Category: No Buy Year -comics

June was quite a boring month, sorry about that. The most interesting part of it happened inside my head while I was sleeping, which makes that quite uninteresting. (The moment someone says “I had such a weird dream…” I get so bored I fall asleep instantly. Rambling incoherent explanations of dreams aren’t interesting!!)

I did do a lot of crafts and I mended a lot of pants. I actually managed to fix 4 pairs of pants in June! On top of that I also made two pairs of fashionable pants! Not entirely from skratch though, I had some pants that were way too small for me, so I deconstructed them and made something new out of them! I might want to make a blog post about those too at some point. (I have to say, I do love having my very own blog where I can post whatever I want and write as much as I want with no fear of censorship or character limit!)

So let’s get into the comic already!

But before that I must say this: Are you Interested in reading all of the No Buy Year posts? Go to my No Buy Year -tag! Or start from the first post to read them all in the rightful order.

H-P Lehkonen presents, no buy comic of June:

Can you see how much I’m sweating in every panel? June was very hot here in Finland. We also happen to live in top floor of our apartment building and that makes our home even hotter. Finnish houses are built to keep the heat in, not out! Winters are great in these apartments, but the summers suck. July has started off way cooler even if there’s a deadly heatwave tormenting the rest of Europe. I am worried, as always. Climate catastrophe isn’t just our future. It’s here right now.

If you’re into my this whole H-P Lehkonen no buy challenge thing, you might also like this comic:

It’s a comic I made a couple of years ago and it talks about sustainability, zero waste lifestyle and poverty.

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One more thing. I want to thank you all for reading my blog! Looking at my statistics some people actually come here to read my comics! I know you can just get these on social media, but really… that just isn’t as effective! I don’t have all this space to write whatever I want there!

Interested in becoming anticonsumerist? Well, get hyped by reading this comic! Or something. I don’t know how to get anyone hyped. I’m not a very hyped up person, nobody in Finland is. I just tried to come up with a sentence (any sentence) to start this blog post with. Let’s stop before I make things even more awkward.

So this comic is about May. If you haven’t read the comics I made in January – April, you should click the link below and read that first.

First part of the No Buy Year comics is here.

Or you can also go to my No Buy Year -comics tag and browse through all of the comics there!

Okay, I think now’s the time to read the comic and learn some new skills to become the anticonsumerist hero we all want to see in this world.

I’m really glad all the things that broke were things I was able to fix. If my laptop would have broken for good, I wouldn’t be able to fix it myself. But I was able to buy a new power cord! Good thing the problem was just in that minor part. It would be very hard trying to be super anticonsumerist for a whole year while having to buy a new computer… Well, to be honest, I wouldn’t have to buy a new computer. I also happen to have a desktop computer! Making comics for living means I need to have a lot of equipment for making them! So I have a laptop, a desktop and an iPad. Oh and a phone. Does that count? I mean nowadays phones are more powerful than the first computer my family had when I was 13.

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Now that you are here, I want to promote something cool. My girlfriend Sara Valta has a crowdfunding campaign going on for her book Polyamory Comics. The book is really good! I know, because I have edited it! This is the very first crowdfunding we’re doing, so we’d love all the help we can get. So if you have any ideas on how to promote it even better, please let us know! And also please get the book! There’s also ebook options available!

What it’s about?

The book is about our family life. I live together with Paju and Sara, who both date me, but they don’t date each other. There’s a lot of comics that are informative about polyamory and queer identities, but also a lot that are just funny things that happen to us when people don’t really understand what polyamory is. The book will be over 150 pages long and in full colors!

Have you already read the first part of this comic? (The part of my no buy challenge that goes from January to February!)

So March was by far the hardest month, because I collect indie queer zines and I love supporting other artists. But I survived! Here’s a comic from March so you know what I mean.

So here’s the thing, I think I have a very bad case of hunter-gatherer brain. That is a totally legit (not legit) medical condition that makes me want to hunt for stuff and gather it around me. Shopping is a good medicine for this, but it’s very expensive and unsustainable. So I have resorted to other solutions, such as dumpster diving!

And now you must be thinking, what about April?

Here’s a fun fact, I’m actually writing this blog post right after finishing the last part of the sociology entrance exam course! Now I just have to wait to get the last grades and see if I can get in to the final exam. And if I nail that… Turku University, here I come! Let’s keep our fingers crossed. (Though I am slightly worried what starting in a University would do to my no buy year… there’s an awfully lot of buying involved in education!)

Today is already the 19th of May, so this month will end soon! I draw the previous month’s comic during the first 10 days if the next month, meaning, the comic about May will probably be ready some time around 10th of June. But if you absolutely can’t wait, here’s some spoilers.

I have finally been able to start gardening! That is very helpful in not buying stuff, because you have your hands full! The garden plot I have isn’t just mine, it belongs to a small nonprofit organization called Maan Satama ry. We have bought one thing for the plot, but I’ll tell more about that in the next comic. (I have to also mention, that I’m the chairman of Finnish Comics Society, which is an organization that employs several people and they all probably buy a ton of stuff for the organization all the time. Does that count as my consuming? I’d say no.)

I have also been able to start foraging for wild plants! I mentioned my hunter-gatherer brain. Foraging for wild plants is like the best therapy for that condition! I absolutely love roaming around trying to find more and more edible plants. Also, here’s my tip for people who haven’t tried foraging but would like to try. Pick one plant that you find easy to recognize (and that is edible) and just go search for that. When you are so used to it that you can recognize it in your sleep, choose another one to add to your repertoire. In my first year of foraging I basically just picked stinging nettle and common yarrow. Next year I added in more plants! Now I forage quite a lot of different species, but I still try out new plants. Many of them taste like crap though, so I don’t continue with them.

But foraging! How’s that for no buy challenge! You can even supplement some of the food you’d have to buy with free things!

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Edit: Here’s a link to the next post in this series for easier viewing. Read part 3 here!

The thought of not buying anything new for a year started forming in my head somewhere around October 2021. I had just purchaded a felt hat I had wanted for ages. It was pretty expensive for a low income person such as myself, but I had saved up for it. I started counting all the things I had bought in a year and it wasn’t much. Would I be able to go for a year without buying anything? I made the decision to do a No Buy Year in 2022 in late December and immediately made this comic, so there’s no turning back!

Now that I’m writing this blog post it’s already May of 2022 and I have managed not to buy anything for 4½ months. It hasn’t really been that difficult and I have even managed to make comics about the process on the go!

No Buy Year begins, January feelings

In early February I made a longer comic that detailed more things I did in January.

In January I was worried I’d suddenly start cheating by buying more of the things I am allowing myself, but that was a weird fear for me to have. I had been buying very little things in the earlier years too! Why would I start buying things now?

In January I also didn’t yet really know what I wanted to do with my comics on the matter, but next year my ideas were clearer!

February and digital goods?

So how about March? Well, you either have to go read the comic on my Instagram right now or wait a bit so that I post the next batch of no buy year -comics here on my blog. This post is already getting pretty long as it is, so I’m going to spread the comics from January to April between two blog posts. After that I will be updating my blog alongside with my social media.

Oh and if you read Finnish, I suggest you go read the whole thing on maansatama.com blog! The same comics are available there in Finnish!