Retrospective Gallery

A quick doodle from 1989 that predates the comic (i.e. the guy isn't actually Bernard). This drawing is what gave me the idea for the basic concept of a crafty barbarian, so it all really started here.

Later that year I reused the scene, slightly modified, in the first of my submission strips for Rubicon magazine.  That strip has since been lost but it was redrawn in 2001, and that version – translated on this website as ’BtB Carries On’ – would eventually appear in the second issue of Fenix magazine.

Early character study. His looks did change a bit…		One of the four test strips from my original submission to Rubicon; the only one that wasn't redrawn later.

Bernard's portrait from The Handbok Anthology (2000); his first public appearance. He was presented in it as ”the comic that never was”. Well, it was true at the time…

Btw, since people over the years have kept asking about the girl's face – you might notice that he's standing on her fingers.

Fenix #1 (2004) where the comic strip premiered after a slight 15-year delay. Artwork by Michael Gullbrandsson.		Fenix #50 (2012); Bernard/Birger cover with a friendly nudge to Frank Frazetta. Artwork by Lukas Thelin.

The Dark and Hairy Annals of Birger Barbaren (2012), his Swedish compilation book. It's 68 pages (including cover), US Letter format, in full color. It hit #2 in the Pressbyrån chain's list of best selling comics and sold out in most of their stores. Pretty neat if you ask me.

Full cover art for The Dark and Hairy Annals of Birger Barbaren. (About the barrel – ’öl’ is ”beer” in Swedish.)  I actually made this one in 2006, six years before the book was released. It was originally intended to be a 20-page (including cover) booklet, a free bonus thingie for Fenix subscribers, but it got a little delayed. And grew a little…

The Best of Fenix vol. 1–3 (2015), where our hero first appeared as ’Bernard the Barbarian’. In total, 59 strips were included in these three.  Covers by Lukas Thelin.

Full cover art for the planned compilation sequel The Deeper Annals of Birger Barbaren. As you can see I had learned to cut down on the little details in the years since the first cover… It was made in 2020; the book was going to come out that year to coincide with Fenix #100, but like its predecessor it's gotten a little delayed.

Odd Bits & Pieces

Löken (”The Onion”, no relation to a certain satirical website) is a free magazine published daily for a few days during the annual LinCon gaming convention in Linköping, Sweden. And only then.

In 2004 the Fenix staff were appointed that year's Löken staff. They asked me if I could make some cover art on site, so I churned out this piece with a treasure-hunting Bernard… and then spent the rest of the convention pondering the princess' weird proportions.

This is a piece of fanart. I had just watched the animated Danish movie Ronal Barbaren and was blown away. It's an epic fantasy adventure that's jam packed with violence, near nudity, innuendo and cheap jokes about farts and scrotums. It's just… perfect.

’Svenskere’ = ”Swedes” in Danish.

This one is connected to a particular Bernard strip that will be uploaded to this site when its turn comes; I'll be telling the whole story then.

For now, suffice to say it was made in connection with a Bernard-related contest that was won by Fredrik K.T. Andersson, creator of the (now sadly defunct) webcomic Pawn. Shown here is Bernard and Ayanah from that comic celebrating his victory.

”The foam is rising.”  Ok, let's drop this one in too. Short story short, I was at a con selling Bernard books when a guy came up and asked me for a signed drawing, right as I was busy serving the biggest wave of buyers I had the entire weekend. I gave the pic 10 seconds, tops. Later on I found it spread online; e.g. it's the only art by me on the Comic Art Fans site.

More crossovers!  This was a guest art piece made for Cadial's wonderfully spaced out self-published comic Roba from Uruk, and appeared on the very last page of the second volume The Destruction of Uruk. (Yes, Roba is dressed exactly like that, all the time.) It actually has a direct connection to a Bernard strip; more on that when the strip gets uploaded.

The scene was brought up in a prominent Swedish comics vlog when they reviewed The Destruction of Uruk. They especially liked that I'd ”gone Full Barbarian” here – that is, I had drawn Roba's nipples. Just so you know what that means.

Aand crossovers. This birthday pic for Jim Collins, creator of the webcomic Oddly Aroused, shows Bernard having a beverage with Jim's heroine Sonya Crimson. Though she's more of a coffee drinker, really.  She goes Full Barbarian in the Guest Gallery section.

Happy Midsummer!  Just a quick something I drew for Facebook. Midsummer's Eve is a big holiday in Sweden, and a pole plays a pretty big role in it, and Bernard saves princesses who are tied to poles…

The actual celebration consists of dancing/walking around said pole while singing some silly songs, and then you get drunk in the evening. That's it.  If Hollywood really wanted to make a horror movie about a Swedish holiday I say they could at least have picked Valborg (Walpurgis) when we light bigass bonfires and burn foreign tourists in them.