The Comic Book of the Year is a collaboration between the Norwegian Cartoonists Tegnerforbundet , Grafill and Serieteket at Deichman Grünerløkka. The prize is awarded to a Norwegian cartoonist who has distinguished himself at a high professional level, and who has produced the best Norwegian comic book in the period 01.04.24–31.03.25. The prize comes with a prize of NOK 30,000. The prize aims to help raise the importance of Norwegian cartoonists and stimulate an increased professional level. The award ceremony will take place during the Oslo Comics Expo on Saturday 20 September.
The jury for the 2025 Cartoon of the Year consists of:
Kjersti Furu (Serieteket)
Cha Sandmæl (Grafill)
Kristoffer Kjølberg ( Tegnerforbundet )
___
The nominees for Comic Book of the Year 2025 are as follows:
Fredrik Rysjedal: Cramp
Krampe tells the story of what it is like to be a "bather", that is, someone who loves to swim, but at the same time has a fear of death that has followed you all the way into adulthood; getting a cramp while out swimming. In the course of 40 pages, Fredrik Rysjedal tells both a big and a small story at the same time. Krampe is printed in risography, and exploits the limitations and possibilities of this printing technique to the fullest. The drawings are drawn with a clear black line, usually free-form figures on airy white backgrounds. Many of the pages are closer to infographics and instructional drawings than traditional comics. The second printing color, a slightly threatening blue tone, is often used to depict the water in rushing and bubbling raster formations that make the reader literally feel on his body how the main character feels strange in the water. The means are few, but precise, and the facial expressions of the main character really do say more than a thousand words.
Reidar Müller and Sigbjørn Lilleeng: Life is dangerous! (Aschehoug)
Conveying facts through comics has been attempted before, but rarely as successfully as this! Reidar Müller and Sigbjørn Lilleeng, with the help of the charming main characters Liv and Iggy, take us through the entire story, from how it all started as small bacteria to where we are today. Müller and Lilleeng have previously had a writer/illustrator collaboration in Supervolcanoes and Huge Dinosaurs, but with Life is Dangerous! they are creating a pure comic. This is a smart move that makes it easy to read through from A to Z, rather than jumping to the parts that seem most interesting. Sigbjørn Lilleeng's easily recognizable line fits perfectly with the book's content, and as usual maintains a sky-high technical level. Good variation in the layout of the spreads means that the story never gets boring, and speech bubbles and squares mix with fact boxes in a fabulous way. We hope this book will become the new gold standard for conveying complex and sometimes difficult topics to children and young people!
Sindre Goksøyr: Pfft! (No Comprendo Press)
How many shades can you show with only three colors (which are pink, yellow and brown)? Sindre Goksøyr takes the plunge and serves up a wide range, from the deeply tragic via everyday realism to comedy bordering on slapstick. All of it is steadily executed in a distinctive and confident style, and with accurate dialogue. In Pfft! we get a reunion with Noel (last seen in Hrmf! from 2011), who is perhaps one of the most annoying characters ever portrayed in Norwegian comics. But the tough and uncompromising expression that Goksøyr has developed over a long career in underground environments and as a visual artist also proves to contain the nerve and leeway needed to depict the complex mechanisms that make us who we are and who we become, and that perhaps not everything is always as we think.
Kjersti Synneva Moen: Selma does the best she can (Aschehoug)
Kjersti Synneva Moen is a rising star among Norwegian cartoonists. In 2023, she debuted with the graphic novel Grip den føkkings dagen and won both the Pondus Prize and the Ministry of Culture's graphic novel prize. Selma does her best about 11-year-old Selma, who is a complete novice when it comes to falling in love. She does her best to win Oskar's attention, but so does the new girl in class (whom Selma's best friend Devi, in turn, has become completely obsessed with)! The book is so funny and charming that even grown men feel for Selma in her attempt to seize love. The style is personal, lively and playful, and even advanced narrative techniques, with fantasy characters on several levels and the embodiment of abstract emotions in the form of a jar that is about to overflow with black curly horror, are used in such a convincing way that it feels completely natural. It is a joy to see a cartoon for children with such high artistic quality!
Lars Fiske: Accept (No Comprendo Press)
Lars Fiske is the stylist above all others in Norwegian comics. In Ta imot , he turns his already refined style – perfected over several decades – up to 11 to tell the story of exactly how stylist Lars Fiske found his current form, and at the same time proves that he is a true master of comic art. Ta imot is a concise and exuberant comic suite in 15 movements – one more impressively executed than the last – interspersed with both handsome self-irony, painful nostalgia and comic memento mori. Form and content fit together like a glove, and the means are used with surgical precision. One is immediately pleased to see that one of our most established and experienced comic creators still has the ability to further develop himself as an artist, something Lars Fiske has shown us again and again over his long career.
