This week One Quart celebrates the Helsinki Comics Festival and the joy of the visual narrative with a series of artists who we think you should know better – hand picked by Karstein Volle. Today Erlend Hjortland Sandøy.
Erlend Hjortland Sandøy
Karstein Volle: Hi, how are you?
Erlend Hjortland Sandøy : Hi! I’m feeling GREAT. This is my first real interview! For it to happen on Finnish soil no less – what an honor. Such a fine country (besides the inhumane amount of mosquitos).
KV: Of all the more lucrative and less work intensive disciplines within the visual arts field, why comics?
EHS: As far as I can tell, no other narrative visual arts field allows this much self-indulgence and manic behavior. It’s such an independent industry. You can work on projects nobody else would even touch! Also, I have been creating comics since the cradle and never really stopped to reevaluate my life. But I suppose it isn’t until the studies are over and the student loans come knocking that I’ll have to face the big question: Are comics a sustainable profession? If not, I’ll see you all at 7eleven.
As far as I can tell, no other narrative visual arts field allows this much self-indulgence and manic behavior
Erlend Hjortland Sandøy
KV: What is your dream project?
EHS: I’m very into comics as a journalistic/pseudo-journalistic platform, and my dream project would be to expose Brussel’s lies or to conduct a 20 page interview with the leader of PKK or something like that. And while doing so to have fun, travel, meet nice people, eat good food etc.
I’m very into comics as a journalistic/pseudo-journalistic platform
KV: Tell me about an unfinished project of yours. No matter if it’s going to be finished, in progress or if it crashed and burned.
EHS: I’m half-working on a project concerning global warming. Tag line: All sides of global warming explained – but in a funny way. I hope it will see the light of day, but of the future, only death is certain.
KV: Where will all this end?
EHS: With utopian interplanetary anarchism, obviously!
Erlend Hjortland Sandøy
Erlend (born 1995) is a comic book creator from Bergen, Norway. His work has been featured on The Nib and in Norwegian publications such as the ÜberPress Anthologies and VestNytt. Currently he is studying Graphic Storytelling at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark. He can be found online at erlendsandoy
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