Jens K Styve
MAKES COMICS.
“Dunce has a disarming, engaging sense of humour which is entirely reminiscent of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes”
Dunce 5 is now LIVE on Kickstarter!
Campaign runs to April 19th (2019), check out the rewards, and become a backer!
Avistegnernes Hus (NO): Dunce-exhibition
May 4–20th, 2019
Oslo Comics Expo (NO)
June 6–8th, 2019
Thought Bubble (UK)
November 9–10th, 2019
Dunce
My daily comic strip
It started in 2016, I had been working on an autobiographic strip for a while. I picked a handful of strips, and shipped them off to the Norwegian strip competition runned by Dagbladet (Norway’s second biggest newspaper). For some reason, I’ve allways been drawing myself with a cone-like hat, a dunce-cap, so I named the strip Dunce.
Dunce ended up winning the whole thing. The jury stated that “Dunce is a really good and unique strip that (…) has cracked most codes for becoming a successful comic strip. (…) It has interresting and recognizable characters that you want to get to know, a lovely and snap in the dialogue, and a timing and communication skills that makes you read with anticipation from panel to panel,
without knowing what will happen next. Styve has also succeded in filling his characters with a lovely hot temper that creates great comedy.”
Best of all, the main prize was to be printed in the newspaper, on a daily basis, for four months, and now, several years later, Dunce is still running in in Dagbladet.
God bless them.
Other newspapers and magazines that are now running the Dunce strip is: Bergens Tidende, Stavanger Aftenblad, Fedrelandsvennen, Strilen, Lunch, Radio Gaga and Framtida Junior.
Pure awesomeness!
Winner Dagbladets Strip Competition 2016
Winner
Pondus Prize 2017
Strip of the Year Dagsavisen 2018
Nominated for a Sproing Award 2018
“I found Jens on Twitter a while back via his diary comics and immediately fell in love with his art style — in which I see a little Ralph Steadman and a little Quentin Blake. His simplistic character designs are deceptive and brimming over with life and vitality in a way that is surprising and deeply human.”
In addition to having the strip printed in newspapers, I’ve been making self-published Dunce-zines (in English) with the help from Patreon and Kickstarter. The first four zines are available in my webshop. The fifth Dunce-zine will hopefully have a Kickstarter-campaign in winter/spring 2019.
““Affectionate, heart-warming and most importantly funny (...) Made me laugh out loud, something comics rarely do” ”
““This book is an enrichment! Funny, hilarious.” ”
““One of the smartest and most original Norwegian cartoons that has debuted in recent times.””
“Mr Styve’s gift is to reduce these complex emotions and scenarios to a four panel story which is injected with humour.”
Dunce is available to read/follow here:
instagram.com/duncecomic
Cabin Fever
Painted in ink and coffee
“(…) after buying Cabin Fever online on a whim, I have to admit wholeheartedly that not only is this dialogue free comic more than worth picking up, it’s one of the best things I have read all year!”
“Cabin Fever is gorgeous. Really beautiful. Jens has a really organic line, he’s one of those who blends cartoony with DARK really well. It looks fun, but has a foreboding of … Doom.”
That winter, an old punk song popped into my head and stayed for a while. I don’t know why, I hadn’t been listening to it for years. It was the song Cabin Fever by Nick Cave. Eventually, I searched it up, listened to the lyrics, and a story idea started to take shape.
