Ville Ranta’s homepage offers links to two distinct comics blogs: one in Finnish, one in French. These choices are logical. Few other Nordic cartoonists have embraced the French comics scene with the same persistence as Ranta. In the autobiographical wing of his body of work, three books from a catalog of many more, Ranta expresses a constant longing for France. In the first two memoirs—2006's Papa est un peu fatigué ("Daddy’s a Little Bit Tired") and 2014's La Jérusalem du pauvre ("The Poor Man’s Jerusalem")—which focus on his struggles to balance an artistic career with family life, this theme serves predominately as a sidetrack. Ranta satisfies his yearning for France with the familiar accoutrements of a young Francophile: red wine, Serge Gainsbourg records and Breton striped shirts. But he also visits French comics festivals and attends drawing retreats in Paris. The third book, published in French by Edition Rackham in 2021, is fully devoted to his dream of making a name on the French comics scene. Succès, mode d’emploi ("Success: A User Manual"), known in Finnish by the even bolder title “How I Conquered France,” documents a challenging journey from humiliating experiences courting arrogant publishers and their broken promises to collaborating with Lewis Trondheim and having a book accepted into the Official Selection of the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2011.
The book that won favor with the Angoulême jury is the 288-page graphic novel L'exilé du Kalevala ("The Exiled of Kalevala"), in which Ranta chronicles the struggles, including loneliness and sexual frustration, of writer and folklorist Elias Lönnrot as he collects material for what would become the Finnish national epic Kalevala, published in 1835. In this highly personal account of the great cultural figure, Ranta’s black & white drawings vividly capture the landscape: a world short on daylight but rich in dirt and snow. A few years later, Ranta returned to the same area and period with Sept saisons ("Seven Seasons"), a graphic novel about a priest who engages in a secret sexual relationship with his housekeeper, while also having a fling with another woman - the future wife of Elias Lönnrot.
Lönnrot’s hunting ground was the same part of northern Finland where Ranta grew up. Born in 1978 in Oulu, Ranta spent his childhood there before heading south to study Finnish literature at the University of Helsinki. As an artist, Ranta is self-taught and made his debut with the graphic novel Sade ("Rain") in 2003, a mythic story about a town drowning in rain as the water level gradually increases. His work would undergo a notable evolution, marked by the development of a visually looser and almost sketch-like style. Drawing inspiration from the French cartoonist Joann Sfar, Ranta’s art conveys a sense of a spontaneous creative flow, akin to jotting down notes in a diary. This stylistic shift is particularly prominent in his autobiographical comics, which adopt a journal-like format, echoing the diaristic comics of Trondheim and Sfar as featured in L’Association’s Côtelette collection.
Ranta also has a career as a political cartoonist. His provocative cartoons, published in newspapers and magazines, have made him a household name in Finland. In 2006, he published a five-page comic satirically commenting on how the Finnish political leadership had reacted to the Muhammad cartoon controversy in Denmark. The Danish tabloid, Jyllands-Posten, had published 12 images mocking the Prophet Muhammad, sparking a global debate. In his comic, Ranta discusses the cartoon crisis with the Prophet himself, his face behind a mask, before engaging in a conversation on the subject with several Finnish political leaders. Although the comic did not intend to mock Islam as a religion, but rather address the consequences of the cartoon crisis through a satirical lens, its publication had practical implications for Ranta, leading to withdrawn commissions and the loss of sponsors for the magazine where the comic was published.1
Ranta attracted international attention once again in 2023 for mocking Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey. The comic was as a satirical commentary on the Turkish government’s demands on Finland and Sweden in relation to the countries' joint NATO bid. Protestors opposing NATO membership, predominantly in Sweden, had expressed their discontent by targeting Erdoğan. For instance, Flamman, a Swedish socialist newspaper, initiated a satirical drawing competition to protest what they considered Erdoğan’s attempts to pressure Sweden to deport Kurds and restrict freedom of expression. In Ranta’s cartoon, every insult to the Turkish president comes with a different price tag, alluding to extradition requirements Turkey placed on Sweden and Finland: for example, publishing a picture of Erdoğan nude costs 200 alleged terrorists to be extradited to Turkey; for a puppet of the president hanging upside down from a rope (which actually happened outside of Stockholm City Hall in January 2023), 130 alleged terrorists must be extradited; and so on. While Ranta may not have forged any new friendships within the Turkish government, he has garnered acclaim on his home turf. In 2023, he was awarded the Finnish Grand Prize for Journalism–the Finnish equivalent to a Pulitzer–as “Journalist of the Year.”
In this interview, conducted in English on two occasions in December 2023 and January 2024, during the comics festival in Angoulême, Ranta discusses the aim of his political cartoons. However, the lion’s share of the conversation centers on his autobiographical work and struggles to make a name for himself in France. He also explains why none of his books are available in English yet.
ROBERT AMAN: Let’s begin by discussing your background. Can you tell me when you started drawing, where your interests in comics came from, and when you started writing comics?
VILLE RANTA: I belong to a generation that was always reading comics. I’ve been reading comics since I was a kid in the 1980s. In the '90s, I discovered European comics and albums such as Corto Maltese, the work of Bilal and Tardi, which launched a passion for making my own comics. In the late '90s, I moved to Helsinki to study literature at the university and while I was there I met the Helsinki comics scene, which was as active back then as it is today. Comics are otherwise quite invisible to the general public. Most people in Finland are not even aware of the fact that modern comics exist. On the other hand, we have many Finnish comics artists that are published internationally. The Helsinki comics scene provided immense encouragement, and it was through them that I became acquainted with the new wave of French comics, featuring names like Lewis Trondheim, Joann Sfar and Christophe Blain. Through these revelations, I started to go to Angoulême, trying to become a published artist in France.
Before delving into your French career ambitions, I'd like to learn more about your background. I understand that you were born in Oulu in northern Finland. Did you also grow up there?
Yes, I did.
I’ve read that Oulu has around 200,000 inhabitants, making it a mid-sized Nordic city. What kinds of comics were accessible to you there in the '80s?
Back then, Oulu had only 100,000 inhabitants. It has experienced significant growth, especially due to Nokia [the Finnish telecommunications giant] since the early 2000. However, finding comics was still quite easy. We had French-style albums featuring Tintin, Spirou and all the other Franco-Belgian comics. But we also had three or four magazines that, monthly, translated new comics from France and the U.S. So, new comics were readily available even in Oulu.
What kind of upbringing did you have? Would you describe your family as middle-class?
I grew up in a family where both my parents–my mother and my stepfather–were journalists. Much of my cultural background is intertwined with journalism and politics due to constant discussions on these topics at home. Otherwise, I had a typical middle-class upbringing with two younger brothers, living in an old wooden house in an area near the city center of Oulu.
Were you the “artist” in your school class?
Yes, I was. My mother strongly encouraged me to become an artist. To be an artist was something she considered exceptionally great, and it had a profound effect on my life. Her encouragement was so strong that I almost felt forced to become an artist. Many artists have had the opposite problem.
Did you cut your teeth making fanzines?
I'd started doing fanzines already as a teenager back home in Oulu, but I became even more active after moving to Helsinki for my studies. Several of us from the Helsinki comics scene made fanzines together, and we sold them hand to hand.
What type of comics did you do back then?
My first comics were mostly satirical humor comics or moralistic short stories. I, for example, drew a sentimental political comic on the war in Yugoslavia when I was 15 years old.
It sounds like you were a very serious teenager.
Indeed, I was.
Then you left Oulu for Helsinki to study literature at university? Was another career outside of comics a possibility back then?
I also wanted to become an author. Literature has always been very important to me. As a teenager, I wasn’t only immersed in comics; I also delved into poetry, novels, philosophy, essays - everything. I was quite a literary guy, and I still am. One of the significant challenges I’ve faced with comics is the belief that they should be more like literature. I yearn for more layers in comics, with profound themes addressed by the medium. What intrigues me as an artist working with comics is exploring how to infuse more literary aspects into them - not just in terms of stories, but also themes, narrative techniques, storytelling techniques and so on. Comics, being a relatively limited art form, presents a captivating yet challenging project to introduce something new to its narration. However, this was a bit of a sidetrack.
An intriguing sidetrack, nonetheless. Just to clarify, are you suggesting that prose offers more possibilities than comics?
Not necessarily. For instance, in prose, you can freely navigate through time and make allusions because there’s no visual surface, as in movies or comics. Comics are more tethered to the story and the plot, as they must be visually presented. So, they are somewhat confined to drama. Early on, when I started doing comics more professionally, I realized that I’m not very interested in mainstream comics as a form. I even lack a bit of interest in storytelling. I’m more drawn to philosophical and existential questions explored through comics. All of my comics grapple with the question, “Why is life like this?” This is especially true for my autobiographical work. The intent of these comics has never been to narrate the story of my life, but rather to figure out what’s happening and why life unfolds the way it does.
We’ll soon return to your autobiographical work, but I’m curious to know if there are any artists you believe achieve what you’re asking for - pushing the limits of the comic form?
Chris Ware is one artist who comes close. He consciously attempts to explore new features of comics storytelling, and he’s quite successful at it. There are a few others as well. After 20 years of making comics, it’s rare for me to find something new that’s interesting. The problem is always the stories. Despite the new wave of underground comics in the '60s and '70s and the surge of French comics in the late '90s, comics, from my perspective, are still too bound to the surface, too attached to action. That’s why artists like Chris Ware or the Finnish artist Matti Hagelberg, who may not be familiar to American readers, have succeeded in bringing something innovative to the medium. I must also mention the Belgian artist Olivier Schrauwen; he’s certainly onto something.
I agree on all of them. This will also be a great opportunity for readers not familiar with Hagelberg to explore his work. Returning to your career, could you provide some context by describing the comics scene in Helsinki at the beginning of the millennium, when you became active?
Finnish comics have always been integrated into European comics; there has never been isolation. There has always been a connection between Finland and other parts of Europe. For this reason, people on the Finnish scene knew what was coming out in France, Belgium or Sweden. Coincidently, while I was living in Helsinki and studying literature, I passed by a closed bar with a sign that read “Comics scene is meeting here every Thursday at 8:00 PM.” Although I wasn’t drawing much comics at that point, being more involved in literature, I decided to attend the meeting. Present were Jenni Rope, who ran a small publishing house called Napa which is now an agency for illustrators, Matti Hagelberg, Marko Turunen, who has been published in France for decades, Mika Lietzén, with whom I founded a small publishing house called Asema soon after we met there, and, of course, Tommi Musturi, among several others.
Inspired by this group, you started to devote yourself more seriously to comics again?
Yes.
This is when you did your debut book, Sade?
Yeah, I'd started making Sade already in 1999. A long project. I was especially encouraged by the Helsinki comics scene.
And then you turned the gaze to yourself. What made you want to do autobiographical comics?
I started after the birth of my first child in 2003. It was a period when I didn’t have much time to draw. My girlfriend at the time was studying, and we didn’t have much money, so I spent a considerable amount of time at home with the baby. This made it impossible to concentrate on comics, so I began making notes in sketchbooks.
Whose work did you read for inspiration when you wanted to draw your life?
L’Association had just started their series of sketchbooks, which was a big source of inspiration. The first one they published was by Lewis Trondheim, who did a diary comic. Then Joann Sfar began publishing his sketchbooks too. I soon discovered that a certain form of improvisation really resonated with me. I’m an intuitive artist, and I have noticed that my work suffers when I plan and structure things. It becomes less interesting than when I improvise. Since then, I’ve incorporated levels of improvisation into all my work, which I believe is evident in my expressive style.
Instead of feeling confined by a demand for authenticity, you found a creative outlet in autobiographical comics?
Yes. My work is autobiographical, but with some reservation. I’m not making autobiographical comics just for the sake of it. I don’t find it interesting to narrate the story of my life. I’m much more interested in creating comics that offer philosophical contemplation. They pose questions about why the reality around us is the way it is. That’s why I do it. Of course, it is about my life, but it goes deeper than that. I don’t always stick to facts or real events but delve into my thoughts and add something philosophical to everyday life.
Can you give an example?
The thing about autobiographical comics is that I don’t feel compelled to tell readers about what’s going on in my personal life. I can start talking about my bicycle, my kitchen, a chair, or recount a discussion I overheard in a bar. There are always themes and questions that I’m interested in exploring. I have these thoughts in my head, and I’m constantly waiting for signals that this or that could be a way to discuss the thoughts that I have.
It sounds like autobiographical work is a way for you to engage in therapeutical self-reflection.
It could be! You’re absolutely right that it’s self-reflection, but I don’t want to go as far as to call it therapy. Making comics might be therapy for me, but that's not my primary goal. The idea of creating autobiographical comics through sketchbooks is not meant to be therapeutic, but as a way to communicate with other people. That’s what I’m trying to do.
Have you experienced any risks in inviting people into your personal life?
There’s always a risk when writing about other people, and for obvious reasons; it’s a recurrent problem for anyone who does autobiographical comics. For example, I’ve limited the amount I say about my children. That’s one boundary I have, as it wouldn’t be fair to talk too much about them. I want them to have their own lives.
Well, your children aren’t very present in the books. When they are mentioned, it’s usually through discussions about them in their absence.
That’s right. They don’t have a central role in my autobiographical work. But it has seldom been a problem for me that people get offended that I share personal stuff about them. It has only happened a few times. Now I know who can’t handle it, and then I don’t include that person any longer.
In relation to how you represent yourself, I need to ask why you draw yourself with such a large penis? Is it an homage to Tom of Finland?
[Laughter] Isn’t it quite normal in an erotic or sexual context? Traditional French artists always drew a big nose, and I draw a big penis. Robert Crumb has been doing the same thing. He has a very nice way of drawing naked bodies. Anyway, I don’t think that I draw big penises all the time. I did it in my book about Adam and Eve in Paradise [Paratiisisarja, published in 2010].
In that book, yes, but also in all your autobiographical comics, whenever you draw yourself naked.
Maybe… ok, I admit that I do it. [Laughter] But I don’t know why I do it.
Let’s move on to the question of France. Have you always been a Francophile?
No. It comes from my plans regarding comics. I wasn’t a Francophile when I was younger, but I became one little by little in the early 2000 when I started to go to France regularly for comics festivals. My biggest problem has always been a lack of time. I’ve published 10 graphic novels over the last 20 years, which means that I’ve had very little time to find foreign publishers for my work–and this continues to be the case still–but I decided from the start to concentrate on France, as I thought that there would be many possibilities for me there.
What was it with the French comics scene that appealed to you?
France has a huge comics industry, so I thought that if I can make a few albums–even if it’s mainstream stuff–for a big French publisher, then I would be able to make a career out of being a comics artist.
So, it was a decision made from a financial standpoint? A successful career in France would hopefully provide enough revenue for you to earn a living as an artist?
Yes, that was my dream. In Finland, it’s impossible to earn a living working full-time as a comic book artist. In the beginning, it didn’t turn out bad at all. In 2006, I published my first album in France for Dargaud [Célébritiz], together with Lewis Trondheim. This was a great opportunity, but the problem was also that I discovered how uninterested I am in mainstream comics. After my first album in French, I tried to continue collaborating with Dargaud, but it was very difficult. Their ideas and my ideas didn’t match. They thought that my comics had too little action, too little storytelling, and too much philosophical contemplation. All of this was a bit complicated, and I really tried hard to make it work. At the same time, my political cartoons started to become popular in Finland, which meant that I could earn a living from that. This also meant that I didn’t need to conform to what the mainstream publishers in French wanted. Instead, I’ve worked with smaller publishers who understand what my work is about. I need to add that I’m very happy to be published in France.
We’ll talk more about your political cartoons later. But I want to ask you if you made this career decision to try and make it in France even before you had published your first book in Finnish?
My first trip to Angoulême was in 2003 when I had just published my first graphic novel. I started to go there every year and showed my work to everybody. After a few years I got to know Trondheim, who found my stuff interesting.
Your attempts to make in France are well-documented in your latest book, Succès, which I found highly entertaining. Not least because you spice the story with gossip about the French comics industry. One thing that’s a bit unclear, though, is how you got to know Trondheim, who at that time was one of the hottest names on the scene. In the book, we only get to see how you occasionally run into him at Angoulême.
Trondheim was at the top of his career then. He was very wanted. I contacted him originally because we wanted to publish–I run a small publishing house, which I mentioned earlier–his Approximate Continuum Comics in Finnish. And we did. It was published in 2004. That was the first time I was in contact with Trondheim. The second time was a year later, when Trondheim attended the Helsinki Comics Festival as an invited guest. At the festival I showed him my work again, which I had done a few times in the past. One day he wrote me an email where he asked if I was interested in doing a small album with him, as he had a story he wanted to see published but didn’t have the time to draw himself. That was a huge surprise, a huge surprise. Still, to this day, I have no clue why he decided to ask me, because the normal situation in the French comics industry is that the publishers already have a French artist ready to do the job. This is also a standard answer you get when you present your work to a French publisher: “We already have a French artist who is doing this type of thing.” Anyway, it was a lot of fun working with Trondheim. The album is very stupid, but I enjoyed working on it.
It’s not a very flattering portrait of Trondheim that you present in the book. He’s grumpy and a bit of a jerk. Would you agree?
You’re right that it’s not a very flattering portrait of him, but the book we did together isn’t flattering anybody.
Well, let’s just say that it’s not your best work.
Yes. And the portrait of Trondheim is among the most positive in Succès. He’s straight, he’s honest - he doesn’t lie, like everyone else in the book. I would go as far as to say that it’s quite a warm portrait of him.
I know how fond you’re of L’Association. Did you ever try to get a deal with them through Trondheim? Your autobiographical work is much in line with what they'd published at that point.
I gave Lewis my Papa est un peu fatigué book, which had just been published in Finland, and he presented it to the rest of L’Asso. But they didn’t want it, so I gave it to Éditions çà et là instead, and it became my second book in French.
Why did L’Asso reject it?
I think it was [Jean-Christophe] Menu who rejected it. I had been in contact with him already at that point. I also offered some short stories to Lapin [L’Association's house anthology]. He kind of liked my stuff, but didn’t like it enough to take me on. These things are accidental and complicated. Always. You never know the reasons for why people make certain publishing decision. It can be some odd detail that can prevent them from deciding to publish you. It’s just how it is. It has always been like that.
Another person who is important in Succès is Joann Sfar. Your style mirrors his. Would you agree?
Absolutely yes. He was a very big influence for me already in the late '90s when I found his comics published in Lapin. At the time, he was doing the most interesting things in French comics. He was improvising; he wasn’t sketching. His work really inspired me. It’s also clear that we share the same approach to comics.
To a certain degree, yes. But I find Sfar’s work more lighthearted than yours. It’s less melancholic. I’m not saying this to critique Sfar, but it seems to me that the two of you have slightly different audiences in mind. He positions himself closer to mainstream comics.
Yeah, our stories are not the same at all. Our similarities are more related to drawing styles and techniques. I’ve always followed his ways of drawing and ideas quite closely. And I think it really shows in my own work. It still shows, but 15 years ago it was even more obvious that Sfar was a big source of inspiration. Through Trondheim, I also had the opportunity to talk to him about comics and show him my work.
You depict this scene in Succès as you attend the same dinner as Trondheim and Sfar at Angoulême. He’s not very kind to you, though.
In the book, there’s one scene where I try to convince him [Sfar] to publish me, as he was having his own series for Gallimard at the time. But he rejected me, and surprisingly suggested that I should change style to a more mainstream one. It was a bit of a blow, as I was a young artist back then and heavily inspired by his work. Although I didn't understand it at the time, he was actually trying to help me to get forward in my career. He knew that if I wanted to be published by Dargaud or Casterman, I had to adopt a more mainstream style. He was right, but I ignored his advice.
But he also broke your heart.
Well… [Silence] I wouldn’t go that far.
I’m only joking with you.
Ok. [Laughter] No, he didn’t break my heart. He gave me useful feedback, something to think about.
Why are you using pseudonyms in the book? Trondheim is called Richart, Sfar is named Léon Choukri, and so on.
It is because of the character who, in the book, is called Lancelot. His real name is Benoît Mouchard [a French author, editor and curator], and I made him the motor of the story. I gave him another name, as I wanted to use him quite freely. I’ve added things that are not entirely correct. For that reason, I decided to change the names. The pseudonyms are not meant to be a curtain, but rather a message to the reader that this is not all pure facts. Almost all scenes are based on real stuff that has happened, but what I present is not an objective picture of it. Everything in the book is subjective, seen from my point of view. For example, I never had sex with my publisher.
[Laugher] It’s quite obvious that the scene you’re referring to, where you first fantasize about having sex with your publisher’s wife, and then end up having sex with him, is a dream sequence.
Yeah, it’s a dream sequence.
A person I had trouble identifying, though, is the elderly ranting alcoholic woman who ignores you.
It’s Brigitte Fontaine, an old French singer. She was a chanson star in the '60s and '70s. She’s a friend of Benoît Mouchard. Benoît presented me to her. She’s a bit weird, a real bohemian.
Another important aspect to the story of Succès is when you get your big breakthrough with the book L'exilé du Kalevala, which is nominated for the prize as best book of the year at Angoulême. Were you surprised that a book about a 19th century folklore researcher in the north of Finland would appeal to the jury at Angoulême?
I’ve been very bad in choosing my stories regarding my career. These two historical graphic novels–L'exilé du Kalevala and Sept saisons–from the north of Finland that I did, didn’t really help me to convince French publishers. Anyway, L'exilé du Kalevala was nominated for best album in Angoulême, and I was very happy about that.
What attracted you to the topic of Kalevala in the first place? Given that Elias Lönnrot collected material in the same area of Finland where you grew up, I imagine that you’ve been spoon-fed with stories about him in history class?
Yes, that’s correct. However, there wasn’t a concrete reason why I decided to make a graphic novel about Lönnrot. I was interested in the 19th century because at that time Finland was one of the poorest countries in Europe. Hence, the change between those days and Finland today is radical. I was also inspired by the landscape in the north of Finland, which I wanted to depict.
And what was it about Lönnrot that appealed to you?
Well, it is commonly known that Lönnrot didn’t like the north. He was from the south of Finland, and he found everything about the north terrible and backward. But he still wanted to be there. I kind of related to these feelings at the time, because I also wanted to be somewhere else, but I was stuck there.
In what way were you stuck there?
I had small children living there, so it was impossible for me to move. Regarding the L’exilé du Kalevala book, I’m still happy with it. Of course, I could have paid more attention to details, and there’re some technical mistakes in it, but it remains one of my best books. Nonetheless, the subject is very strange.
There’s a funny detail in Succès when various French publishers react to your work set in 19th century Finland. Similar to how the center tends to relate to the periphery, the French publishers see your work as particular and urge you to do more “universal” stories. Although they may have a point regarding L’exilé du Kalevala, you also depict a power balance where stories by French or Belgian artists per definition are considered universal.
You’re absolutely right. This is an aspect that comes up every now and then when you’re a Finnish artist trying to become published abroad. Finland is seen as very distant and peripheric place. So, the connection to western Europe is one-directional: Finns are connected to western Europe, but western Europe is not connected to Finland. There’s always this tension between the center and periphery, as you said.
Another thread that runs through your autobiographical work is the constant conflict between, on the one hand, being a devoted husband and father, and on the other hand, pursuing an artistic career. There’s a memorable scene in Succès where you start screaming at your partner that you’ve wasted the best years of your career doing the dishes. Why did you want to include this in the book? It is an open goal for a critic to direct some legitimate, harsh feminist critique your way.
Succès is a very self-critical book. It’s almost an attack on myself. I’m honest in the beginning of the book when I say that I shouldn’t have gone to France for so many months to make a career and leave my family behind. It was a very selfish thing to do. And I still think so. However, this scene where I scream that I’ve wasted the best years of my career is also self-criticizing. I’m criticizing myself by including it in the book. It’s obvious that my way of thinking is very egoistic. At the same time, being a parent and a family man has been very difficult for me. It is a big part of my life that I’ve never felt fully comfortable with. Now this part of my life is almost over. Two of my children have recently moved out, which has meant a big change in my life. I would lie if I didn’t say that it hasn’t been difficult to combine a family with being a creative artist. It has been really difficult.
Did you feel that you had wasted valuable time doing the dishes?
I did. At that point in my life, I was desperate with my career. I didn’t feel like I had the necessary time or energy for my work. I’m still a bit disappointed that I haven’t had enough time to find publishers for my work in more countries. For example, I’m not published in English. I have made many compromises when it comes to my career because I ended up in a family with four children. At the same time, my family life has also been a source for my work, so I can’t say that it would have gone in any other way if things were different.
Final question about your French adventures. Do you feel recognized on the French comics scene?
Sure, I feel respected. And I have a good relationship with many French colleagues and publishers. Unfortunately, none of my books have sold well. That has been a bit disappointing. I should pick my subjects more carefully. But as I once said to my publisher, I’m sorry that I didn’t have a childhood in the Middle East [like Riad Sattouf] because if I did, I would sell more books.
Speaking of selling books, have you ever been close to a deal with, for example, an American or British publisher to get your work translated into English?
There have been many discussions with publishers in the United States throughout the years, but nothing has materialized. Nowadays I have a new agent that should be able to do something about it. I’ve been talking to Fantagraphics and a few other smaller publishers too, but I haven’t had any luck yet. I need to point out that it’s not enough to just make a great graphic novel that you then sell. You also need luck that the right person will see it and so on. The business side of comics is very complicated. At the moment though, I’m very happy to be published also in German through Reprodukt.
You said earlier that you pay the bills by doing political cartoons for various newspapers and magazines in Finland. What’s the background to this career path?
It’s a long story, but in 2006, I made a five-page commentary comic about the Danish cartoon scandal with the Muhammad drawings. In the comic, I have a satirical conversation with the Prophet about why western cartoons are offensive to Islam as a religion. Basically, why have we ended up in a ridiculous situation like this? My comic became itself a big scandal in Finland. It got a lot of attention for a time. After the situation had calmed down a bit, I got offers from several newspapers to do political cartoons for them. So, I started to do political cartoons for different newspapers and realized that I was quite good at it. At first I considered it to be an easy way to get some money, as I had children. But over the years I’ve become the best-known political cartoonist in Finland. The big audience knows my name in Finland, but they don’t know my comics [i.e., books] - only the political cartoons. My professional situation in Finland is very different from how I am known elsewhere. In Finland, I’m the main political cartoonist. Sometimes I’m approached by people who say, “Oh, you do graphic novels too? I didn’t know.”
Your position as an important–to say nothing of controversial–political cartoonist is also mirrored in the body of academic studies on your work. Almost all of them focus on your political cartoons.
That doesn’t surprise me.
Given the heat you’ve received for your political cartoons, have you ever been scared? Especially after the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
I haven’t received any threats. Well, a few perhaps, but no serious ones. But I did feel a bit scared in 2015 after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, as the general atmosphere was terrible. But nothing happened, and it has since then been quite silent regarding political cartoons in Finland. Well, at least until recently, when I commented on Sweden’s and Finland’s NATO applications. I did a cartoon that was also published in Turkey.
And now you can cross Turkey off your list of possible vacation destinations. You’ll never be able to set foot in there again.
Oh, for sure. Erdoğan would absolutely throw me in jail.
What type of reactions are you aiming for with your political cartoons? You must have known that criticizing Erdoğan would not only provoke the Turkish regime but also the Finnish government, who don’t want any disruptions that would give Erdoğan reason to use his veto against Finnish membership in NATO. The situation is the same in Sweden.
I did it on purpose. I absolutely knew that these cartoons would provoke controversy in Turkey if they reached there. Nevertheless, the public discourse in Finland has always been very careful compared to the Swedish one. It is also the case with Finland’s NATO application. In Finnish culture, we have a tradition of collective silence, which also means that everything around our application to become members in NATO has been silent. By contrast, in Sweden, you’ve had several scandals. Not least with the Erdoğan puppet - and in Finland, nothing. I decided that I must do my part. For this reason, I made a drawing as mean and provocative as possible of Erdoğan. And it turned out quite nicely.
I presume that you’re against a Finnish NATO membership?
Not at all. I think that we in Finland are in quite a dangerous situation at the moment because of our proximity to Russia. It’s scary. So I’m not against us being members in NATO; I was against the silence around the subject in Finnish political discussions. That’s what I don’t like. It’s the same reason why I wanted to do the Muhammed comic at the time - because when Denmark was in flames, people in Finland where completely silent. Not a single newspaper here published the Danish drawings.
What would the purpose be to republish drawings that many Muslims found offensive?
I don’t think that many of them were good drawings, or that they should have been published everywhere. But hiding them from the Finnish public was stupid. There were articles about a so-called cartoon scandal in Denmark, and I think that the Finnish media had a responsibility to show the drawings to inform readers that it is these drawings that are upsetting the whole world.
Yet such position assumes that no newspaper readers in Finland would be offended, for religious reasons or otherwise. Perhaps it was an editorial decision grounded in cultural sensitivity?
No, I think it was more an opportunist attitude to keep Finland out of trouble.
Where would you place yourself on the political spectrum?
As a cartoonist, I think it’s important to criticize things I’m for as well. I’m not going to engage in cultural wars. I want to reflect things that are happening and find weaknesses in people’s group thinking. I often criticize the liberal left, even though it’s there that I am politically.
Final question: what’s next for Ville Ranta? What are you working on right now?
I’m almost finished with a new autobiographical graphic novel. It’s called Wine Drinkers and is about my years working for a cultural magazine in northern Finland. The theme on the surface is about how me and many other people on the cultural scene have very much been into alcohol. But also on how much easier it was for me to drink red wine every day 20 years ago compared to today. It’ll be published in Finnish this year and available in French in early 2025. Hopefully it’ll be published in English too.
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- Ridanpää, Juha. “The media and the irony of politically serious situations: consequences of the Muhammed cartoons in Finland.” Media, Culture & Society 34.2 (2012): 131-145; Herkman, Juha. “Populism in political cartoons: caricatures of Nordic populist leaders.” Popular Communication 17.3 (2019): 252-267.
