Mattias Elftorp's Blog

CBK just released it’s 69th volume, the exhibition is still up, and we’re already gearing up for our next release: CBA vol 70|71: A RUSSIAN DANCE WITH SHACKLES. The exhibition for it (our 101st publication) opens on Monday (Nov 24) between 15-18. Come check it out!

This issue of CBA offers new insights through voices of resistance from a neighbor who affects us all: Russia. How were its dreams of democracy shattered? How did it go from flaunting extravagant Eurovision stunts to prisoners dying at the frontline in Ukraine? From celebrating V-day with Americans on the Red Square to threatening nuclear war. Is it possible to steer into other pathways? Through the stories of Russian and ex-Russian artists, these comics share rarely heard perspectives on what it means to live within these changes, reflections that are normally out of reach for Western readers.

I’m not involved personally in either book or exhibition, but I am main editor and cover artist for the issue after that, CBA vol 72: WEIRD FOREST, which is almost finished. It won’t be released until next year but we did recently make the call for submissions for the issue after that:

CBA vol 73: BUGS
Main editor: Aiden Kvarnström
Deadline: Feb 15, 2026

One day, Gregor Samsa woke up and found himself transformed into an insect. Do you think that bugged him?

Puns aside, insects are fascinating. Many people find them disgusting and associate them with filth and decay, but without them we wouldn’t have anything to eat, considering they’re also the main pollinators of our plants. How could we survive in a world with no bugs? Then again, fleas were quite significant in spreading the plague.

Insects are hailed as the protein of the future and shunned as vectors of disease. They’re pests, pets and objects of fear and fascination. But they aren’t the only kind of bug out there. If you’re sick, you’ve caught a bug. If your computer program doesn’t run as intended, it’s due to a bug. If you experience a glitch in the matrix, there might be a bug in the very fabric of our reality. If something is bugging you, you can’t stop thinking about it. And remember: shrimp are also bugs.

Give us your best stories rooted in entomology, annoyance, glitches or any other kind of bug out there! Exoskeletons, hive minds, metamorphosis, silk, webs and rot; we’re sure you all have something to say about bugs.

Check the call for submissions for more details and submission guidelines…

CBA vol 69 is coming! It’ll be out this Friday, with me and Kinga Dukaj as main co-editors! As you may guess from the numbering, this one is about SEX.

It’s also the 100th publication from CBK, which is pretty cool if we may say so ourselves. I haven’t been involved in all 100 myself, but a whole bunch of them.

The release, with an exhibition, will be at Rum för Serier (Friisgatan 12, Malmö) this Friday, Oct 31 between 17–21. Hope to see you there!

We’re doing it! And by “it”, we mean, well, haha: SEX.
We’re diving into it; Queer, straight, emotional, horny, funny, serious. Comics that explore intimacy, desire, awkwardness, joy. Stories where sex moves the plot, reveals character or simply celebrates pleasure and the sheer joyfulness of a great fuck. 

Participating artists:
Aiden Kvarnström | Rikard Stenius | Sandra “Sam” Mattsson-Robertsdotter | Gordy Chaffey & Vincent Rose | Malin Biller | Sindre Lo | Thea | Predrag Stamenković | Mattias Elftorp | Josef Norén | Kye Cooks | Kinga Dukaj (cover)

Here’s a page from my comic contribution:

I was trying to think of what’s sexy in 2025, and came to the conclusion that, well, it is the era of Luigi, and of Trump/Project 2025, so there was really only one way to go… With that said, it should maybe be pointed out that the comic is a work of fiction. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, as well as events in the past or future, are purely coincidental.
It’s also a time travel story, because I can’t help but complicate things, for fun. Straight stories are just too boring.

You’ll find more samples from the comics here, and you can order the book at Hybriden and/or subscribe to CBA (4 issues – new subscribers also get 4 back issues). 

Feel free to invite people to the Facebook event and share wherever you can!

I have a comic in a zine about the Malmö shopping mall Entré, titled: Vi har gjort ett Zine om Köpcentret entré, which has its official release with exhibition this Saturday (Oct 4) between 17-20 at Rum för Serier.

My story isn’t specifically about Entré, necessarily, but it’s on a related subject. It’s about the gates at the exits of supermarkets (specifically ICA), and is set in a near future where it’s been made illegal to enter and exit a shop without buying anything.

It was originally intended for Galago, so that’s why I tried to make it look a bit [chibi-]autobiographical. Any similarities to real life me and Kinga are completely coincidental or whatever.

The zine itself is super nice, edited and hand-bound at Fanzineverkstaden by Siri Nuottaniemi.

Here’s the first page:

I have a comic in a zine about the Malmö shopping mall Entré, titled: Vi har gjort ett Zine om Köpcentret entré, which has its official release with exhibition this Saturday (Oct 4) between 17-20 at Rum för Serier.

My story isn’t specifically about Entré, necessarily, but it’s on a related subject. It’s about the gates at the exits of supermarkets (specifically ICA), and is set in a near future where it’s been made illegal to enter and exit a shop without buying anything.

It was originally intended for Galago, so that’s why I tried to make it look a bit [chibi-]autobiographical. Any similarities to real life me and Kinga are completely coincidental or whatever.

The zine itself is super nice, edited and hand-bound at Fanzineverkstaden by Siri Nuottaniemi.

Here’s the first page:

In collaboration with Malmö Seriefest, Fanzineverkstaden, Malmö University Comics Hub and Bildvärld Gränsland, CBK were behind this new award at Seriefest 2025, where we selected the winner of the festival’s best zine.

So I was part of the jury, which was nice. It gave me the opportunity to read a lot of zines I’d’ve missed otherwise, since I’m not made of zine money… In the end, we agreed on a winner and 5 honorary mentions. The winner was:

Lovisa Prage – Saltvatten
Ett fanzine som samlar alla aspekter: en stark historia, uttrycksfullt tecknat, genomtänkta materialval och papperskvalitet. Ett helhetsverk som en enig jury valde som vinnare.
instagram: @lovisa.prage

Go to the blog post at CBK to see the whole list.

Seriefest was also the release for a new book from CBK: Julia Nascimento‘s A Perfect Place to Call Home, which you should check out.

A Perfect Place to Call Home is Julia Nascimento’s first collection of visual narratives about her experiences and reflections of life in different places as a foreigner. Stories about living everywhere and living nowhere.

Julia Nascimento is a Brazilian illustrator and cartoonist. While living in Japan she pursued postgraduate studies in fashion and worked in different sectors of the fashion industry. In 2017, she launched her career in illustration and comics, which solidified after her relocation to Sweden. Julia Nascimento’s work has been published in books and periodicals in Japan, Sweden, USA, and in the UK.

Available at Hybriden and other places…

This weekend I’ll be with Hybriden (CBK/Tusen Serier/Wormgod) at Ystad Seriefestival, and the next at Malmö Seriefest.

I don’t know what to say about it. These are application times, so I’ve used up most of my brain power already trying to find ways to keep everything afloat next year.

But I’ll be there, there’ll be books, possibly prints, you know the drill.

See you there!

I will be at Nerdmarket (part of Malmö Game Week) this weekend with Kinga Dukaj, at a Dice Dominion/Wormgod table.

We’ll have books (Piracy is Liberation and a few others), prints and TTRPG dice!

See you there!

Earlier this year, after Israel broke the ceasefire, I made a sequel to the Angry Animal about a Genocide. It’s called Angry Animal about a Ceasefire and deals with the situation following its collapse.

Both comics were published on the Cartoonists for Palestine website, where you can read it in its entirety, along woth lots of other comics. Here’s the first page (of 3):

I combined both the Genocide and Ceasefire comics with a few older ones on related themes info a zine, published by Tusen Serier. I thought it made a lot of sense to show that this is a conflict that didn’t start with the October 7 attack.

It’s available from Hybriden and the Swedish internet bookstores in a Swedish version, in case it’s not enough for you to read it for free.

Speaking of things that are available both for free and for money, there’s also Joe Sacco‘s War on Gaza, which is his rage- and despair-fueled sequel to the brilliant journalistic graphic novels Palestine and Footnotes from Gaza. The printed version was released earlier this year, but you can also read it for free at The Comics Journal site. All of his books on the subject are highly recommended.

In times of genocide and upheaval, it can be good to also remember that things have been bad for a while, even in Sweden (no matter what the myths say about this country).

Recently, one of my illustrations was reused for an article in Internationalen, written by Karin Fridell, about ways our [current and former] government works to get rid of immigrants outside the purely legislative methods.

Here’s a quote from the article:

Ett kännetecken för en rättsstat är att det är tydligt vilka lagar som gäller. En lag ska inte gälla för handlingar som utfördes innan lagen trädde i kraft. Men migrationspolitiken har ända sedan 2016 präglats av retroaktivt verkande lagar. Den ”tillfälliga begränsningslag” som då infördes gjorde det svårare att få asyl och avskaffade de permanenta uppehållstillstånden. I stället skulle alla uppehållstillstånd göras tillfälliga. Den nya lagen, som senare gjordes permanent, tillämpades för alla asylprövningar från och med 20 juli 2016, även om asylansökan lämnats in långt tidigare. De som hann bedömas enligt den gamla lagen hade stora chanser till permanent uppehållstillstånd men många tusen asylsökande fick avslag eller i bästa fall tillfälligt uppehållstillstånd enligt en lag som inte fanns när de sökte asyl. Alltså direkt mot rättsstatens principer.

(…)

Men det är inte alla lagar som behöver följas. Barnkonventionen är svensk lag sedan 2020, men ska vägas mot ”Sveriges intresse av en regerad invandring”. Det betyder att man ensamutvisar barn som bott i Sverige i hela sitt liv, eller utvisar en förälder medan barnen får stanna i Sverige. ”Sveriges intresse” verkar framför allt vara att demonstrera att inga invandrare och flyktingar ska känna sig trygga här. För varför är annars Sveriges intresse att splittra en libanesisk familj , tvångsutvisa en svenskfödd nioåring och hennes mamma till Etiopien eller efter många turer ge en familjehemsplacerad albansk nioåring uppehållstillstånd endast ett år i taget?

OUT NOW!

Sannolikhetsdrift
By Mattias Elftorp
2025 April
24 pages.
(also available in English as Probability Drive from Wormgod)

FRAMTIDENS UTOPI har en besättning på tre: Astrid, Isak och Katten, var och en med sina hemligheter. På sin väg mot människokolonin på Nya Paradiset får de problem. De har fått stopp i sin sannolikhetsdrivna Schrödingerianska osäkerhetsmotor och de har viktig last som måste nå kolonin.
De kan bli tvungna att öppna lådan…

AVAILABLE NOW at HYBRIDEN!

About the process behind the book:
Sannolikhetsdrift/Probablilty Drive is a space operette in comics form, originally created for CBA vol 64. It was made to connect to a guitar body I painted for Ruokangas Guitars and their Art Infused Collection. Elements from the painting were used in the comic, and the story itself evolved due to that collaboration.

I enjoy taking scientific concepts and seeing what can happen if you stretch them and twist them around a bit. This comic was inspired by a few different sources, such as Sven Linqvist‘s Utrota Varenda Jävel (Exterminate All the Brutes) and Ursula K LeGuin‘s The Word for World is Forest. Both books deal with subjects of racism, colonialism and genocide. That felt like a logical backdrop for this story of space colonisation. And of course there’s my complete bastardization of the Schrödinger’s cat parable and the related theories of probability/uncertainty.

It’s also funny that this is one of the few times I (or CBK for that matter) publish anything in Swedish, even though it is my native tongue, and it’s something as un-Swedish as a sci fi story…

Anyway, here are a couple of SAMPLE PAGES: