Texts.com. That is research for "Passion" that will be a (brainier) part of Astoria. In short, it treads the same path as Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a 1000 Faces", only focusing on the common traits of, well, sixteen different deities that have suffered on crosses, poles, trees, etc in a rite of transcendence.

Further Astoria research, specifically, for the segment "Great Old Ones", was my attempt to read Edward Tufte's "Envisioning Information", which slowed to a halt after a frustratingly chatty first chapter. Tufte is a widely learned gentleman, to be sure, and his writing (in "Envisioning…") is anecdotical, starting way off center, probably to narrow in on the subject at hand. In my case, looking for hard fact, instruction, and guidance, that method was a bit of a turnoff and ultimately left the book collecting dust on a shelf. I figure his "" may be the actual motherlode that I'll turn to eventually.

For recreation, I am reading the first book of the Danish "Erotikens Historie" by Brusendorff and Henningsen. I'd translate the title, but it hardly seems necessary; it means exactly what you think it does. This short volume tackles eroticism in ancient Greece and Rome, as handed down in prose, poetry, and art, delivered through the culturally (and sexually) liberated intellectual circles of Europe in the 30ies (1st edition) and 60ies (2nd ed.). A little reminder that the current, Puritan era has only lasted for a couple hundred years; before that, sexual 'politics' were not only less restrained, but also wholly different from what is generally accepted today.

And the music, not to be ignored! Lately, I have been listening A LOT to "The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull" by Earth, who inspired the mighty SunnO))) as wellas a dirge of less inspired drone/doom-bands. On this and previous album, "HEX (or Printing in the Infernal Method)", the band have taken on a much "cleaner", more melodic sound, painting a prairie of resounding experience with their instrumental compositions. Quietly, calmly psychedelic, like eating sweet peaches in the sun.

Also playing are Gallhammer, the evilest little Japanese girls I have yet to hear, and Black Dahlia Murder, who just kick ass, and don't mince words about it.

That's it for now – I'll get some sketches up again once I've accustomed myself to being temporarily without children

Tags: Astoria, constructing site, update

This is a little something I drew up for the Great Old Ones installment of the Astoria project. It’s a riff on the old adage about having three blind men feel up an elephant; each touching separate parts, they would give different versions of what the whole might be.

In keeping with the Great Old Ones concept, the three men pictured are (from top left, clockwise) Erich von Däniken, Charles Hoy Fort, and Howard Phillip Lovecraft. In the middle, minus reference, a coelacanth.

Tags: Astoria, constructing site, update

Last night, Wifey told me to prioritize my time. Excelllent advice; I’m not sure she meant blogging nor general internet activity, but I tend to think outside the box.

The site is still a work in progress in itself, but I’ll let most of the behind-the-scenes upgrading go for now, and get some content up. A lot of sketchbook pages have been scanned, and should start appearing from this monday forward. I’m prioritizing here, see?

I’ve had one project to finish off, and still putting last touches on that, which is a SECRET for another couple of months. That is totally useless information, of course, but it makes me feel important. Anyway, I’ll start work on the Astoria stories pieces again next week, and get ready for the big haul that will hopefully get the book finished in a year’s time.

Yeah, right.

Whichever way, check back after the weekend for sketchbook goodness, I’ll keep my eyes firmly on the road and keep you informed about what’s on the horizon

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Tags: Astoria, constructing site, update