ANNOUNCING: Minicomics for everyone!

Guys, it's my pleasure to announce that all of my minicomics are currently available to order online at Bigcartel!

Never you mind those weird colors from my iPhone 3GS, these be crispy black and white!

See these beauties? They can all be yours for a mere 3€ each, plus shipping. Each copy is signed, sealed and delivered to you by the Deutsche Post. Grab'em while they're hot! Or don't grab them actually, as that would injure your hands.

N.B. The Master of Survival mini is bilingual: flip it over and it is also in French! The Cardialement minis are both in English (mostly), except for a few French and German strips which are subtitled.

If you are more favorably inclined to digital objects, each minicomic is also available as a pay-what-you-want PDF on Gumroad (suggested donation is 3€ for a mini):

• Cardialement Vol. 1
• Cardialement Vol. 2
• Master of Survival #1 (currently only available in English)

As always, if you want to contribute to my endeavours as a cartoonist, but don't actually want anything, please feel free to Flattr this blog or make a donation using the button in the sidebar. I'm on a tight budget these days (also I need a bike) and any help is welcome.

If you DO want something that is not a minicomic - such as a customized drawing - you can also either e-mail me at clairykin at gmail or make a PayPal donation specifying what you'd like in the note to the seller.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Identifying

To meet time constraints this week, this is an old comic from last year that I never posted (as can be guessed from my hair - it is now nearly shoulder-length!).

[ El Perro del Mar feat. Lykke Li - Change of Heart ]

Liebeserklärung

Recently I stood on a bridge and declared my feelings. But they weren't for a human being.
Récemment je me suis tenue sur un pont et j'ai fait une déclaration d'amour. Mais elle ne s'adressait pas à un être humain. 

[ Idlewild - Actually It's Darkness ]

Cardialement: Electioneering

Les élections présidentielles en France: Claire passe beaucoup de temps à hurler devant son PC.

"Si on ne trouve pas de solution pour Schengen, la France suspendra sa participation à Schengen."

"WOH PETARD PRENEZ UNE PHOTO LES GARS JE CROIS QU'IL A ENCORE COPIE SUR LE FRONT NATIONAL"

(That being said, and in the interest of full disclosure, nobody is perfect. Needless to say I've completely changed my mind on things.)

(Ceci étant dit, et dans l'intérêt de la transparence, personne n'est parfait. Depuis j'ai bien évidemment  complètement changé d'avis.)

***

I contributed a drawing for überlin's Daily Deutsch Doodle last week! überlin is run by James and Zoë, a fabulous expat couple who recently wrote my personal Blog Post of the Year called "5 Apps Berlin Really Needs". Check them out here. Now would be good.
J'ai contribué la semaine dernière au Daily Deutsch Doodle sur überlin, un blog tenu par James et Zoë, grand expatriés ayant la classe devant l'Eternel. Ils ont récemment publié ce que j'ai personnellement désigné Note de Blog de l'Année (in English). Le mieux c'est de les découvrir, ils sont énormes.

[ Bonus sonore ]

Ma chambre est devenue le reflet de ma vie chargée.

"J'suis désolée les gars. ...Hein que vous m'aimez?  ...Hein que vous allez vous ranger tous seuls?" 

***

Cardialement Vol. 1 is now also available in the minis section at Modern Graphics in Berlin-Kreuzberg!
Hopefully spring is here to stay now. I look forward to being able to walk around outside again.
Also I saw these guys again in Treptow, and it was a magical time. You should listen to them, and if you are in Berlin you should then go see them.
Cardialement Vol 1 est maintenant disponible aussi à Modern Graphics dans Berlin-Kreuzberg, dans la boîte à minis-BD!
On croise les doigts pour que le printemps soit ici pour de bon cette fois. J'ai hâte de me remettre à me balader dehors.
J'ai aussi revu ces messieurs à Treptow, et ce fut une soirée d'enchantement. Vous devriez les écouter, et si vous habitez à Berlin, après vous devez aller les voir.

[ Bonus sonore ]

Comics for sale!

Friends of black ink, paper and staples! After much tweeting about spending time at the printer's, the Cardialement Vol. 1 minicomics are here! They collect the first eight months of diary strips published on this here blog -- all the one-paneled comics filed under that awkwardly pronounceable fake French word "Cardialement" (cexplained here) -- plus never-before published diary comics and three bonus strips!


They are available on this page (or by clicking the Comics for sale button) for the low, low, low price of 2€, plus shipping. A Regular Edition gets you a signed copy of the minicomic, which is 20 pages long; buyers of the Special Edition (3,50€ + shipping) will receive an A5-sized sketch made out to you/whoever you want (name to be specified at checkout).


Also, for those of you who are inclined to spending money out of sheer frivolousness generosity, I have recently added a tiny version of myself on the sidebar that quite subtly leads to a PayPal donation page. I have a job which pays my bills and enables me to live it up at Angry Chicken on the weekends, but extra coffee is always a plus.


N.B. L'édition décrite ici est en anglais uniquement, c'est-à-dire que les BD sont majoritairement en anglais, et que tout ce qui n'est pas en anglais ou en français est uniquement traduit dans la langue de Shakespeare. Les dons, néanmoins, peuvent toujours se faire, en anglais, en français ou éventuellement en samois.

U55

"Pétaaaaard!!!" / Les dangers d'écrire en prenant la ligne U55.

I belong to a very small group of people that uses the U55 subway line to go to work in the morning, at least until I manage to buy a bike. Technically the U55 is not even a "line", just part of the future extension of the U5 and until then basically a local joke. It is ridiculously short and makes up for the fact that there is no practical way to get from Hauptbahnhof to Potsdamer Platz on public except via bus. Which brings us to the fact that the name "Central Station" when applied to Berlin Hauptbahnhof is also basically somewhat of a joke.

Je fais partie d'un groupe très réduit de personnes qui prennent le U55 le matin pour aller au travail, au moins jusqu'à ce que je me rachète un vélo. D'un point de vue technique le U55 n'est pas vraiment une "ligne" de métro, plutôt un morceau d'une future extension du U5 et en attendant grosso modo une blague locale. Le trajet est minuscule et la ligne sert surtout à combler le manque de moyens pratiques (hormis le bus) pour aller de Hauptbahnhof à Potsdamer Platz en transports. Rappelons à cette occasion le fait que la "gare centrale" de Berlin n'a de central que le nom et constitue à ce titre également une grosse blague.

[ Bonus sonore - Click on the highlighted song ]

Une fois de plus, confrontée à mon interculturalité et ma fierté débile.

"La serveuse vient de New York. Clairement une expatriée. Est-ce que je commande en anglais,

intimant par là que je pourrais ne pas être d'ici? Berk. Mais ça ferait du bien de parler anglais.

Non. Commander en allemand parce qu'on est en Allemagne et que je suis une Wahldeutsche pas

une ricaine de passage qui ne sait pas ce que c'est Schöneberg. Je suis ridicule."

[ Bonus sonore ]

Rohschinken

Un aspect intéressant de ma personnalité: quand j'ai un coup de blues, je bouffe du jambon cru, celui qu'on peut acheter dans les supermarchés allemands pour 1,89€. // "Donc elle, c'était ta Cristina avait que tu n'aies rencontrés Cristina!"

[ Bonus sonore ]

Cardialement: Awkward

That awkward moment où t'es dans un café et que les deux seuls autre clients tiennent une conversation super personnelle en anglais. //

"Quand on fait une rencontre, cela apporte une vérité psychique à votre douleur, à votre vie." // "Heu. What."

***

With this week's post, I bring you a slice of my life as an English-speaking expat. It's a little like the time I walked by two arab guys speaking in French slang in front of the U-Bahn station.

Currently I am working on a couple blog-related projects which are taking up some extra time. One of them at least will be announced in the next couple of weeks. And if that happens, it means I might be able to announce the other one, which is of a bit more consequence, not long thereafter. Exciting! Fingers crossed!

Pour le post de la semaine, je vous apporte un coin de ma vie d'anglophone à Berlin. C'est un peu comme lorsque j'ai croisé deux arabes qui parlaient en verlan à l'entrée du U-Bahn.

En ce moment je bosse sur deux projets liés au blog qui bouffent un peu plus de temps. J'en annoncerai au moins un dans les deux semaines qui viennent. Et dans ce cas-là, c'est fort possible que je pourrai annoncer l'autre, plus conséquent, pas très longtemps après. Youhou! On croise les doigts please!

[ Bonus sonore *spoiler* ]

Cardialement: Overheard in Neukölln

"Tous ces gens qui se bourrent la gueule au réveillon, tu commences l'année avec la gueule de bois...
Genre pourquoi, en fait? - Ouais..."

[ Bonus sonore ]




***

And that's the final post for this year. 2012 brings much new stuff, both in the realm of comics and in other areas, and there will be more on that once I get back on track in Berlin a little bit (since I am writing this in the past -- I'm actually probably loafing around on a Swedish couch somewhere, and I mean a real Swedish couch in Sweden, not in some 3-bedroom in Prenzlauer Berg). New posts will resume Jan. 10.

Et voilà le dernier post de l'année. 2012 apporte bien de nouvelles choses, à la fois en termes de BD et dans d'autres domaines, et j'en parlerai davantage une fois que j'aurai repris pied à Berlin (parce que là en fait je vous écris du passé et que je suis certainement en train de m'avachir quelque part sur un canapé suédois, genre de ceux qui sont suédois et en Suède, pas dans un T3 à Prenzlauer Berg). Ce qui suit ne sera pas traduit, donc je vous souhaite à tous une joyeuse année, chers francophones, et ne vous bourrez pas trop la gueule, pliz. Les posts reprennent le 10 janvier!

Since 2011 is drawing to a close, I figured I'd add my little summary of my year in music to the festivities, roughly cut, pasted and added onto from my yearly newsletter to my relatives. Here goes.

Darren Hayes - Secret Codes & Battleships

People who follow me on the internet (and who share an apartment with me) have inevitably been made aware of a couple of my aural obsessions, one of which is Darren Hayes. I was actually already once strongly obsessed with him as a preteen until I started having crushes on people I knew in real life. While working on my internship semester and master's thesis in 2010 I happened across his post-Savage Garden solo work, which in the case of Spin was not much to write home about -- but then there was 2004's The Tension And The Spark, which over a few weeks effectively won me over, and hard. In between The Tension... and this year's Secret Codes & Battleships there was This Delicate Thing We've Made, which is a double album of electropoppish awesomeness, quite a deal to swallow in the first few sittings but as of late a regular fixture in my white boombox and one of the albums I would take with me on a desert island. The main attraction of Secret Codes... -- a concise pop album dipping relational thoughts in seafaring imagery -- is of course the eurodisco "Talk Talk Talk" (I cannot tell you how many times I've listened to this), but I have a special preference for the penultimate track "Cruel Cruel World". Sometimes I think that Darren Hayes gets me, which is probably the reason I adhered to his music in the first place.

Key tracks: Talk Talk Talk, Explode (limited edition bonus track)

Men - Talk About Body

Anything JD Samson writes is pretty much guaranteed to both sound good and make me want to go pogo at a Gay Pride event in a Revel & Riot shirt. Basically, before this came out, I knew her previous outfit Le Tigre were good, and I knew the 3-track MEN EP running around the office at my internship was definitely more than cause for excitement. But I didn't expect the full-length album I bought at Santa Cruz's Streetlight Records last June to be this good. It has since replaced the self-titled Le Tigre album as my queer electro party album of choice (I only have two of these) and is guaranteed to have me boogie when I really ought to be doing my stretching exercises instead.

Key track: Simultaneously

Boy - Mutual Friends 

I was sitting in my good friend's WG kitchen on Mehringdamm one evening and was totally unprepared for this music, which she so kindly put on to share with us. (This also sealed my transition to Grooveshark after weeks of griping about Simfy's ads). These girls are from Zürich and Hamburg, and apart from writing melodies set to productions that can make me cry, their lyrics are so good it’s hard to believe they're not (as far as I know) native English speakers. They sold out venues all over Germany this year and should be back in Berlin for an extra date March 8th. There went my monies.

Key track: Drive Darling

Ernesto Schnack & Joe Czarnecki

Special shout-out to these guys, as much of my year was marked by instrumental guitar music produced by these two expats to Berlin (thereby confirming the supposition that I am, in fact, my father's daughter). Ernesto Schnack is from Panama and played a few services at my church, as has Joe Czarnecki, who grew up on a horse farm in Colorado, slightly not next to Panama. Both played a concert together recently in Mitte, and it sealed the year’s end for me with a very special evening. They kind of blow my mind (also that of my dad's). Schnack’s “A Work In Progress” is available for purchase and download here; Czarnecki’s “Watch Now” is available on Amazon. (Additionally, a track by Czarnecki called “Til It’s Over” is one of my all-time favorites.)

Key tracks: The Single Purpose Room (Ernesto Schnack), Til It's Over (Joe Czarnecki)

An Horse - Walls

Musically, I believe that Kate Cooper and Damon Cox can totally hold their own - I don't know why all the German press I've ever read is bent on comparing them with their buddies Tegan and Sara (besides, I mean, the fact that they are buddies). Their 2009 debut Rearrange Beds got me through most of my exchange semester, which I went up and told Cox while he signed my copy of it after their April show at the Comet Club. He was glad to hear it, and in fact told Cooper the same while I was standing there, which drove this tiny person to first make an "Ohhh" face and then wrap me in her arms. Walls continues the An Horse tradition of providing comforting music in uncertain times, especially with the title track, which this year found its way onto my imaginary soundtrack to some fairly real heartbreak.

Key track: Dressed Sharply

Here's to starting the New Year with no hangovers! (Perhaps.) See you on the other side peeps.

Cardialement: Oh hai

Je suis à Stockholm! Hourra! A moi les petits-déj au bran muffin, les trajets en tunnelbana et la glandouille acharnée.
I am in Stockholm! Huzzah! Again I shall have bran muffins for breakfast, ride the tunnelbana and do frickin zilch.

[ Bonus sonore ]

Cardialement: Winter weather

WOH PETARD CA CAILLE

***

Peut-être qu'il va neiger... Qui sait?

Snow is on its way... Possibly.

[ Bonus sonore ]

Cardialement: Rummelplatz

"One-year-old" birthday party at the Rummelplatz. // "Tofu... Toilet..." "Ta-ta."

***

Ca avait l'air mimi, du "butterflycore" -- quand soudain le groupe est monté sur scène...
"Butterflycore" sounded all nice and pretty until the band started playing.

[ Bonus sonore ]

Cardialement: Musik press

Un des petits plaisirs de ma vie en Allemagne: écouter Flux FM en lisant 
les derniers INTRO et Unclesally's. // "Leslie Feist ne sait pas mentir."

***

Though one of my favorite aspects of living in Berlin is being in the German capital, my attraction to Berlin and German culture actually developed as two parallel interests. I wanted to see what Berlin was like the day my parents started playing a 1991 cassette tape  of Achtung Baby in the car; my Franco-German Master's degree became sort of a means to that end. But I discovered German separately, taking a class as early as fourth grade as an alternative to English.

For the most part, especially in Junior High, I truly hated it. Too many cases and illogical attributions of gender, the words in a sentence arranged by a rigid set of ridiculous rules, not to mention that in class I was often asked to speak up and there would be no way in Hades that that was going to happen. Then came the yearly school exchange in tenth grade, and I to chose to go to Bayreuth -- fabled land of Wagner fests, some drug trafficking and lots and lots of Maisel's Weisse. I remember sitting on a local square on the Wednesday, halfway into the trip, and not wanting to leave. I also remember doing the same trip the year afterwards  and being utterly miserable and homesick for two weeks solid -- when I got home. It sort of sealed the deal, and I knew that German would always have a place in my life from then on out. It was no longer this psychorigid foreign language but the vehicle all these awesome people and places used to communicate. And it just so happens to be the language I see, speak and hear on a regular basis today (when I'm not hitting the pavement with my expat clans). That is something that I am grateful for and it even comes out in my other languages sometimes when I talk. (I have no idea of that.)

One of the staples of my postadolescent treks to Berlin in 2006 and 2007 was the free music mag Unclesally's, which sadly is going out of print at year's end. I will miss it, especially sitting down with it to my morning serving of Toastbrot, Vollmilch and raw Schinken, hearing bands like Fotos coming out of the kitchen CD player, or even just walking around Kreuzberg or Prenzlauer Berg and seeing that a new one came out, and that it has this strange unknown band on the cover, and I STILL have to take out that "Sallyscout" booklet and pull out the gummy adhesive -- so annoying.


In a strange turn of events the demise of the printed version is a direct answer to the question I posed during my Master's thesis (as to the future of cultural journalism), and I think Unclesally's did a better job of answering it then I did. Danke, people, for everything you've done. All I have left now is INTRO and my Siegessäule issues.

(Désolée les gens, je n'ai pas le temps de traduire...)

[  Bonus sonore ]

Cardialement: Ring fingers

Culte du dimanche juste avant une énorme conférence sur la création d'églises.
Complètement en train de regarder les annulaires de tout le monde.


[ Bonus sonore ]

Cardialement: Queer greens

***

Evidemment, j'ai dessiné ça avant les élections à Berlin.
I drew this before the Berlin elections, obviously.

Cardialement: Mug sizes

"How was it?"

"Good! I just think that the mugs you use are too big.
I got the impression I was given less than what I paid for."

"Oh... I wasn't complaining... I really wasn't."

***

Ils utilisent des tasses plus grandes parce que les plus petites sont chipées par les touristes.
J'ai encré ça à la plume, que j'aime beaucoup, mais besoin d'entraînement.

They use the bigger ones because the smallest-sized mugs get stolen.
This was inked with a quill, which is fun, but I need more practice.

[ Bonus sonore ]

Le changement de saison a des effets bizarres sur mon cerveau. A commencer par le fait qu'en général je tombe malade... ce qui me rend complètement défoncée. / Tumblr, toute la journée / "...Charles et Eriiik, qu'est-ce qu'y sont mignoooooooons" // Et une fois que la sensation de défonce est partie... / "Nyuuuuurgh la vie c'est de la m... et tout dedans" "Fait tout noir dehors"

(In case you need to know who Charles and Erik are is, this just came out.) (Also there was this.)

Cardialement: Facepalm

De temps au temps, au travail, pour me reposer les yeux, je fais le geste suivant. "Heu.. ça va?" //

"Elle a appris que le Dieu auquel elle croyait n'existe plus... il y a deux jours. Du coup elle pleure."