Categories
Alt Text Included Autobiographical comics Comics

Kombucha season has begun! (Sara seems happy)

I don’t know if you’ve ever made kombucha during winter, but here’s the problem with that. We save energy, so our home isn’t super warm during winter. We just put more clothes on if we get cold! But our scoby, the weird lump of bacteria that makes the delicious tea, can’t put on more clothes! So making the kombucha takes ages! During summer when it’s warm inside and outside it’s way faster to make it!

My other partner Sara is very pleased with summer. She gets to have homemade kombucha every week and she also gets to eat all kinds of foods made from Finnish wild plants! Yesterday we ate stinging nettle pancakes (with lingonberry jam)! Spring and summer really are the best time for foragers.

Speaking of kombucha, here’s a comic about the first time I gave it to my friend Eelis. This comic is colored by Sara, my partner! Go check out Sara’s website too!

H-P holding a jar, Eelis sitting behind a table. Title: Eelis the Kombucha Boy. H-P: Wanna try out kombucha? It's self made. Eelis: Sure!
Eelis takes a sip and his face turns red. A lightning flashes behind him. He is sweating like a pig and he looks very uncomfortable.
Eelis turns green. He is half smiling as he looks in the kombucha glass. He's shaking a little.
Eelis looks like he ate a lemon and his face is trying to suck itself inside his skull. Now he's blue and he's sweating more than ever and shaking violently.
H-P Offers a jar with a kombucha scoby in it to Eelis, saying: Want a scoby so you can make your own? 
Eelis bangs his fists on the table and he looks excited and deligtes. He has flames in his eyes signifying the intense excitement. He yells: YEAS PLEASE!

If you’re interested in knowing what else do I do in my daily life, I suggest you go browse more of my comics here on my blog!

Ps. If you want to know what’s happening in my art, join my mailing list! No spam, just one email every other month letting you know what I do, so that social media algorithm can’t hide it from you.

Categories
Alt Text Included Autobiographical comics Comics

First blog post, how did I become a cartoonist?

Okay so this blog post is basically here just so I can check if the blog looks good. But posting a blog post just for that would be boring right? So if you’re a true fan and you actually went and read this, here’s a comic about me becoming a cartoonist for you! Thank you for being here!

This is a story on how I decided to become a cartoonist. I was young, I met a friend who was obsessed with comics and always ready to stroke my ego if I drew them. Wonderful times!

Title: Why did I start making comics?
Tiny 16 year old H-P, a nerd with glasses and long hair, sits by a table with a red haired girl. H-P is drawing an alien with very large eyes. Hardly a professional cartoonist level, but pretty good. A blonde girl approaches saying "Oh!"
The blonde girl says "I see, you draw manga too! Nice!" H-P looks at the blonde girl just saying "Thanks!"
The blonde girl leaves, H-P whispers to his ginger friend "What is a manga?" The text at the bottom says: "That's how I met Raakel! My future bestie."
Illustration of H-P listening to the blonde girl, Raakel, explaining something. H-P sighs "Wow!"
Text: Raakel loved comics and she would go on and on about then. And I would listen! I loved it! And she never made me feel myself stupid for not knowing as much about comics as she did. She was just happy to help me learn!
Illustration of H-P drawing a comic, he's becoming a cartoonist now. Raakel looks at H-P's art saying "Let me see." H-P replies "Wait."
Text: After hearing so much about comics (and reading a lot of manga Raakel recommended), I got inspired to draw them too! After all, I already loved drawing!
Illustration of Raakel reading a comic saying "When will you draw more again?" H-P smiles, he looks very happy with himself, he replies "Soon."
Text: It was the first time in my life someone was so genuinely interested in seeing what I had created!
Illustration of H-P, now a grown man and a professional cartoonist, relaxing on a couch saying: "I guess that's why I still make comics. Comics were the first thing I had ever made that someone else sincerely appreciated. That's how Raakel got me hooked."

Years later I still think of how important Raakel’s support was to me. And we’re still friends to this day! Actually, right now Raakel is translating my partner Sara’s polyamory comic to english for the new book that’s coming out soon!

If you’re interested in learning more about my life and comics, I suggest you go browse through the different tags here on my blog! For example, this one is an autobiographical comic, so the Autobiographical comics -tag has more of similar content! This comic also has Alt texts so the comic can be read with a screen reader. Not all of the comics on my blog have that yet, mainly because they’re a lot of work to make on top of the actual comics and I’m just a one person, but I’m working on them! Here’s the Alt Text Included -tag so you can read all the ones with the Alt text!

If you want to help me have more time to work on the alt texts and everything else I have on my website, please consider supporting me on Patreon!