Pretty much
anything can be turned into a Christmas tradition if you’re clever or cheeky
enough. Given the periodical nature of the medium, it’s no surprise that comics
can easily be associated with the holidays.
In Norway, however,
comics and Christmas are tied together by a special phenomenon called
julehefte.
The world
“julehefte” directly translates at “Christmas booklet”, but that doesn’t really
tell you much. I could translate it as “Christmas comic” or “Christmas special”,
but that’s still a bit vague. For the purpose of the article, I’ve chosen to
call these publications “Christmas annuals” (or just annuals) in English. An
annual publications is a periodical publication appearing regularly once per
year. In the U.S., and the U.K. in particular, the word is often used to
describe yearly, special edition comic books. The first time I went to the U.K.
and looked for comics for my collection, pretty much all I could find were
annuals. It just seems like a natural choice of words.
Very early (1914) Katzenjammer Kids annual
Norwegian
Christmas annuals originally contained short stories and poetry, but in the
1910’s , the first comics annuals began to turn up. Fittingly, the annuals
featured the world’s (arguably) oldest comic strip, The Katzenjammer Kids, and
it was soon followed by Norwegian imitators. Later, other classic American
strips debuted as Christmas annuals, like Bringing Up Father (debuting in 1930)
and Blondie (debuting in 1941).
In the early
days of the comics medium, Norwegian publishers were afraid that readers would
be confused by these odd speech bubbles, and had the comics edited so that the
dialogue would show up under the panels instead. Original Norwegian comics, in
accordance, were made with this format in mind. A few of the annuals still
feature comics that are being told in this archaic manner, although most of
these are old reprints.
Apart from the
three American titles, the market was dominated by Norwegian titles for the
longest time. After television was introduced in Norway, however, American characters
and titles grew in numbers. Only the most established Norwegian titles were
able to survive the competition.
Smørbukk is one of the arch-Norwegian long runners.
Because annuals
are considered a good old Christmas tradition, even people who don’t read
comics the rest of the year still pick them up during the holidays. This has
made annuals an important source of income for the publishers, who keep trying
to come up with new titles that might become a must-have for the casual
Christmas shopper. The number of titles seems to have reached its peak in 2011,
with a total of 75. This year, it’s down to 58.
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While
there have been plenty of exceptions, the majority of the annuals every year belong in one of five main categories:
Classic American
– In addition to the three titles mentioned earlier, a couple of other 80+ year
old comic strips are still running, though they became Christmas annuals much
later Popeye and Barney Google & Snuffy Smith (only Snuffy’s name is ever
used in the title of the annual; when was the last time this Barney Google
appeared in the strip, anyway?)
Modern American
– Okay, I’m really stretching the definition of “modern” here, to include all
American postwar strips. A huge number of popular strips have been made into
Christmas annuals at least once or twice, including Peanuts, Zits and Dilbert.
What remain to this day is Beetle Bailey, Hägar The Horrible, Garfield and
Calvin & Hobbes.
Hägar in Norwegian
Classic
Norwegian – Like I said, the market was dominated by Norwegian titles for the
longest time. From the twenties to the late fifties, Norwegian artists and
writers produced a large variety of comics for Christmas annuals (even
including one space opera, Ingeniør Knut Berg) though the most prevalent genres
were adventure and fairy tale comics for kids, and slice of life comedies for
an all-ages audience. A few of these remain as reprints only, but most of the
surviving titles are still being produced to this day. Artist/writer Håkon
Aasnes have almost single-handedly been keeping many of these alive. He’s
currently making three annuals a year based on classic Norwegian titles: 91
Stomperud (a military comedy), Smørbukk (a slice of life comedy for kids) and
Tuss & Troll (a fairy tale anthology comic for kids).
91 Stomperud, one of very few comics still made in the traditional, Norwegian format.
Modern Norwegian
– In the eighties, Norwegian publishers began experimenting with new
Christmas-themed titles by Norwegian creators, usually aimed at kids. While
many these were praised by the press and by comic book aficionados, none of
them became a new Christmas tradition the way the classic annuals and certain
movies and tv specials had become. With the rise of Norwegian comic strips’
popularity in the nineties, however, a whole new branch in the Christmas annual
market was created, and they have a stronghold in the market to this very day.
The most popular ones are, quite naturally, those based on the most popular
strips like Pondus and Nemi, but pretty much any Norwegian newspaper strip with
a certain following have gotten a try. As a general rule, the cartoonist will
often make new material for the first few annuals, then sadly, he or she will
often decide that it’s too time-consuming and just use regular daily strips.
Disney – Disney,
and especially Disney Ducks, is definitely in a class of its own on the
Norwegian market. And unlike the other four categories, the comics might have
originated from anywhere, as Norwegian Duck comics are produced all over the
world, including in Norway. Donald Duck
alone gets his name on several of the annuals, which includes an annual
dedicated to Carl Barks’ stories, one to Al Taliaferro’s Sunday strips, one to
Norway’s premiere Donald Duck artist Arild Midthun and four or five anthologies
featuring various artists. Mickey Mouse used to have his own annual, but it was
cancelled as of last year. He just couldn’t compete. For as we say in Norway: What
mouse? It all started with a duck.
Arild Midthun's Donald Duck annual has a distinct Norwegian flavor this year.
