Sannolikhetsdrift

OUT NOW!

Sannolikhetsdrift
By Mattias Elftorp
2025 April
24 pages.
Story & art by Mattias Elftorp
Swedish (also available in English as Probability Drive from Wormgod)
ISBN: 978-91-87825-36-1

AVAILABLE NOW at HYBRIDEN!

FRAMTIDENS UTOPI har en besättning på tre: Astrid, Isak och Katten, var och en med sina hemligheter. På sin väg mot människokolonin på Nya Paradiset får de problem. De har fått stopp i sin sannolikhetsdrivna Schrödingerianska osäkerhetsmotor och de har viktig last som måste nå kolonin.
De kan bli tvungna att öppna lådan…

Sannolikhetsdrift är en liten rymdopera i serieform, skriver och tecknad av Mattias Elftorp, känd för bland annat Piracy is Liberation, Arg Kanin, etc.

Mattias Elftorp, about the process behind the book:
Sannolikhetsdrift/Probablilty Drive is a space operette in comics form, also published in English in CBA vol 64. It was made to connect to a guitar body I painted for Ruokangas Guitars and their Art Infused Collection. Elements from the painting were used in the comic, and the story itself evolved due to that collaboration.

I enjoy taking scientific concepts and seeing what can happen if you stretch them and twist them around a bit. This comic was inspired by a few different sources, such as Sven Linqvist‘s Utrota Varenda Jävel (Exterminate All the Brutes) and Ursula K LeGuin‘s The Word for World is Forest. Both books deal with subjects of racism, colonialism and genocide. That felt like a logical backdrop for this story of space colonisation. And of course there’s my complete bastardization of the Schrödinger’s cat parable and the related theories of probability/uncertainty.

It’s also funny that this is one of the few times we publish anything in Swedish, even though it’s our native tongue, and it’s something as un-Swedish as a sci fi story…

SAMPLE PAGES:

Samples from CBA vol 66|67 – out now!

The new issue just dropped!

CBA vol 66|67
MORE STORIES

144 pgs
Color
ISBN: 978-91-87825-40-8

More stories, no theme. A mix of new and established artists from various countries telling stories unfettered by predetermined themes or concepts. Stories that try out ideas, vent frustrations, share thoughts and explore concepts. Narrative experiments, shifting perspectives and pure fantasies. Stories to think about and be moved by.

Comics by: Ebba Gustafsson Ågren [SE], Hroge Cancelhaus [UK], David Kerr [UK/FI], Layal Safieddine [LB/SE], Fabijan Černeka [HR] & Korin(a) Hunjak [HR], Daniel Wihlstrand [SE] & Johan Ahl Eliasson [SE], Rikard Stenius [SE], Stef Gaines [SE], Henna Räsänen [FI/DE], Josef Norén [SE], Mattias Elftorp [SE], Julia Magnusson [SE], Ivana Geček [HR], Lea Elste [DE]. Main editor, cover, texts & illustrations by: Mattias Elftorp [SE].

This is actually the final issue of 2024, released a bit late but worth the wait and filled with stories!

Check out these samples and let us know if you like what you see!

SAMPLE IMAGES:

It’s available at Hybriden, Adlibris, Bokus, Press Stop Götgatan 31 (Göteborg), Tidskriftsbutiken Malmö, Alma Löv Museum etc. If your favorite store doesn’t have it, ask them to order a bunch of copies from us!

Metelkova under attack!

We first met Stripburger when they visited Sweden in 2005, which gave us an entrance into the whole Balkan comics scene and it has been highly valuable for us as a cultural organisation and as publisher of an international comics anthology. Through this first meeting with Stripburger we made lots of important connections that last even today and has lead to us publishing several creators from the region in CBA over the years.

We always wanted to visit them at Metelkova to see everything that’s going on there, and we truly hope that will be possible also in the future.

But they are now under attack and are threatened with eviction.

Read more and sign their petition!

Non-governmental organizations in Slovenia are increasingly targeted by the government’s restrictive measures and hostile rhetoric. Leading the government, the radical right Slovenian Democratic Party and PM Janez Janša direct their hostility especially towards NGOs engaged in independent cultural production and defending human rights, media freedom and the environment. Legal and financial restrictions have been applied to them and the epidemic is used to justify such measures. The media, the judiciary and independent state bodies are also under attack.

The government has, for example, been blocking payments to film producers for a whole year, while the Ministry of Culture started changing the rules for the composition of commissions that decide on co-financing projects of non-governmental cultural organizations so that the Minister will have full control over the allocation of funds. Amid such developments, and in the circumstances of a dramatic second wave of the epidemic in the country, 18 non-government organizations were recently requested by the government (Ministry of Culture) to vacate their premises in the building at No. 6 Metelkova Street in Ljubljana, in which they have been operating since the mid-1990s.

Some tips for comics creators in Corona times

These are hard times for everyone, not least self-publishing comics creators. But there are some ways for fans to support your work, both for physical books and for digital works online. Here are a few:

Fosfor
Fosfor is our very own non-profit zine distro, and a part of the Hybriden webshop. Our goal is to be a platform for comics creators who normally find it difficult to reach larger audiences and to strengthen the general culture of comics self-publishing. In the webshop, buyers can easily get an overview of a wide variety of comics. Sellers only need to fill out our form for their works to be posted on the site within a short while. After the first orders come in, we’ll ask you to send the first batch of actual products.
One important point is that Fosfor should not be seen as a service where you hand your stuff over to someone else who then sells it for profit. Rather see it as a place for shared exchange that everyone benefits from. When other creators share the link to Hybriden and Fosfor, it means that customers who go to the site for other reasons may also find your stuff while they’re there. Customers also don’t need to pay for postage from several different sources, but can get all their comics in one package, which means they’ll also save money.
All profits go back to the creators themselves, we only add a small sum to cover packaging and similar costs.

Digital Seriefestival
Mostly relevant if you’re a comics creator in Sweden. They’re allowing artists to post a ‘virtual table’ in a facebook group and for facebook users to browse their work and links. It goes live on the 10th April.

Patreon
Patreon is a great way for people so support you through a subscription service to your work. They can make monthly donations, and in return, you can offer exclusive rewards or perks for different price tiers. For instance, for $5 a month, someone could get access to blog posts about your artistic processes, $15 a month could give people access to a twitch stream of your work, maybe even tutorials etc.
There are lots of different approaches to it, and it’s a nice way to get consistent support from fans. Small monthly donations from multiple people can add up to helpful amounts.
Patreon takes 5% of your earnings.

Ko-Fi
Not all the supporters of your work will be able to pitch in a monthly amount – and ko-fi is a bit like a tip jar where people can give you a one-off payment of $3 to show their support. It’s worth mentioning that Ko-Fi does also feature a monthly-tip system like Patreon, and for paid membership ($6 a month) you can sell commissions on your page.
Ko-fi takes 0% of your donations, but only registers payments through PayPal (which takes 2.9% + $0.30) or Stripe (which takes 2.75%).

Big Cartel
Is an online shop which allows you to have 5 items up at any time for free. These don’t necessarily have to be physical items – you could put digital commissions up on here.
Big Cartel does not charge any commission – but like Ko-Fi it only registers payments through either PayPal (which takes 2.9% + $0.30) or Stripe (which takes 2.75%).

Gumroad
Gumroad is quite a popular way of distributing E-comics, for people to buy and download as PDFs.
For a free account, Gumroad charges 8.5% + $0.30 per sale.

Setting all of these up can be a bit daunting, but most of them offer helpful advice on setting up your pages – and it’s always worth doing some quick research of your own on what kind of ways other artists are using them. Cross-referencing these can be useful when figuring out how you can best use them to your own advantage.

Some ideas for information helpful to convey:
-Pricing tiers based on sketch, inks, and coloured works.
-Charging extra for drawing a background.
-Pricing based on how much of a character you draw – the head, a bust, the torso, or the full figure.
-Remember to charge per character you draw per piece!
-It’s also worth putting your own terms and conditions for your commissions so that people know what to expect and to filter out any requests that you don’t feel comfortable with.

Digital Commissions
When selling digital commissions – it can be helpful to create a clear graphic illustrating the different pricings you have. Having an image (or up to four) to show this means you can post it on multiple platforms (instagram, twitter, facebook, mastodon, tumblr, etc).

Good luck, and stay healthy!

WINTER SALE at the Hybriden webshop!

Nov 29 – Jan 1, we’ll have a huge sale at the Hybriden webshop. Titles from CBK, Tusen Serier and Wormgod will be sold extra cheap. Many titles at 50% off the regular price and several of the CBK books even more!

While you are there, you should also check out the zine section (Fosfor), and we’re just in the process of adding new prints to the shop, digital prints as well as linocut and silk screen!

And you can pre-order the upcoming CBA vol 47: Science/Fiction (to be released in Jan/Feb), also at a reduced price!
And we’ve finally added a bunch of our old back-issues (C’est Bon #1-11, CBA (pre-vol) #2-5, or at least what’s still available).

To the webshop.

Fosfor (zine distro)!

Many self-publishing comics creators still have very few opportunities to reach a market outside comics festivals. With Fosfor, we give these creators a platform to reach out to more readers. We want to be able to spread zine creators’ works and open up one of comics’ greatest cultures to more people!

Fosfor was started once upon a time by former CBK crew members Steve Nyberg and Christoffer Frostgård as Sweden’s first distro for comics zines. It was taken over by CBK and was reborn in June 2019 as part of Fanzineverkstaden and Hybriden in Malmö.

You’ll find it along with publications from CBK, Tusen Serier, Wormgod etc at the Hybriden webshop.

Want to sell your zines, prints or stickers via Fosfor? Go to the site for instructions…

We <3 XM24

We’re back from CRACK! and in the last few weeks we’ve also been to the Tenderete festival in Valencia.

But never mind that now.

Another sister festival to CRACK!, Tenderete (and also AltCom), has been taking place at a squat in Bologna, XM24, which is now being evicted.

We’ve never been there ourselves, but it doesn’t matter. They’re part of the family and we support them in fighting this eviction.

XMAS2016 SALE!

Until January 1 we have a Christmas SALE in our webshop, where you can now buy all of our books, along with Tusen Serier’s and Wormgod’s, at 30% off the regular prices!

Take this chance to make your life (and your collection) complete! Shop the last Christmas presents in our store! MAYBE they’ll even arrive before Christmas (no, they won’t, but still…)!

Use the coupon code: XMAS2016 at the check-out in the webshop.

xmas2016