A nerdy selfcelebration

Not sure if I was what you would call “nerdy” during school time. Sure thing is, I had interests that were popular among a number of students but not among everyone. And I kept myself a bit out of the big lights, enjoying my freetime to do stuff I liked more.
I had average marks in all subjects, and a few top marks in subjects like Arts, English, Informatics and History. I even got top marks in Italian and Literature every now and then.
I really enjoyed learning how to analyse and compare with each other different works. Art pieces as well as literature pieces. And I started pretty young making my own websites and stuff like that.
My nerdy side was reading comics and playing boardgames, cardgames, videogames... Nothing too original, most teenagers do that don’t they?
Being so enthusiastic about that, I attended a comic art drawing school, applied for a study program in Japan and after high school enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts.
Here is where I got to learn a lot of different things, or don’t learn things you were supposed to (Thank you, professors, for not showing up for classes. Really, this changed the life of all your students. Really helped us a lot in our future careers. T_T). And when and where I started to have discussions about comics systematically.
To the point, I presented a comic’s analysis as my final work paper for my Bachelor.
I already was famous for picking comics as a theme for every exam I had to make papers or presentations, so nothing unexpected.
I applied what I learnt in high school during art class and literature class. You know. You can “read a picture” or “comment an artwork” and you can analyse a text or poetry. So I did all these things to comic books and related them to the historical time they have been published and even interviewed the authors if it was possible (for contemporary titles, of course).
It has been a real productive time, I got invitations for lots of local comics related events and asked to be a speaker or a moderator in conferences or discussions about comics. I wrote articles and updated a few blogs. And I was barely 20.
A few times I got people stop me on the streets to greet me because they saw me at a conference speaking or they followed my blogs. That was so cute!

I feel a bit nostalgic. And I feel I need to state this as a curriculum so that people know why am I so friendly and give opinions about things. It is not just because I can’t keep my mouth shut but.....it is because my opinions and point-outs can be really helpful for artists or for readers.

This is why I leave comments on webcomic platforms or make a few posts on this blog or facebook or instagram or twitter. I need to share that bit of knowledge I have and am able to combine and apply in different fields and new titles, I so want to share it and just can´t keep mouth shut.
So dear readers, happy readings! And please always try to see what is behind the “check out this story” or “look how beautyful the art is”. There are so many things playing together in a comic or in any other piece. You maybe just need to adjust your point of view or maybe need a few hints. And here I come with all my suggestions and relationships between titles that apparently have nothing in common!
I will be making a guide for my readers. Join me in this amazing trip!

When Life blows you away.

A million time I went through the words I wanted to put together in my texts and publish on the blog. There are no right or wrong words. Just words.
And you can´t put a life into words. No matter how many languages you use, feelings stay inside you and can´t be properly taken out. Still, we try to express ourselves and communicate.

I came to Germany in 2010. This is pretty clear to all.
At first my stay was planned for a semester, then one more year. Little by little I didn´t feel I still had a place to go back to. Probably I was just old enough not to want to go back to my parents´home, so this made me decide to keep on "living alone", but in Germany where I already was.
I really wanted to learn German. I developed this interest by the end of high school. No particular reason, but I wanted to. And I was so sure I would be doing a great move for a future employment by learning German on top of English and that little Japanese I knew.

Life goes on. No matter where you live. You meet people and make decisions. You take directions. You make steps. Small or big, steps are steps. And they take you in some direction.
I took a few steps. Hard ones.
I needed to go through it all. And at some point Life takes the lead and drives you somewhere you never ever expected to.

It probably sounds like I´m not telling anything new. I know. Ups and downs are for everyone. And I am sure there are stories even more shocking then mine. I have seen some of them myself at the hospital, too. But still, I think I have all the right to be shooked. Life hit me hard with a rock on the forehead.

Since I told you before that you can´t express all feelings with words, I´ll be short about that.
The reason why you haven´t seen me around at all the past 3 years is that I had big life issues to take care of.

First thing is, I had a baby. Taking care of a child is time and strenght consuming. So I didn´t put much effort in drawing, reading or doing anything else for myself. I dedicated my whole self to make my kid feel strong and loved.
Second thing is, the father of my little Princess spent the last bits of his life fighting against cancer.
And that tells you how much time and brain I could have had to follow up what was going on outside of our circle. I still need some time to heal my thoughts.

I have been longing for a comeback and take over what I left years ago. Since there is no real reason to get away from things I used to do, since I enjoy doing them. And honestly, I haven´t found another road that I enjoy more than this one.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please keep following me, I promise to publish more comics related content soon. And spread the word among your friends: Siem is back!