Saturday 11 October 2008

More on Baba



Picked up a stack of BaBa dailies yesterday at Svenskt Seriearkiv to have them photographed. As I've written before we are working on a reprint book featuring a selection of the ca 3000 BaBa strips drawn by Rinaldo between 1937 and 1953. (All but four of the strips I've seen are in pantomime, so this book should appeal to an international audience as well. I hope.)
If everything goes as planned it will be printed in time for next years bookfair in Gothenburg.
Going through the original art makes me really inspired to get back to the drawing board. So confident lines and wonderful use of black and white spaces. I'd call BaBa Swedens answer to Americas Krazy Kat in a way. Its whimsical, strange, funny and graphical in a way seldom seen in newspaper strips. Some times you have no idea what's going on and some time it's just absurd and crazy.

Since the publication date of the book is so far away I just have to treat you with a few panels scanned straight from the original art. The panel above is from early in the run and the ones below are from later dates.
I hope you like them as much as I do. :)





4 comments:

Oskar Forsgren said...

Beautiful linework.

Jimmy Wallin said...

Did you know that Baba was one of Tove Janssons favourit-comics?

-= Steamboat Willie =- said...

Well.. do you know if Sten Rinaldo is the same artist that did "Varför är Icander så glad?"

I tried to compare signatures, but I'm still not 100% sure...

Jesse Hamm said...

STUNNING! I must see more. Please post more scans! I'd be happy to reciprocate with Toth material you may lack. (Bravo For Adventure, By Design,...?)

And please post details about the book's availability, and when/how it can be ordered the U.S.

Thanks!