Who do I think I am?

(This post will be heavilly editied, tweaked, and added images and links to until it´s a biography I´m pleased with)

I´m Kim Holm, cartoonist. 

I´ve worked professionally for a few years now, barely getting by(Mostly due to my ability to live on thin air and nothingness, and sustain ever more debts). I´ve done comics and illustrations for Norwegian magazines such as Nemi, Bizarro, and Tusj, and done art for various local bands and other clients. My main accomplishment so far is the comic-book Dette Er Et Ran, which garnered some acclaim here and there. 

Now for a bit of history: 

Raised in Bergen, the most beautiful city in the world,  I was allegedly born on the 3rd of July 1980 in Kristiansand, Norway, though rumours have it that I was either found in some bushes outside the police-station, or actually raised by wolves. Personally I can´t remember much anything of my life prior to the age of 3, so I just assume I was kidnapped by aliens and that my parents are lying to me because the CIA will kill my unknown twin if they tell me the truth. 

I started drawing before I could speak, and drawing comics before I could write. But it wasn´t until I was 8 I knew that comic-books were my calling in life. 

It happened when I read my first Frank Miller comic, an issue of Daredevil where the hero played Russian roulette with the villain Bullseye, who was laying in a coma. Interspersed with the main story was a tale that Daredevil told about a young boy obsessed with Daredevil, and the troubles that follow when Daredevil befriended him and found out about his corrupt lawyer father. 

The whole tale was a typically unsubtle Miller yarn about violence in entertainment, responsibility, and the like. But for an 8 year old kid it was mind-blowing. It stirred up emotions in me that I had never before felt. And that day I knew I had to dedicate my life to create comics that could create the same revelatory emotions in other people. 

For a while I was considering a side-career as either a rock-star or a member of G.I. Joe Action-Force, but I´ve had to put those two on a shelf due to time-constrains. 

All through school I did nothing but draw or skip school to draw, to many a teachers frustration.  

They tried to tell me "You have to go to school!"

To which I replied "Why?"

"Because it´s good for you"

"Why?"

"Because you´ll need it to get a job!"

"Oh, then you´re saying it´s OK that I draw, since I+m going to be a comic-book creator?"

"NO!! You need options!" 

"Well, what can you tell me about being a rock-star or getting into the G.I.Joe Action-Force?"

"Go do your math!"

Yeah, I was an annoying little brat. 

So... At age 15 I began self-publishing my vampire-comic "Mens Gud Sover(Whilst God is Sleeping)", inspired by my own slightly less epic take on the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. After a few years and 4 issues, the story had gone so far off track that I gave it up. I´m still hopefull that I will get to tell the real story one day.

After that it´s been unfinished project after unfinished project, plagued by a feeling of not being technically good enough to tell what I wanted to, and a growing suspicion against my dream of joining the commercial comics-arena. 

So after degenerating into just playing video-games, smoking and drinking, and being a lazy fuck all day, I decided to check my mail one day and found a mail from an editor of a major Norwegian publisher who asked me if I wanted to send him my drawings in case I was right for a project. And so started my professional career. Hard work, my ass!

And now I´m sober and on Crete, trying to draw my way out of the fledgling commercial career.

Why Cartoonarchy?

(This post will be heavilly editied, tweaked, added videos, links, and pictures to, until it´s a mission-statement I´m pleased with) 

If you only come to this blog to read comics... Don´t feel pressed to read this shit. All you need to know is this: 

On this blog you will  get free comic books. 

If, however, you´re wondering a bit more about my intentions behind this blog, and indeed all my comics, then go ahead: Read this shit.  

Some say art and politics should not be mixed. I say they´re dickheads.

Making art is in itself a political act, and the sad fact is that whether the intentions are completely non-political or unabashedly radical the major effects of most art is simply to provide a release from the daily insanity of the modern world, and to create more objects we can use our money on, both things fueling the corrupt and crumbling economic system. 

So how does an artist avoid.... to paraphrase Bill Hicks.... sucking on Satans cock?

Well, that´s the question I´ve been struggling with all my life. As a good God-fearing Anarchist, I feel there must be some better way of doing stuff. And as far as I can see, the only option available to artists is to use their power to destroy the concept of intellectual property and copyright. 

Wha-wha-WHAT? But copyright is there to protect us artists???

No, it isn´t. But we´ll to that soon enough. 

First.... Why anarchy?  

Well, Alan Moore can explain it more eloquently: 

Thank you, Mr. Moore. 

So... Why the destruction of the concept of intellectual property?

Because intellectual property is a form of censorship that is currently enslaving the world and because we as artists are making our living creating items that are "protected" by this form of oppression. But by freeing our art, I believe we can help to create a better and more just system, and perhaps walk a tiny step closer to realizing the dream of a world where everyone can decide over themselves. 

Now I became interested in copyright through reading about the struggles of comic-book artists like Jack Kirby, and therefore my first opinion on copyright was to support "creators rights". 

Now... changing my opinion from believing in the strengthening of these "rights", to the abolishment of them, required quite a lot of mental contortion. But the more I learned about the history and the effects of intellectual property laws, the clearer it became that these "rights" have to go, because they simply are not right. 

But for a bit more on why and how, I´ll turn to Eben Moglen: 

Thank you, Mr. Moglen. (See also part 2 and part 3)

Ummh.... 

Where was I?

Yes, I´m nearing the end of this. 

So what´s the plan? The plan is to create comics, and experimenting with ways of distributing them without copyright. Right now there´s not much I can share, but I´ll be working to get the print-files ready for my old stuff, translate everything to english, and create new stuff. And I need all the help I can get, so don´t feel shy. 

One last why.....

Why comics? 

Well, that needs a bit longer explaination... so we´ll have to wait a bit for that...