If you liked my previous post about traveling from Berlin to Italy, you will love this one about my train travel from Finland to France! The trip is way longer than in the last comic, plus in this one I’m going to a comics festival in Angoulême. I hope this comic can inspire others to try traveling by land, even if it is a bit slower than traveling by a plane.
I am going to say this in the comic too, but I must say it here as well. Traveling by land in a train where it’s okay to get up, move around and go to different sections of the train is so much better for my heath than sitting still on a plane. Movement is needed even for making comics and I don’t mind the extra time a train takes. What else would I be doing with that time, even if I wasn’t on a train, than making comics? Nothing! And I can definitely draw comics on a train too.
Who appeared in the comic?
Here’s links to everyone who appeared in the comic and that I know are artists or other creative professionals who might want to be mentioned.
- Siiri Viljakka (My travel buddy)
- Jesse Ghost (my friend who cave me a ride)
- Athanasía Aarniosuo (Works in Finnish Comics Society)
- Celeste (The Instagram Person)
- Sari Sariola and Tuomas Myllylä (Artists in the Webtoon exhibition)
- Siksi -comics agency (The one where Kirsi is from and who’s table I brught the books to)
- stc019 (the old friend in the future off)
- Comic Invasion Berlin (the festival I’ll go to next)
- Justin Hall
- Tara Madison Avery
- Tim Fish
- Soizick Jaffre
- Miika (the friend who I stayed with. Sanni doesn’t have a website)
5 replies on “From Finland to Angoulême. Train travel in Europe!”
Hurray extras! And holy moly I *love* that toilet sign. I wish I was a centaur with a sweet ass bird n_n
Haha, you almost always have to change the train in Malmö, even if it says it goes straight to Copenhagen. But the Lund thing hasn’t happened to me yet.
I’ve been wondering about the ecology of travelling from Finland. In practice you have to take a plane or a boat to get anywhere except Russia or northern Scandinavia, and some say that boats can pollute as much as planes! We need a high-speed night train around the gulf of Bothnia and align our gauge (raideleveys) with Sweden, at least on that track, so travelers could sleep all the way and wouldn’t need to change trains. Or a tunnel under the Gulf of Finland. Of course the way from Turku to Stockholm is shorter than from Helsinki, so less boat emissions.
Please keep normalizing land travel. I took a train to China once, and Japan another time (with a boat from Vladivostok), but now, sadly, that route is tainted.
I also came here to say that some claim that boat travel is even worse than plane when it comes to environment. Probably plane lobbyists. At least from going from Turku you avoid excessive boating. We need a high speed train with sleeping carriages around the Bothnian gulf and to align the gauge (raideleveys) with Sweden on that track, so no need to change the train in Tornio. I tried to post this yesterday evening, but accidentally double-clicked the button so my comment was considered as spam (too much caffeine).
Thanks for this – it was so nice to see my friend Siiri depicted, and I’m in favour of anything that shows the practicalities of overland travel.