“Germany? What do you mean Germany, H-P, you’re Finnish?” Yes, I am, but I only started drawing since leaving Germany. Last summer I went to Trento Italy for an ethnography and qualitative research conference together with my colleagues Juulia and Carmen. I traveled through Berlin where I also met a long time Instagram friend! I made this comic during the long train rides and I first published it on my Patreon for backers only. Now it’s been a while since that happened, so I decided to make it public.
I think people are interested in doing longer travels by land, but they might be worried if it’s really difficult. And yes, it is more difficult than flying. But it’s also amazing and exciting and relaxing and part of the whole experience of traveling! So maybe this comic can inspire you to try out something other than a plane next time you travel.
The reason I’m posting this comic now is that I’m leaving to Angoulême in France tomorrow! And I’ll be traveling by land again! That reminded me of this comic. I don’t know if I will draw a travel diary this time, but I’m thinking about it. I’m traveling together with a friend of mine, the Finnish comics artist Siiri Viljakka.
This photo was taken from the mountain where we got to with the cable car. I had thought Trento to be way smaller of a town than what it turned out to be! It was weird seeing it all laid out like that. The size of the mountains is something I as a Finnish person will never understand. (We have no mountains in Finland. I even happen to be from an area of Finland that’s the former sea floor! Osthrobothnia that is.)
Now that I’m traveling in January, the views will be completely different from what they were in June. Our route takes us from Stockholm (Sweden) to Copenhagen (Denmark) to Strasbourg (France) and then finally to Angoulême (France) to attend the gigantic comics festival held there every year! I’ll try to at least write a blog post about it, even if I wouldn’t necessarily draw a comic. We’ll see!
Now that you’re here, consider this. You become my Patreon backer, I make more comics! Sounds great, right? Here you go:
Are you into reading more comics? Check out all of the comics I’ve posted on my blog here on my Comics tag!