Keeps Getting Petter And Petter

I want to make feminist comics, / but I do not want to be preachy. / Can feminist comics be funny? // Can one pull jokes from structural violence without violating its victims – or making the perpetrators seem like harmless goofies? / ”Oh you guys! Hyuk hyuk!” / ”Patriarchy is magic!”

The comic Pepperi, which I’ve been creating for Northern Finnish SETAs’ magazine Pulssi, has become increasingly feminist… / In a sense that I’m trying to include other oppressed groups in it, other than white gay men. / (At which point I forgot the funny-part, oops.) // Damn how paranoid I am! / All-inclusive comic is way more sanctimonious hypocrisy than a comic sticking to a social issue or two would be ’white-washed’ or ’sexist!’ // ”That sure took embarrassingly long to realize.” / ”Leaving the bar setting would already give substance to this chaos of a comic.”

(Also there aren’t even ten full Pepperi strips in existence holy shit Nixu breathe) / Anyway! I’m hoping to receive answers to all of my questions about feminist comics at Helsinki Comics Festival at Sep 6.-8. / (There’ll be feminist stuff there in case you didn’t catch that OKAY SEE YA THERE BYE)

https://www.facebook.com/pepperisarjis : Pepperi the comic, in Finnish only.

http://www.rovaniemenseta.fi/pulssi-lehti/ : Pulssi magazine as PDF files, in Finnish only.

http://sarjakuvafestivaalit.fi/ – Helsinki Comics Festival homepage. Somehow I felt the need to add this link, too, who needs Google anyway, also who the fuck is Helsinki.

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Allright let’s answer Jenni’s big question now! / Imma start with a vague list… / This is what a red-green-black-pink queer-feminist vegetarian slut anarcho-antifascist genderfuck-humanist looks like!

Vegetarian: I still eat egg and dairy, and all in all I’m not quite careful with this. / Oops, Moroccan oranges. Well, I can’t just throw these away either. / And in a capitalist society there’s no such thing as ethical food! (See: soy products.) // Queer-feminist: I am privileged. I’m a Caucasian, able-bodied cis-male in a bubble of Nordic social security. / Clink! (Shit.) / But I want to use my privilege for good things. Same rights for men, women, and others alike! (Also, I don’t want to seem like I’m begging for cookies for being a decent human being.)

Slut: Sex is nice and you can have as little or much as you like*. / Sex workers’ rights need working on, too. / (*: I’m checking my privilege here, too; (gay) men are ’allowed’ to be slutty…?) / I’m also pro poly, if not polyamorous myself! / Love, like sexuality and gender, is a spectrum! / One person can’t always complete you 100%!

And uhh. / Anarcho-punx of Oulu are real aggressive snobs, I’ve heard, but I’m probably more of a hippie punk. / System sucks but I can’t explain how, wanna smoke some pot? / Relationship anarchy (see above) is a good start. Personal is political! / Too much text / Allright let’s focus now. 

I think I’m rather typical an artistic person, as far as my values go. / With a dash of a twenty-something brat’s tendency for ambivalence, laziness and urge to provoke and show off.

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SHIT THAT STRAIGHT PEEPS SAY: // I’m not a racist/homophobe/transphobe/sexist, BUT… // You can’t diss heterosexuals, that’s OPPRESSION!

You’re too provocative. To my taste. Boohoo. You queer person. / I’m not a feminist because I don’t hate men! Also can’t we just call it equality-ism or something?

FEMEN AKHBAR!!! / <3 Shut The Hell Up <3

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Could it be that, with the queer scene of Oulu being quite microscopic, lots of people merely pretend to like each other just so that they wouldn’t seem like douchebags in the eyes of the entire scene? / And that this dishonesty bitters already bitter people even more? And that the ones deliberately avoiding ”The Scene” because of this are, in fact, contributing to this bitterness? / Is it like this everywhere in Finland? Cliques keep a-clique-ing, outsiders poison the air by dissing the air poisoned, queer community gets cut off, isolated, excluded even for itself, and everybody has to fight their battles alone? / I’m gonna need a lot more beer than this.

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Kahtokkeepa tämän uutisen kommenttiosio lämppäriksi (Ranneliike on suomalainen hlbt-portaali). Esiinnyn siis itsekin k.o. DVD:llä, mikäli tämä ei käy ilmi uutisessa.

Ja loppukevennykseksi vielä tänään kirpparilta bongaamani paita, joka on toistaiseksi ”homomaisin”/”neitimäisin”/whateverein vaatekappale jonka olen ikinä ylleni pannut. Yllättäen ostopäätöksen sinetöi printti ja 1,50€ hinta. Stay classy, stay fabulous, stay queer!

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