Although both Resistansen and Black Sabbath (intro) are based on existing songs, the remaining eleven projected songs will be all original material. I hope this clears things up.

Next single out may be These Fjell Veins or Cerebration, depending on which is completed first. You’ll see it here first!

EDIT: To wet your apetites a bit more, here’s a few pull quotes from Derik’s piece:

“All in all [Astoria is] a hugely ambitious project, one that will either end in genius or brilliant failure.”

“Haverholm’s success with the watercolors in “Black Sabbath (intro)” and the pencils in “Resistansen” give me confidence that the other Astoria multimedia works will also prove visually evocative.”

Now scoot on over and peruse the analytical beauty that is Madinkbeard!

The signs are beautiful, late Art Deco (-influenced?) rising against the usually drab Danish sky, and the winged wheel that was the logo of then-national Danish railways balances one end of the roof like a 12 feet, concrete hood ornament.

It goes without saying that I went right past those and photographed the tacky secondfloor neon sign instead

Astoria will be put into music by one of the most gifted young musicians I know, singer of up and coming Danish thrashcore band Angrified, my own brother Martin “Martincore” Haverholm. The family tie is really just a convenient means of extortion (“If you don’t finish that demo on time, I’ll tell mom!”), I don’t think it would be possible to find a more fitting collaboration outside my family

Martin is as committed to rock as I am to visual narrative, and about as prone to experimentation in his chosen medium. Also, we share much of the same tastes in music, which is why he has been given free reins in converting Astoria into sound.

Like the graphic album, Astoria: the Soundtrack will consist of thirteen songs that closely correspond to the comic counterparts. The musical material is intended to be pressed in vinyl and ship as an integrated part of the book, stressing again the close relationship between music and visuals in this project.

Martin is now officially a co-author of the production blog, and will soon post demos and news about his work progress and inspirations. Unless he’s out touring with his little band …

Mo-o-om!!

Photos: Jesper Bolo Petersen

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Without making excuses for myself or my general pace, I’m finding it very hard to put into words what I’m working on. Currently, I am in the middle of evolving the visuals and semantics of several installments at a time; Engine City is still a little unrefined, whereas Cerebration is more or less good to go, and Passion is more or less a shambles.

When I first started developing the Astoria project, I was taking almost entirely written notes, researching and conceptualizing as much as I could beforehand, as I wanted a sound basis for the work in advance of what I considered (an consider) the actual work. Over the last six months, the bucket has turned.

Since I started drafting on Astoria in September, I have gone on to work with thumbnails and sketches alone, adding new elements more intuitively (although based on my thorough conceptual documents) and all the time stretching myself to avoid repetition or derivation.

And often I stretch out of language. And then I sit down and try to write my abstract … So forgive me if I’m slow in typing up these abstracts; I will get through the pile, but I don’t speak words much anymore. It’s an occupational hazard, and one I can fortunately (?) only afford for a brief period while I finish Astoria.

I’m a comic creator. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, the term is coined to cover the instances when one person both writes and draws a comic. You may also notice that I use the phrase “comic” rather than “graphic novel”. That’s not to say, “Your dad’s old, worn superhero mags,” but comics as such, everything spatially sequential. Hopefully, in a few minutes you will understand why I pick such nit.

Astoria is a project that I’ve been building myself up to over the last eighteen months, the visual equivalent of a rock album. I’ve been wanting to try my hand on more experimental narrative, and less formulaic content – more telling, less story, so to speak. Since I did the first version of “Ariadne” (which is part of Astoria) I’ve been shadowboxing with the notion of visual language or narrative as a precursor to the written word, superior in some ways, and an altogether different beast. I’ll get into details in a later post, I promise!

More personally, I had become conscious of the gap there was between what goes into my head and what comes out. I am a massive consumer of music, mostly some form of guitar-based, rock-ish din, but I tend to stray into unknown territory. And of course, music communicates feelings and sensations like probably no other medium; on the other hand was my disenchantment with traditional comics, or at least the rut I had dug in it for myself.

Things started to come together fast, then. Who’s to say that visual language might not convey the same, or similarly intuitive feelings as music? The pantomime, or “silent” comic is as ambivalently evocative as a melody. And many of the story ideas that I had discarded in the past (due to their lack of plot) suddenly made sense in an equivocal context. And hey, I like the gatefold covers for my old vinyls to death, is that reason to make a 12″ square book, collecting those individual ideas like songs on a record? I think it is!

So, you see, Astoria is kind of hard to define. Part rock album, part art comic, part coffee table book, all three shaken and stirred into some hybrid thing that I for one haven’t seen or heard of before.

Whoops! I’m approaching the 400 word mark, and blog readers’ attention span being what it is, I’ll cut a long story short. Better to save some air for coming posts Thank you for listening!