When it comes to passing away, most people hold curiously similar ideas about life after death, suggesting that there might be more to it than religion, fear, or simply an inability to imagine not existing in this world or realm. A comic artist named Jorgen Van Santen from Oslo, Norway explores this particular topic in his comic web series called “Death & the Maiden.”
The artist’s work delves into the everyday life (or should we say afterlife?) of a girl that passed away, and the one being to keep her company in the realm outside of our own is no other than the Grim Reaper himself as they travel around adventuring. The short web series started in 2017 on Tapas, and has been ongoing ever since with a large fanbase on both Instagram and the comic website.
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If you’d like to see part 1 of this series, then make sure to click here!
More info: Instagram | tapas.io
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Just like last time, given the chance, Bored Panda reached out to Jorgen to find out a little bit more about him and his work. First, we asked the cartoonist if he had any major influences in his life that might’ve helped him to develop and refine his style.
“Absolutely. Number one is Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. This is in my opinion the best comic strip ever made. Number two is Jean-Richard Geurts, better known under his pseudonym Janry. He is probably best known for Spirou & Fantasio (1984-1998) and Le Petit Spirou. I have always admired the way he combined detailed accuracy on for example backgrounds, buildings, and cars, with a very dynamic and «cartoonish» style. I never get tired of studying his work. Number three must be Fernando De Felipe. His characters and creatures are the perfect mix of funny and scary.”
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Art, in any kind of form, takes a lot of time not only to practice but also to produce, therefore we asked the artist how long it takes him to fully finish his comics.
“I’ll say a normal workday (8 hours) if I have an idea ready—which I almost always have. But if I have to do research (booooring) on facts and visual appearance, it might take longer.”
Being a cartoonist is not easy, one can easily encounter a lack of inspiration, burnout, etc, so we wanted to ask Jorgen about his ideas for the comics.
“It depends. Sometimes ideas just pop up in a conversation with family or friends (sometimes it’s even their ideas). Sometimes there’s a specific thing or landscape I really want to draw, and sometimes there’s a specific topic I want to focus on. Then I take that topic and go for a run, and when I come back I very often have an episode ready in my head. Running is quite meditative for me.”
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Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
As we mentioned before, sometimes creative work can cause quite a burnout, therefore we asked the artist how he dealt with that as well.
“Yes! I’m a communication concept developer, and sometimes it’s just too much work in constantly coming up with new ideas. Then I must sadly focus on ideas for work, since being a comic artist—in my case—doesn’t pay any bills.”
We also asked Jorgen about how people reacted to his work.
“I’d say I almost only get positive feedback from readers, which never cease to amaze me, Death and the Maiden being such a quirky and narrow comic, in my view. I did get a lot of negative comments on «Seven New Deadly Sins» and «Bat Out Of Wuhan», but those guys seems to have moved on.”
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The creative process is not easy, but there are many enjoyable parts to it as shared by the artist.
“I definitely enjoy sketching the most. That’s when I see if the episode works within 3-4 panels or not, and if the idea is even funny or interesting.”
We also asked about the inspiration behind the artist’s Instagram account.
“I started out on Tapas.no. That was fun for a while, but then they changed something, and it felt impossible to reach new readers. After that, Death and the Maiden was published in Norway’s biggest newspaper Aftenposten for a while. But I couldn’t keep up producing two episodes every week, and sadly had to let that opportunity go. Same time, I saw that other Norwegian comic artists had accounts on Instagram and were doing OK, so I gave it a go in November 2019. And here there’s no real deadlines, so that suits this little side project very well.”
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Digital art and art, in general, is not easy and requires a lot of patience, time, resources, and in most cases even money, therefore we wanted to know how the talented comic artist started his own career in digital art.
“I have tried lots of different art forms, and used to work with pencil, ink and markers for many years. But going digital really gave me a boost since there’s this little thing called «undo». Now I can draw a line 20 times (and I sometimes do) until I’m satisfied.”
Lastly, we asked if Jorgen had anything he would’ve like to share with all of you Pandas, and here’s what he said, “I hope readers keep enjoying (and liking, commenting, saving and sharing) the comic, and I will make new episodes as long as they do. :)”
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Source: boredpanda.com