Danish cartoonist Halfdan Pisket (b. 1985) graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2009 and is inspired by visual artists such as Edvard Munch and Palle Nielsen as well as comics such as Dave McKeane, the Spanish Crime Series “Torpedo”, David B “Epilep” and “Cages”. Now he has drawn the story of his father’s criminal past.
After two years at the Academy he got fed up with the structures and absurdities of fine arts and started making comics. Now he is a full-time cartoonist and illustrator.
The first comic Halfdan Pisket published was deemed too artistic by the critics. Therefore, he started to follow a more traditional format.
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The Dane-Trilogy
From 2014 to 2016 he produced the so-called “Dane-trilogy” consisting of three books; Desertør (Deserter), Kakerlak (Cockroach) and Dansker (Danes). These books as well as his work in general are inspired by linocuts from the sixties and the seventies and tells the fictionalized story of his father’s criminal background – to great pleasure of the Danish press.
Best Comic Award
In January 2019, he won the award for best comic in Festival International de la Bande Dessinée, which is considered the comic industry’s counterpart to the Cannes Film Festival. The linocut technique, black and white imagery and sharp contours, has until now served as the main source of inspiration for Pisket’s work.
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“I have learned more from the American TV-series The Wire than any lesson I’ve ever had in art history,” Pisket once told a journalist.
Danish Cartoonist Tells the Story Of His Father’s Criminal Past
Halfdan Pisket plays an important role in the cartoon about his father, but says he has no interest in making an autobiography about himself. “We live in a society with an extreme focus on the self, and it was important to me that my father became the protagonist, not me,” he says.
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The story came to life when Halfdan Pisket’s father was diagnosed with incipient dementia, and Pisket saw the opportunity to get to know his father before his memory would slowly fade away. The result is the story of a Turkish immigrant who deserted from the Turkish army and fled to Denmark to create a life for himself and become a naturalized Danish citizen.
“The story is 100 percent based on reality, but it’s not true,” Pisket emphasizes.
Danish Cartoonist Tells the Story Of His Father’s Criminal Past, written by Tor Kjolberg