Pondus
Encyclopedia
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
created by the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Frode Øverli
Frode Øverli
Frode Øverli is a Norwegian comic strip cartoonist, considered one of the most successful in Scandinavia.- Biography :...
. Since its start in 1994, it has become one of the most successful comic strips in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
. It has been translated to several languages, including Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Sami
Sami languages
Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...
, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
and Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
.
Publication history
Øverli initially developed a strip titled A-laget (A-team) in 1995, prior to leaving the magazine PytonPyton
Pyton was a Norwegian comic book series which was produced by the company Gevion, and afterwards Bladkompaniet, between the years 1986 until 1996...
. This early version focused on three characters who were fanatical football-supporter
Fan (person)
A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...
s. By the time the strip in its earliest form was first published in a small local newspaper Vest-Nytt of Sotra
Sotra
Sotra is the name of an archipelago in Hordaland, Norway, just west of Bergen. The largest island is Store Sotra, while the second-largest and most populated is Litlesotra. The latter and part of Store Sotra are part of Fjell, while southern Sotra is part of Sund. Roughly 25,000 people live on Sotra...
on October 28, 1995, it had taken the name Pondus. In 1996 it began a four-year run as a supporting strip in the Norwegian magazine devoted to Bud Grace
Bud Grace
Bud Grace is a cartoonist, who has worked on the comic strip Ernie, whose title was later changed to The Piranha Club in the United States. He also drew Babs and Aldo comic strip for King, under the pseudonym Buddy Valentine. Grace was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, grew up in Florida, and...
's Ernie, leading to its breakthrough on April 2, 1997, when it was taken on as a daily strip in national distribution newspaper Dagbladet
Dagbladet
Dagbladet is Norway's second largest tabloid newspaper, and the third largest newspaper overall with a circulation of 105,255 copies in 2009, 18,128 papers less than in 2008. The editor in chief is Lars Helle....
.
On July 4, 2000, it began publication in its own Pondus magazine, as the first Norwegian strip to ever carry its own monthly publication. This was followed on June 6, 2001 with the launch of a Swedish sister magazine. The strip runs daily in more than 80 Norwegian newspapers, and is syndicated to several international publications, most notably Swedish Dagens Nyheter
Dagens Nyheter
is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It has the largest circulation of Swedish morning newspapers, followed by Göteborgs-Posten and Svenska Dagbladet, and is the only morning newspaper that is distributed to subscribers across the whole country. In 2009 DN had a circulation of 316,000, reaching 881...
, Danish Berlingske Tidende
Berlingske Tidende
Berlingske, previously known as Berlingske Tidende , is a Danish national daily newspaper based in Copenhagen...
, and Icelandic Frettabladid.
As of 2007's first issue, Pondus magazine left publisher Schibsted
Schibsted
Schibsted is a Norwegian media conglomerate with operations in 20 countries, the most important being Norway and Sweden. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange....
to continue its run with publisher Egmont. In a simultaneous event, the character Pondus quit his job as a bus driver, and bought a pub.
Frode Øverli has twice received the Sproing Award
Sproing Award
The Sproing Award is awarded by Norsk Tegneserieforum , an organisation to promote interest and understanding for comics in Norway. Since 1987, the award has been presented for the Best Norwegian Strips, a comic strip or comic book by a Norwegian, and Best Translated Strips, an international comic...
for Pondus, in 1998 and 2003, and the Adamson Award
Adamson Awards
Adamson Awards is a Swedish award awarded to notable cartoonists, named after the famous Swedish comic strip "Adamson" .They have been presented by the Swedish Academy of Comic Art at the annual Gothenburg Book Fair since 1965...
in 2006.
Pondus' family
- Pondus - the main character, a late-thirties, football fanatic family man.
- Beate - Pondus' wife.
- Påsan/Kevin - Pondus' teenage son.
- Sneipen/Frida - Pondus' baby daughter.
- Bjarne - the family's exceptionally stupid dog.
Jokke's family
- Jokke - Pondus cool friend and a former notoriously pathetic pursuer of ugly women.
- Camilla - Jokke's girlfriend, and the mother of their child. Broke up but are together now.
- Else - Jokke's mother and wife of Günther.
- Günther - Jokke's baldBaldnessBaldness implies partial or complete lack of hair and can be understood as part of the wider topic of "hair thinning". The degree and pattern of baldness can vary greatly, but its most common cause is male and female pattern baldness, also known as androgenic alopecia, alopecia androgenetica or...
, GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
midgetDwarfismDwarfism is short stature resulting from a medical condition. It is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches , although this definition is problematic because short stature in itself is not a disorder....
stepfather. - Jacobsen - Jokke's father, a former jailbirdConvictA convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...
. - Gordon - Jokke and Camilla's baby.
Other characters
- Turid-Laila - a stunning blonde barmaid at Pondus' pub.
- Kjakan - an awkward teenager and Påsan's best friend.
- Harold & Selma - long-time friends of Beate whom Pondus find dull.
- Hugo & Ivar - two (former) colleagues of Pondus with geek interests.
- Reidar - a car mechanic of the greediest sort.
- Roger - an awful comics creatorComic book creatorA comic book creator is someone who creates a comic book or graphic novel.The production of a comic book by one of the major comic book companies in the U.S...
. - Ponny-Petra - the most notorious of Jokke's female acquaintances.
- Dr. Zimmerknaben - an unorthodox psychiatristPsychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
. - Zlatan - a black metalBlack metalBlack metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....
-guy who works in Jokke's shop.
Pondus magazine
The Pondus magazine has been a monthly publication since 2000. The line-up of past and current guest strips are:- Rutetid, also by Øverli, in the one-panel format.
- The DuplexThe DuplexThe Duplex is a comic strip by Glenn McCoy, published by Universal Press from 1993. The Duplex has been published in numerous newspapers as daily comic strips and on the Internet. A collection of strips is also available in the form of a comic album...
by Glenn McCoyGlenn McCoyGlenn McCoy is an American conservative cartoonist, whose work includes popular comic strip The Duplex and the daily panel he does with his brother Gary entitled The Flying McCoys. Glenn also produces editorial cartoons... - Eon by Lars Lauvik
- Holger og Hagbart by Arne Bye
- The Flying McCoys by Glenn and Gary McCoy
- MM (comic strip)M is a Norwegian comic strip, written by Mads Eriksen. it is published in daily newspapers such as Dagbladet, as well as in its own monthly magazine M. Previously published as a guest strip in Pondus magazine, it established its own dedicated magazine near the end of 2006...
by Mads EriksenMads EriksenMads Eriksen is a Norwegian cartoonist, best known for the comic strips M and Gnom.-Biography:Eriksen was born in Malvik. His career in comics began in 2000, when his first comic strip, Gnom, was accepted into Smult, a magazine dedicated to promoting promising Norwegian cartoonists... - MonoMania by Thomas S. Hansen
- Piray by Karine HaalandKarine HaalandKarine Haaland is a Norwegian comic strip creator, animator and illustrator, known for the comic strip Piray.-Biography:...
- Prim by Bodil Revhaug
- RedakTom by Tom Ostad
- RockyRocky (comic strip)Rocky is a Swedish autobiographical comic strip created by Martin Kellerman, focusing on an anthropomorphic dog, Rocky, and his friends in their everyday life in Stockholm.-Overview:...
by Martin KellermanMartin KellermanMartin Kellerman is a Swedish cartoonist, known for the comic strip Rocky.-Biography:Kellerman was influenced by American and Swedish underground cartoonists such as Peter Bagge, Max Andersson, Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Joe Matt and Mats Jonsson. Kellerman states that his work resembles "a...
Pondus albums
There have so far been 9 digest albums, all but the seventh given football-related titles. English translations appended:- 1. Første omgang (2001, Schibsted, ISBN 82-509-4551-4) First Half
- 2. Andre omgang (2002, Schibsted, ISBN 82-509-4788-6) Second Half
- 3. Hat trick (2003, Schibsted, ISBN 82-509-4955-2) In reference to football's hat-trickHat-trickA hat-trick or hat trick in sport is the achievement of a positive feat three times during a game, or other achievements based on threes. The term was first used in 1858 in cricket to describe HH Stephenson's feat of taking three wickets in three balls. A collection was held for Stephenson, and he...
, a 3 goal accomplishment. - 4. Flat firer (2004, Schibsted, ISBN 82-509-5204-9) Flat Four. A reference to the "back four" in soccerFootball (soccer)Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
, which normally involves four defenders, flat in reference to the defence forming a straight line, to execute an offside trap. The cover displays Pondus playing football, having just "flattened" the opponent player #4. - 5. Fem rette (2005, Schibsted, ISBN 82-509-5409-2) Five Correct. A reference to the Norwegian football pools betting on 12 matches, with prizes awarded for 10, 11, or 12 successful predictions. 5 is a very poor result.
- 6. 0-6 (2006, Schibsted, ISBN 82-509-5592-7) In reference to a very poor result for the home team in a football match. In Norwegian it can also mean no sex, or "Zero sex". The cover displays Jokke, the goalkeeper, fumbling the ball to concede a goal, as the foot of an opponent player is bound for Jokke's crotch. In the background, Jokke's girlfriend looks horrified.
- 7. Sju lange og sju breie (2007, Egmont, ISBN 978-82-429-3132-0) Seven Long and Seven Wide, an old Scandinavian expression signifying time which feels like an eternity, and referring to Pondus' old boys football squad of 14 odd-looking men posing on the cover.
- 8. 8. Divisjon (2008, Egmont, ISBN 978-82-429-3697-4) 8. Division, the lowest league level in Norwegian football.
- 9. Nummer 9 (2009, Egmont, ISBN 978-82-429-4059-9) Number 9, referring to Pondus' shirt number, a shirt usually held by top notch strikers.
Sources
- Pondus dossier Avistegnernes hus
Footnotes
External links
- Pondus.no official site and editor's blog
- Pondus daily strip at Dagbladet
- Time-lapse video of Øverli drawing a strip
- Rights: Strand Comics