Jyrki Heikkinen,
Stripburger 57 A Petic Comic-Master of the Vast Finnish Landscapes
Jyrki Heikkinen was interrogated by Kaja Avberšek
“I
am 41 years old and have been seriously engaged in
producing comics for about 4
years now. You may have seen my works on the pages of
Napa, Glömp and Suuri
Kurpitsa in Finland.” This is how you presented
yourself in Madburger, the special issue of
Stripburger in 2002. That was when we got
to know you and we found you … mysterious. Maybe a
slightly crazy middle-aged
guy. There was something mad about your story that of
course fit the concept of
Madburger very nicely.
We felt a peculiar, not quite
comprehensible energy of an eccentric creator. We
found you interesting … and
then along came the love. Stripburger has almost
adopted you as its ‘outside-home
artist’. The story you created for Madburger
was called This is my future where you
still used frames, geometrically
confined spaces for sequences. We found your style
quite classical; the drawing
was somehow firmer. At the same time, your somewhat
shaky line – and eventually
the content itself as well – indicated an airy and
poetic human character that
constantly, in its characteristic subtle way,
questions the point and meaning
of all. Much of your later work features landscapes
and figures, as well as
dialogues and onomatopoeic elements that seem to
shimmer like water and flow
one into another, like poetry. A strong tie between
poetry and images is
obvious: the way you handle space, draw the line, use
ink and water colours …
Were you first a poet handling words or one who works
with images? Did you
first start drawing or writing, in other words: “what
came first: the chicken
or the egg?” You talk little but say very
much. And when you speak, you hit the
spot without blabbering. We kind of like that … At
first there were words. When I started to write poems in
senior high, I thought
that being a poet is the greatest thing in this world.
Comics came along in my
twenties and now during the last years illustrated poems
and independent images
joined them. I
believe that the way I use words and find expressions
affects the lines I draw.
When I draw, I pursue a certain tension in my characters
and details. I search
for an iron wire-like line that sometimes barely holds
the whole picture
together. The feel of intangibility and uncertainty is
important. A sleek and supple line rejects the eye. It
isn’t real.
People are bumpy and clumsy, anticipating a disaster and
preparing for it. It
is also about aesthetics and pleasure. Then
an independent image came along; for it enables
detachment from words. The
drawer is transferred into figurative thinking, to
another level or is
encouraged to employ other parts of his capacity, to
move towards the dream
realm. In 2009 we invited you to
collaborate at another Stripburger
project called Greetings from Cartoonia. We
established new comic lands with all their
social, cultural and ethnographic characteristics,
inhabited by residents of
rare and special kinds … We put up an interesting
exhibition of tourist posters
in screen print, original comic pages and ethno-comic
objects and then
published Greetings from Cartoonia, a special
treat by Stripburger. Foreign artists
had the task to portray Slowenia (warning: not
Slovenia!), inspired by these
very Slovenian items. You got the Slovenian electrical
transformer and the
Easter bundle as key elements for your story. You
entitled the story A promise, transformed the electrical
transformer into a transformer robot
and the Easter bundle into deer antlers. The story
also includes a huge monstrous
fish, a know-it-all monkey, a giant devil, half buried
in the ground, a god on
a cloud, an ironing angel, dwarves, bats … Where do
you draw your inspiration
from (mostly)? Is it dreams, hallucinations, or life
itself? I combine varied things, myths, everyday
incidents, images
from books and newspapers and dreams. Even though
there’s often only one image
from a dream or only the atmosphere, it is the key
factor, it leads the way. The work itself, moving on through
scriptwriting,
sensitises one to find usable material from all around.
It sensitises you to
recall things and shifts you to a dense and light space,
where little things
have vast meanings. I have noticed that the most
important things are an arm’s
length away. It can be a half-thought sentence uttered
by a close person, an
ornament in a second-hand shop or a toy figure. I need
this material, these
building blocks, to play with. Cartoonia was an important project.
Assignments often
carry the work on with intensity. A promise is one of my key works. Sometimes you use prayers
and some passages in your texts sound
like religious texts. Do you believe in God? In a God
of your own, an ancient
pagan one, in nature itself, in chaos and order? The
question of God is featured in my poetry and comics, for
it is the question of
people. Monotheistic religions are dangerous, they lead
to madness and
destruction. This
certainty in one’s own
orthodox beliefs leads
to the conclusion
that non-believers are wrong in some fundamental way. I
guess I neglect any
arrogant or condescending self-certainty. The more gods
there are, the better.
There has to be space and looseness and play in issues
of faith. On
the other hand, I am a Western foster-child of
Christianity. I can’t escape
that. But it doesn’t have to be taken so seriously. You wrote - or even better -
drew the word ILOA (happiness) in my
copy of Greetings from Cartoonia book. It seems that
you deal a lot with human
values in your work, ruled by love. Universal love and
universal understanding.
Am I right? Polish
children’s book author Janosch wrote in one of his
illustrated books: “Joy is a
wonderful thing”. Nothing needs to be added to that. If you lived in Cartoonia,
you’d be an inhabitant of Fineland. Is
Finland truly a fine land? If not, what is it like? Do
you believe in national
stereotypes? What about Slowenia (slow
country)? When you visited it in 2009
with the exhibition of Greeting from Cartoonia, did
you find it slow? We
visited the Škocjan caves that fascinated you … I
remember how you had an
ecstatic smile and kept repeating: “This is magic!”
and said that it was a very
erotic underground landscape. Nature is the mightiest
and biggest of them all,
don’t you agree? Are you running back to nature,
perhaps? (Where are you living
at the moment? In a small town or a city? Does the
city give you anything of
importance?) I
experienced some kind of sense of ease in Slovenia; a
sense that everything
will work out after all , that there is no need to fuss,
if one has direction and
will. The atmosphere was peaceful and the people
lovable. Yes, nature is
everything. Finland
is the land of water in the north. When you are on the
ice in freezing weather,
you think you understand something about this country
and its history but you don’t
want to bother yourself with that. It’s almost always
windy and under your feet
is the same water as in the summer. The boat is under
the tarpaulin. The sky
darkens from gray to violet. People ski and skate. There
seems to be room for
everyone. National
stereotypes can be funny and useful as if a tool of
understanding. I
live in Kuopio, a little town of ca. 100,000 people, and
enjoy my life here. I
also enjoy the countryside. However, from time to time I still miss
having people
around me. And I miss the forms and space of a city and
most of all the
imprints of people,
the layers of time. I cannot forget how you
danced here on Metelkova! It seems that
the national stereotype was right, in this case,
namely the stereotype that the
members of introverted, quiet and pure nations let out
their demons by
screaming when alone (like Mieskuoro Huutajat – the
Finnish choir that screams
national anthems at the top of their lungs), dancing
till they get bloody
blisters or intoxicated from alcohol. They write, draw
and paint the scariest
monsters from their deepest subconscious. Also, when you dance, you
write and draw lines, directions and
forms into space, as well … You’ve
sent us a story entitled Everything Happens for a
Reason for the
Brazilian flavoured issue of Stripburger #54. We’ve
read you in the previous
issue #56 too, your story was entitled Three
Wise Men. It seems you’re totally
tireless! You’re creating and creating and your
creations are becoming more and
more you. I have a feeling that you work using the stream of consciousness (and
sub-consciousness), it seems
that your images and words are being
poured onto the paper by themselves … is that true?
What’s you creative process
like? And what’s your most typical day like? Do you
get out of bed, do a few
exercises, prepare a delicious breakfast … ? The
mornings are my prime time, it is easier to concentrate
than later in the day
and the work is intense. If possible, I do the most
important tasks in the
morning after breakfast. I had a late start; I was about 35 years
old. Finding my
own domain and quality took time. It was such a great
relief to finally find my
voice that I have been continuing the work with the
power of the launching
velocity. And I haven´t often stopped to think
about what am I doing. As
for many others, scriptwriting is the most time
consuming activity for me. It
is the basis for what is to follow. When drawing, I have
to brake often so that
the line does not become sloppy. We’re completely aware that
you’re a master poet and comic artist.
I’ve read somewhere that you also do metal shaping in
the artistic handcrafting
sense. Do you still work with this, how should I put
it, hardcore material? Do
you bend, bang, cut, burn and set up giant metal
statues maybe? The choice to work with metal arose from
the will to
learn something that I would not immediately choose,
something that is against
my nature. And I still think that I have to push myself
to some place I’d
rather not go. I search for friction. I hadn’t done
metalwork since school. At this moment you’re
working on a huge 8-metre painting for
Kiasma – the museum of modern arts in Helsinki. If I’m
not mistaken, you also
had to fulfil an order for an elementary school in
Finland (which one, where?).
You made a huge scale painting for them, too (or a
series of paintings? For the
staircase? I’m not sure). So you’re a painter as well
and it seems you never
run out of orders. In this case you must be a mural
painter! I
painted two series of works as a commission for the
elementary school of Martti
Ahtisaari in Kuopio. It was my first artwork for a
public space. It was an
important project as it allowed me to do something
really big. The
work for Kiasma is about to be ready. The exhibition
called Päin
näköä will introduce Finnish comic
artists from 9th March to 9th
September 2012. It consists mostly of sculptures,
installations and paintings –
not that many original comic strips. I remember the video Lost on YouTube. A man (you in
fact) walks in the deep Finnish snow, everything is
shaking and flickering,
accompanied by some kind of Jyrki-esque noise. Did you
make more of these
experiments? Have you ever been seriously into music?
Were you ever (or are
you) a member of an experimental music band? I’ve never been seriously into making
music. I did a video
called Luomiskertomus (History of the Creation)
with my friend Martti Mujunen a couple of years ago,
where we combined live
black and white pictures with poetic dialogues. Lost was
created as sort of a by-product. These days I play the mandolin just for my
own
entertainment, mostly Finnish folk music. After all the
trying and learning
it’s fun to just fool around with instruments. Your life has recently
turned upside down completely. The last
time I met you was in Linz (Austria) at the
international comics festival Next
Comic Fest. You seemed like a new person, reborn
almost, you stopped eating
meat, grew a little goatee, you were dressed in
colourful clothes in pastel
colours, started smoking menthol cigarettes again …
The overhauling of life is
usually followed by an overhaul of creativity. What
kind of impulse is needed
for that? What changed in your creations / works? It’s
difficult to answer that. You could ask me that maybe
after five or ten
years... From the specific towards
the general (bordering slightly on the
banal, but anyway): who are the authors that you
admire the most and that
inspire you? What about comic artists? I know you
loved the Moomins by the
Swedish-Finnish writer, illustrator, painter and comic
strip artist Tove
Jansson. Were you fascinated by any other comics as a
child and later on? I
am easily inspired by artists. The enthusiasm usually
calms down; the
appreciation doesn’t. Last I was delighted by
Sarah-Louise Barbett´s story in
which the characters were very touching. When
I was a child, Philemon’s stories, where anything could
happen, by the French
drawer Fred, affected me in an indelible way. They are
stories that I want to
believe in, warm and wise in a quiet manner. Another
influence was American-based, an educational magazine
called Kuvitetut
klassikot (Classics Illustrated). The classic novels of
world literature were
squeezed into 40 pages with the aid of unknown
illustrators. Something in that
idea appealed to me and of course the combination of
adventure and romance. The
story has to be real. It can be of fantasy or realism or
a wild hybrid, but it
must arise from a true emotion. I
guess my everlasting favourites are Ilan Manouahch and
André Lemos. I don’t get
tired with their works. And Bendik Kaltenborn. He moves
in an agile way on his
own level. I very much like the works of the
Tonto-group; Michael Jordan,
Helmut Kaplan and Edda Strobl are also significant
storytellers. Have you ever considered
creating comics for children, too? (or
maybe you already have?) I
actually haven´t done comics for children but I
have held workshops for them. We hear so much about the
‘Finnish comics’. Do you feel as a
member of the so-called ‘Finnish scene’ or would you
rather say you’re more of
an einzelgänger, a lone wolf? Do you collaborate
with other creative
collectives? Or are you an independent artist and
belong to yourself only? I
am not a lone wolf, I am an individual among other
Finnish drawers, in a way we
share the same agenda. I recognise my own scenery from
Finnish comics; their
stories speak to me about important issues; the
mentality is the same. Yes, I
feel I belong to this group. The term Finnish comics is
maybe like a frame in
which one operates, maybe forgetting or
neglecting it. Regularly yet sparsely I collaborate, for
example, in the
magazine Kuti and in group exhibitions. I don’t belong to myself only. I write and
draw for
fellow men as well, but I guess that creative work
consists of personal need,
obsession, ambition and compassion. _______________________________ POETRY: Riemupolitiikan hautajaiset, Karisto Publishing, 1984 U pui uje mui, Otava Publishing, 2002 Pois voihke ja valitus!, Otava Publishing, 2004 Hieno, pieni kiekura,
Otava Publishing, 2006 Kalevanpoika, Otava Publishing, 2010 COMICS (SELECTION): Tsirnam bai, Suuri Kurpitsa, 1999 Arjen vartijat, self published, 2000 Aamulla varhain ja muita
Jyrki Heikkisen sarjakuvia, self
published, 2001 Autuaat, self published, 2002 Punajäkälä, Asema Publishing, 2005 Seiniä päin, self published, 2005 Tohtori Futuro, Asema Publishing, 2007 Lichen Rouge, La Cinquième Couche, 2008 Kiitosvirret ja
ylistyslaulut, Asema Publishing, 2008 Paparoad, Boing Being, 2008 Hauska on tietää,
self published, 2009 The Moon Boy, Wormgod and Seriefrämjandet,
2010 Apua on tulossa,
Asema, 2011 www.jyrkiheikkinen.wordpress.com |