Läskimooses - Year #3 (2014)

Läskimooses - Year #3 (2014 - numbers 16-22)

Matti Hagelberg 

23cm x 17cm, black and white, colour covers.

6 issues, variable page count (24-38 pages), with A4 English translation sheets.

€60.00 (Euros - price per year)

Please note: The third year of Matti Hagelberg's Finnish experimental comic book epic continues the precedent set by the first two years. My reviews will take the series year by year, until we catch up with the latest issue #42 - the full set of reviews will be found here, and like the the series itself its probably best to read them in order.

Läskimooses continues its cycle of origin stories, ancient myths and religious narratives relocated onto unfamiliar planets and recast with a diverse range of characters. We're not expected to believe these stories are real, just part of an ongoing conversation. So the question becomes one of why? Who is telling these stories, and for what purpose?

Throughout the past fifteen issues a seemly dark undercurrent to the conversational relationship has been slowly revealed. Of course that relationship might turn out to be benign, but at this point the driving force behind the stories seems to be fuelled by madness or menace. 

Our interlocutor's evolution theory is advanced further to a succinct observation in Issue 18:

"You can measure human evolution by looking at how far the anus is from the mouth...the further apart they are, the more evolved a creature"

We've read approximately 600 pages, only to find at the end of this issue that we're told to forget everything that's gone before. The weird passive aggressive captive/incapacitated relationship continues, and we're left at the end of Issue 22 being accused of plagiarism.

So we're left with a conundrum: are the stories in Läskimooses so familiar because they're tropes of alien conspiracy, pop culture, and religious narratives? or because in essence there is a truth in Läskimooses?

At a little over halfway through reading the review pile of Läskimooses before me, I wouldn't want to put my money on either answer. The reason is because you get the feeling that in Läskimooses, anything, and I really do mean anything, can happen. 

Here's a short documentary of Matti working on the series:

https://areena.yle.fi/1-4145622

You can check out some samples of Läskimooses here, along with the international ordering info. Most of the sold-out issues have just been reprinted, so it's a rare occasion that all the issues are available - so get in quickly: 

http://www.kreegah.net/hagelberg-matti-l%C3%A4skimooses-international-subscription.html

Review by Nathan Penlington