Pondus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pondus is a comic strip created by the Norwegian cartoonist Frode Øverli. Since its start in 1995, it has become one of the most successful comic strips in Scandinavia. It has been translated to several languages, including Danish, English, German, Finnish, French, Icelandic, Latin, Sami, Swedish and Esperanto.
In 2000 it inspired its own magazine.
Øverli initially developed a strip titled A-laget (A-team) in 1995, prior to leaving the magazine Pyton. This early version focused on three characters who were fanatical football-supporters. By the time the strip in its earliest form was first published in a small local newspaper Vest-Nytt of Sotra on 28 October 1995, it had taken the name Pondus.[1] In 1996 it began a four-year run as a supporting strip in the Norwegian magazine devoted to Bud Grace's Ernie, leading to its breakthrough on 2 April 1997, when it was taken on as a daily strip in national distribution newspaper Dagbladet.[1]
On 4 July 2000 it began publication in its own Pondus magazine, as the first Norwegian strip to ever carry its own monthly publication.[2] This was followed on 6 June 2001 with the launch of a Swedish sister magazine.[3] The strip runs daily in more than 80 Norwegian newspapers, and is syndicated to several international publications, most notably Swedish Dagens Nyheter, Danish Berlingske Tidende, and Icelandic Frettabladid.
As of 2007's first issue, Pondus magazine left publisher Schibsted to continue its run with publisher Egmont. In a simultaneous event, the character Pondus quit his job as a bus driver, and bought a pub.[4]
Frode Øverli has twice received the Sproing Award for Pondus, in 1998 and 2003, and the Adamson Award in 2006.[5][6]
Characters
Pondus' family
- Pondus - the main character, a late-thirties, football fanatic family man.
- Beate - Pondus' wife.
- Påsan/Kevin - Pondus' teenage son.
- Sneipen/Frida - Pondus' baby daughter.
- Bjarne - the family's exceptionally stupid dog.
Jokke's family
- Jokke - Pondus cool friend and a former notoriously pathetic pursuer of ugly women.
- Camilla - Jokke's girlfriend, and the mother of their child. Broke up but are together now.
- Else - Jokke's mother and wife of Günther.
- Günther - Jokke's bald, German midget stepfather.
- Jacobsen - Jokke's father, a former jailbird.
- Gordon - Jokke and Camilla's baby.
Other characters
- Turid-Laila - a stunning blonde barmaid at Pondus' pub.
- Kjakan - an awkward teenager and Påsan's best friend.
- Harold & Selma - long-time friends of Beate whom Pondus find dull.
- Hugo & Ivar - two (former) colleagues of Pondus with geek interests.
- Reidar - a car mechanic of the greediest sort.
- Roger - an awful comics creator.
- Ponny-Petra - the most notorious of Jokke's female acquaintances.
- Dr. Zimmerknaben - an unorthodox psychiatrist.
- Zlatan - a black metal-guy who works in Jokke's shop.