And now for something completely different: a Swiss kids' comic book

I found this comic book aimed for children of say 5-10 years in a book shop in the small town of Savonlinna last summer. I'd never heard of it, so I bought it without a blink of an eye. When I got back home (okay, I did it already in the car with my phone), I checked from the web what this was all about. Jopi, globally known as Globi, was a creation of Swiss comic artist Robert Lips, for whom there's a Wikipedia article in German and an entry in Lambiek.net in English. There are three other Jopi books published in Finnish and I've never seen any of them (unless as a kid and completely forgotten them). This one, called "Globi Travels All Over the World", was published by the now defunct Weilin + Göös in 1982. There were three others: Eläköön Jopi, lasten ystävä! ("Long Live Globi, the Friend of Children!"), Jopi sirkuksessa ("Globi in Circus") and Jopi maanviljelijänä ("Globi the Farmer"). I showed this to a friend of mine, who's a writer and critic specializing in the comic book history, and he'd never seen any of these.

This is funny stuff, with naïve and heart-warming humour, with a touch of absurd on the side. Jopi reminds me a lot of my all-time favourite, Rasmus Nalle (aka Rasmus Klump, as he's known in his origin country, Denmark). Oh, here's another site about Rasmus in English.

Friday's Forgotten Book: Päivö Suomela's Mustan ketun kirot

Okay, this is really a forgotten book, since it's Finnish - and I don't think anyone's read that even in here for at least 20 years. It just so happens I read it last night and thought it might be of interest to someone reading this blog - there must be some Finnish readers among the bunch.

Päivö Suomela's Mustan ketun kirot was published in 1955, by Karisto, in their pretty low-down juvenile series called Poikien kirjoja (Books for Boys). The books in the series are not very collectible, even though I know there are people who are looking to fill the series. The book's title means translated "The Curse of the Black Fox". There's no supernatural element, though, which is a shame - and I was actually looking for one, since I've been planning a book of Finnish sword & sorcery stories and when I saw this at a bookseller in the Turku market square, I thought this might have something I want.

No such luck. The book is set in the 15th century, but you don't know it from anything other than that there's a mention of the time in the short foreword. The characters have names that purport to sound like ancient Finnish or Kalevala-ish (Sipi, Osmo, Haveri), but the book could still take place even in the early 20th century. There's not much action and it seems at places that the author forgot where he was taking his story. It's relatively entertaining, though.

The book could also be a western. It's about a boy and an old man who live somewhere in the Finnish frontier. They are robbed of their furs - which contains a fur of a black fox. The young boy sets out to track down the thieves and runs into another young boy called Marjo. (There's a hint of homosexual attraction, until it's revealed in the end that Marjo is actually and safely a girl!) The same events could take place in Wild West in the 1880's.

Päivö Suomela was a son of the Finnish sports writer and educator Klaus Suomela and the juvenile writer Launo Suomela was his brother. I believe both worked as teachers. Päivö Suomela did also the cover illustration for his book. I think it's pretty nice. Päivö Suomela wrote a dozen or so other juvenile novels in the fifties and sixties.

Mickey Mouse in Finnish Big Little Books

I'm compiling an article on the Big Little Books for my fanzine, Pulp. The article won't be long, since I don't have much of first-hand information on the phenomenon and very few of these were published in Finnish.

However here are two Mickey Mouse books (or actually covers of them) that I suspect were originally Big Little Books published by Whitman. These two books, Mickey Mouse as a Pilot (based on Mickey Mouse Mail Pilot) and Mickey Mouse Is Looking for Treasure Island, were published in Finland by Werner Söderström in the mid-1930's. They are fantastically rare; last I looked they were about 500 euros each. (I looked these up at the university library where they stock just about everything that's been published here.) The format is right, the page count is right, the layout of the pages is right - it's just that at least the Treasure Island book has a wrong cover.

Sorry 'bout the black&white. Scanned them from photocopies taken at the university.

Friday's Forgotten Book: Dumbo, The Flying Elephant

"There's a twist I didn't see coming."

You know that sentence? It's usually a sign of a good book: the book takes the reader by surprise and only tightens the suspense and leaves the reader thrilled. It works in most cases.

But not in all.

We have an old children's book which certainly has a twist I didn't see coming - and neither does anyone else in this household.

It's a Disney-themed Little Golden Book called Dumbo, The Flying Elephant from 1959 (translated in Finnish as Rakettinorsu Dumbo; our edition is from 1980, but there must've been an earlier edition). I don't know the writer or the illustrator.

The story is mostly your usual Disney-fare, pretty stupid but also quite acceptable by low standards. Mickey Mouse gives flying shows with Dumbo, but they are losing competition to new rocket planes. (Do you think a flying elephant ever would lose its novelty value?) After some kicking around, Mickey Mouse comes up with an idea: he puts some rockets in a box, ties the box up in Dumbo's back and bang! they fly faster than any rocket plane. (And he just sits on the back of Dumbo like nothing happens when they fly over 1,000 kilometers an hour. Yeah, right. But then again, Mickey Mouse is one tough customer.)

Okay so far. But then there's the final climax. It's told, just like that, in the middle of the narration, that the circus teddy bear Bongo has shipwrecked on a remote island. I mean, what the fuck? Bongo is never mentioned in the story before the climax, he's not in any of the pictures, and if you don't know just who this guy is, you have no idea why he's suddenly brought into the story. And why the hell is he on that island? Where was he going? With what was he travelling? Why's there no sign of the wrecked ship or plane - and what happened to the other passengers?

Well, I must admit that Kauto has never asked us who the guy is.

You pretty much guess what happens next. The planes can't land on the tiny island, so Mickey and Dumbo rescue Bongo. And come back as heroes.

And that's that.

(I don't exactly know whether this was a Little Golden Book or not. I can't find any trace of it being published as a Little Golden Book, but in Finland it was published in the similar series in which many books had originally been Little Golden Books. Anyone recognize the cover?)

My contribution to Patti Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Books series.