Martin Böer

CBA is an international comics anthology for experimental storytelling. The theme of this volume is Worst Case Scenario: What’s the worst that could happen? And if that happens, what’s the worst that could happen? And if that happens, what’s the worst that could happen? And so on… There’s a psychiatric method in cognitive behavioral therapy called “The Downward Arrow Technique” where you begin by writing down the answers to this repeated question and we thought it’d be the perfect theme for our upcoming CBA vol 40. Especially since this is an election year in Sweden. Especially since war and famine and climate change and personal disasters are on the horizon. So how bad can it get?

Folklore – it’s the stories our parents told us as children as well as a glimpse into another world, of fairies, trolls, and magic. But folklore is more than just stories about bad children who get eaten by witches; it’s our shared fears, hopes and dreams and they often share similar themes across the world. Folk tales have been told by an infinite number of people with equally infinite motives; some to warn, others to encourage and some who just try to make sense of the world around them. In volume 44 of CBA we want to dig deep into the roots of folklore from different cultures and explore what it has to say about ourselves as human beings regardless of nationality.

In this volume of CBA the focus is on superheroes, but instead of the conventional view we have instead subverted the genre, resulting in comics and texts that really explore something different within the superhero genre.