There are comics you read once and then move on from. And then there are comics you come back to every now and then.
For me, Bacon & Egg is one of those series.
I discovered Bacon & Egg through the Herman Hedning magazine, which I read quite a lot of. I also read quite a bit of Bacon & Egg on and off over the years, and I have always enjoyed its particular mix of humor, madness, and adventure.
Behind Bacon & Egg is Patrik Norrman, a Swedish comic artist and illustrator. He has been active since the late 1970s and has worked on several Swedish comics over the years. Besides Bacon & Egg, he has worked on series such as James Hund and has also drawn for comics including Bamse and 91:an Karlsson.
So this is a comic artist whose work has actually been around me for quite a long time, even if I haven’t always thought about who was behind it.
Tantalonika
Sometime around may this year, I discovered Tantalonika.
Unfortunately, I had missed the Kickstarter campaign, but when I started looking more closely at the project and saw images from the new adventure, I quickly became drawn to one of them.
And then I had one of those ideas I seem to get quite often:
“I should make that as a 3D print.”
So I simply started designing a 3D print based on one of the images I had seen.
That is exactly what I find so fun about 3D design. You start with something someone else has drawn and then try to figure out how to make it work in three dimensions. What needs to be changed? How do you make the shapes hold together? Which details can be kept, and which ones need to be simplified?
And suddenly, you’ve spent considerably more time on an idea than you originally intended.
Ystad Comic Festival
Then came the Ystad Comic Festival and the opportunity to actually meet Patrik.
It was quite special to stand in front of the person behind a comic I had been reading for several years. I brought along my old Bacon & Egg book and got it signed by Patrik there at the festival.
I also brought my 3D print, which he signed as well.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t really at my best that day. I had been sick for a week, and even though I had been symptom-free for more than 48 hours by then, I was still very foggy and tired. Afterwards, I felt that I hadn’t really managed to make the most of the meeting the way I would have liked.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with Patrik or with the meeting itself. It was simply me who hadn’t quite recovered yet.
I had also planned to give him a print of his own, but because I had been ill, I hadn’t managed to make an extra one for him in time.
So it simply didn’t happen.
Now it’s finished
Since then, I have received my copy of Tantalonika and finally been able to read the book that started this whole process in the first place.
And, most importantly, I have finished that second print.
This time, I was actually able to send one to Patrik.
Somehow, it feels like I got to finish what I had started.
Because it really began much earlier, when I discovered Bacon & Egg as a reader through Herman Hedning. I then read the series on and off for several years. Earlier this year, I discovered Tantalonika and saw an image that made me want to start modelling.
An image became an idea.
The idea became a 3D model.
The model came with me to Ystad.
There, my old Bacon & Egg book got a signature from Patrik. And the 3D print got a signature too.
And now, I have finally been able to send a self-printed figure to him.
It may not be the most remarkable story in the world, but these are exactly the kinds of little things that make my different interests occasionally connect in a really fun way.
