About
The text below tell everything you need to know about us, uopt to when it was written, in 20/04/11. This interview was first published in Danish on Nummer 9.
When, how and why was Octopulp formed?
Octopulp is a comics collective consisting of Lars Kramhøft, Martin Bruun Pedersen, Tom Kristensen and Igor Norohna. It is also a publishing label and the name of our bi-monthly magazine.
Octopulp was formed in the beginning of April, but we had all been making comics for a long time before that. Igor started to work on his comic Light Apprentice at Open Workshop (a subsection of The Animation Workshop) already in 2008, and the rest of us came along down the road. Martin for instance, made the first volume of Necrosis as his bachelor project in 2010.
It was Igor’s idea that we should unite – he is the most professional of us so far, the one with most hands on experience. He even has some interesting stories to tell about DC’s late Zuda imprint and Image Comics.
So Igor invited the rest of us up to sit next to his office, in rooms that The Animation Workshop has supplied for us.
After that the ball just started rolling. The first weekend we drank cheap champagne and brainstormed our way to a logo.
Our goal is to start a revolution within Danish comics. No one else is doing quite what we’re doing now. We don’t feel there is enough ambition in Danish comics, but we’re going to change that - concerning form and content.
We all share some good old-fashioned DIY ideals about doing things from the ground and up, and we have been printing, cutting and stapling a lot of our comics ourselves. We are kind of like the old hardcore bands who did everything themselves because they loved what they did.
And we are dead serious and ambitious about this. It won’t do to just make a few mini comics here and there. Our goal is world domination. The means to that end is hard work, good stories and good art.
In the next couple of months we are spreading to the digital markets – reaching an audience we can’t cover with print outside the direct market. One of the advantages about the digital is that we can’t get sold out, something that happens a lot with our books. Igor’s Light Apprentice is already out on Graphic.ly.
And in the next couple of months it will definitely be worth keeping an eye out on octopulp.dk.
What can you do together that you can’t do separately?
Each member of Octopulp is an artist in his own right who also makes their own books, so what you see in the Octopulp magazine is just the tip of the iceberg.
We have something for all tastes: from Igor’s all-ages fantasy epic Light Apprentice that mixes a fresh manga-inspired kind of storytelling with elements from RPG, to Lars’ gritty and realistic superhero/crime book Arch Enemy.
We are like a group of warriors – when things get rough and we’re surrounded by hobgoblins, sure of our deaths, we have each other to lean on, and we can attack to all sides from the center.
Together we form a strong profile, with a wide range of quality comics.
How would you characterize each member?
Tom is the best candidate to become a serial killer. He’s this quiet guy that does dark horror comics. He uses lots and lots of ink.
Martin is big and noisy, he’s the epitomy of underground comics a la Gilbert Shelton. He mixes all kinds of inappropriate subjects, like Santa Claus, S/M and drugs.
Lars leans more towards realistic American style comics but with an experimenting angle, Bendis, Morrison etc. Arch Enemy is a superhero book that tackles a lot of social and political wievs.
Igor is the all-ages wizard from Brazil. In his animation studio Amazu.tv, he’s turning Light Apprentice into animation as we speak now.
Every Sunday we all get together to worship El Chupacabra. It’s a very social and fun event.
What is every day life like in the Octopulp Studio in Viborg?
The Octopulp studio is like a temple for us. It’s all based on our love for comics, and we’re looking forward to coming in and do our best every day. There are neither fixed hours nor a boss, we’re all conscious about the work we have to do to get success.
What can we expect from upcoming issues of Octopulp?
With the overwhelming success of the first issue, we have begun to plan ahead. We are planning to release a cultural atomic bomb in the middle of Denmark and rest assured the comicscape will never be the same. The spearhead of our revolution is our online store (http://octopulp.tumblr.com/store), where everything we do is concentrated, both in print or digital.
We are also planning to serialize a few of the stories in 3 or 4 parts. But basically, the only pre-requisite is that the quality of each story is remarkable in itself, in its own style. We are conscious that we have a professional standard in both the art and the storytelling. This is not a hobby project for us – we are planning to live of that.
As I see it, you have focused as much outside the country borders as inside. What are you doing specifically to get your stuff out in the world?
We are selling our comics online at our store, and we don’t really see a limit. We are situated in an international environment already – The Animation Workshop, where teachers and students come from all over the world for short or longer periods. We have animation artists from all over the world coming and going every month and our big hit sister magazine, Blazing Squids (started in January 2010), has already took flight to dozens of places around the globe.
Our generation grew up in the globalized world – we don’t see differences between different nationalities as long as the work is good. We compare ourselves to the best of the best , not constricted to nationality or location. Good storytelling is good storytelling no matter what country you’re from. We’re working 24/7 on making new contacts and friends all over the world. That’s part of the fun about doing stuff like this, meeting lots of cool passionate people.
*Thank you for reading. Expect much more from us in the following months! If you’d like, buy a comic at the store.
