Norwegian artist Ida Neverdahl and Emet Comics, an LA-based publisher dedicated to telling stories created by women, featuring strong female protagonists, are launching a Kickstarter campaign for JELLY VAMPIRE. This all-ages collection spotlights the outrageously funny adventures of 13-year-old Lulu Lulusen featuring strange creatures, cats, and unicorns . . . always lots of unicorns . . . and sprell. What’s sprell? We’ll get to that.
But first, let’s meet Ida Neverdahl. She became an international sensation in 2011 when her vertical (and seemingly endless) comic strip “Like An Artist” went viral after catching the eye of cartoonists including Raina Telegemier and Scott McCloud. McCloud now uses the cartoon in his lectures about understanding the art of comics. As he recently said, “Ida Neverdahl made one of the coolest webcomics of the decade, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.”
Now a regular contributor to Vice Magazine, Ida Neverdahl has been making comics since she was a little girl. JELLY VAMPIRE features the outrageous stories of Lulu Lulusen, an unassuming girl in a yellow jumper whose imagination is as wild as it is colorful. Lulu takes on fresh chaos enthusiastically and without assumption, whether she’s livening up a plate of broccoli with her unicornificator or juggling the pressures of leading a secret society.
The JELLY VAMPIRE Kickstarter Campaign is being run by Emet Comics and its publisher Maytal Gilboa as part of its ongoing mission to bring more stories by women writers and artists to market. “We recognized the lack of diversity still prevalent in the media and joined the movement to change it; not just by telling stories about relatable women, but by giving female writers and artists a platform to express their unique perspectives on history, literature, and the world we live in,” says Gilboa. “Emet Comics publishes and supports lots of serious fiction and JELLY VAMPIRE is not that! Instead, it’s a wonderfully silly romp of a book by a woman whose art makes me belly laugh every time I read it and that’s important too!”
With the help of Emet Comics and supporters of the campaign, JELLY VAMPIRE will be published in English for the first time, with pledges delivered to backers this fall. Backers of the campaign will receive exclusive rewards, that include “Like An Artist” comic strip, two 8X10 prints based on pages from the book, two sheets of stickers featuring many of Ida’s unique characters, pins, and a 2018 calendar featuring twelve months of Ida’s whimsical creations. A limited number of commissions will also be available.
Oh and what’s sprell? Sprell is a Norwegian word which loosely translates to mischief, prank or practical joke. And that sounds just about right for playful stories about fantasy lands, endless imagination and all those unicorns! For updates, follow Emet Comics on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. Let’s fill the world with sprell and make the world a wonderful and silly place with JELLY VAMPIRE!
About Ida Eva Neverdahl:
Ida is a comic artist and unicorn-wannabe, native to the green pastures of Norway. Growing up, she always liked to draw and make up stories and she figured out how to combine them into the supreme art form of comics early in life. She has published three comic books, and her first book, Moscow, has been published in Norwegian, English, and Polish. She has a bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication from the Norwegian Academy of Art and Design. After her art school days, she enrolled in medical school but dropped out to create comics and work on her submission wrestling skills. Ida is very strong and as a medical student she got to simultaneously hold three human brains, which was very interesting.
You can find out more about Ida and JELLY VAMPIRE on Facebook, Deviant Art and Tumblr.
