after
Suffocation
comes
Change
It’s a grey, boring day and I’m sitting at Kulturhuset
in central Stockholm (“House of Culture” – they
have a great comics library), looking down on a large
fountain squirt out it’s juices just to swallow it all
down again. Like it’s playing some kind of water-
boarding torture-game with itself.
Doves swirl in formations outside the window, trying
to score some fine cuisine from their master species,
the naked ape. Maybe they’ll find some scraps of
processed kebab meat and soggy vegetables in a piece
of plastic paper in a trash can? Or maybe they’re just
flying around because it’s fun, because they aren’t
evolved enough to have a job or bills to pay, or a
handheld device to scroll on? Maybe they’re having
a competition – “who can sprinkle fecal matter on a
tourist’s icecream first?”
Security guards run around in their yellow neon-
vests, trying to make sure that the stream of people
walking in and out of shopping malls and into the
subway aren’t bothered by people like the old man
I just saw – standing in the rain, without a shirt on,
holding his hands on his head like he was held at
gunpoint, even though there was no one nearby.
A billboard, covering an entire building’s facade like
a giant face mask, shouts out its encouraging advice:
“Find strength in the silence and return stronger
than ever”. The photo under the text is of a woman
in a swimming suit, under water. It looks like she just
ran out of oxygen and is about to sink to the bottom
of the ocean. The slogan under the Swedish clothing
brand’s logo says “Let’s change fashion”.
I don’t know what they mean by that - I thought
fashion was by definition always changing to create
new demands and make us shop more pieces of fab-
ric in different colours, materials and shapes to keep
up with the trends so we don’t get ostracized by our
social ingroups and suffocate to death by loneliness?
I don’t know... Maybe the marketing team just
thought “change” sounded fashionable.
Anyway, I’m not really going anywhere with this
text, I’m just writing it because I had a page left to
fill...There’s no punchline coming here, no moral to
this story. You can stop reading now and instead just
take a deep breath, flip the page and enjoy all the
great, exciting, funny, deep, critically acclaimed, dirty,
mind-bending, sad and stupid comix we’re bringing
you in this lovely number five of Headache Comix.
Dennis Lindfors, Editor
dennis@headachecomix.com
Heidi Stoklund
 R. Crumb ... Nicolas C. Grey ... Greta Pielage
Mitch Lohmeier ... Philip Siebel ... Heidi Stoklund
Anders Hornstrup ... Daniel Watson ... Malcy Duff
Jon Pogorelskin ... Dunkle Nootenbury

Front Cover by Mitch Lohmeier

Back cover by Anton Ask
R. Crumb

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Nicolas C. Grey
Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey
Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey
Nicolas C. Grey

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 Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey
Nicolas C. Grey

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Greta Pielage
Greta Pielage

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Greta Pielage
Greta Pielage

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 Mitch Lohmeier

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Mitch Lohmeier

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 Mitch Lohmeier

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Mitch Lohmeier

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 Mitch Lohmeier

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Mitch Lohmeier

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 Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey

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 Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey

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 Philip Siebel

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Philip Siebel

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 Philip Siebel

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Philip Siebel

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 Heidi Stoklund

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Heidi Stoklund

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 Heidi Stoklund

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Heidi Stoklund

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 Heidi Stoklund

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Anders Hornstrup

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 Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey

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 Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey

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 Daniel Watson

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Daniel Watson

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 Malcy Duff

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Malcy Duff

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 Malcy Duff

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Malcy Duff

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 Malcy Duff

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Malcy Duff

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 Malcy Duff

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Malcy Duff

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Nicolas C. Grey

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Nicolas C. Grey

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 Jon Pogorelskin

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Jon Pogorelskin

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 Jon Pogorelskin

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Jon Pogorelskin

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 Dunkle Nootenbury & Nicolas C. Grey

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Dunkle Nootenbury & Nicolas C. Grey

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 R. Crumb

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Dunkle Nootenbury & Nicolas C. Grey

Daniel Watson