Comic books

Mamma Moo celebrates Crow’s birthday

Text: Jujja Wieslander
Illustrations: Micaela Favilla and Elin Fahlstedt, based on Sven Nordqvist’s illustrations
Rabén & Sjögren, 2015

“Aren’t you going to have a birthday party?”
“Of course I’m going to have a birthday party! I’m going to throw a real crow party! All the crows will come, and a few magpies, too. Cakes, presents, balloons and music. Yes!”

Jujja’s comments about the book

At first I was a bit sceptical about the idea from my publisher of our doing some stories about Mamma Moo and Crow in comic book form. When my kids were young and wanted to read the comics about ‘Bamse – The World’s Strongest Bear’, I personally thought it boring to read for them and couldn’t understand how children could follow along all those small cartoon panels. (But of course they can!) Nor was Sven all that keen on drawing comics. He thought it too finicky. But trying another way to tell a story proved to be a lot of fun. Comics are a bit like movies. Everything takes place in the dialogue, and it felt like I was back where it all began – with radio manuscripts. Sven approved and helped guide experienced illustrator Micaela Favilla in ‘ghost drawing’, and I got Fabian Göransson, a talented cartoonist, as editor. Beginning readers may have an easy time with the minimal text in the cartoon panels, written in capital letters.