Tor Harald Blom lives in a small town called Flekkefjord in Norway. He paints and draws a lot, but focuses his time on creating stories. Tor has worked for theater and media, has a Bachelors in Geography and has created the web comics Monk and A Cup of Tea as well as the Typisk! comics for mobile phones.

Stephen McCranie: Every panel in your story, “Illuminated,” is literally a painting. What challenges did you face while working on this story for Parable, Volume 1?

Tor Harald Blom: Space, the images vary from 40×40 cm to 90×60 cm. So when you see one of the panels in the story it is a big painting in the real world. And a fun thing also about space is that in the middle of making the story I moved to another place in Norway. The first time I saw it like a story was when I had it photographed and was making the pages. I made it over a period of months to half a year, and half of the images were still unwrapped after I had moved- until it was photographed. Painting over this long period of time and not having the room to have them all displayed at once was a challenge. I had to change the colors on some the paintings to make them look like the same story. If you work in a format where you can see a page at a time you get a more consistent look on every panel. Acrylic paintings live their own life on the canvas, so you need to change certain things to get that same look.

S: How did you find out about the Parable anthology? How did you join?

T: Here in Norway there isn’t a big group of people who are making comics, and they also live far away from each other. And I like the all-ages comics the best, a type of comics genre that not many people in Norway work with. So I turned my eyes out and found internet forums. The first one was for the wonderful comic “Herobear and the Kid” where I found some good friends. From that place I learned about the comic industry in the US and found the Flight forums. And on that one I found my entrance to Parable. At first I thought not to join, but then this story came in my head, and here I am. ^____^ Happy to be part of it!

S: So right now you live in Norway; have you ever lived in America before? Do you have any funny stories about your experience in America?

T: In 1998, the plan was to travel to Hollywood, but I ended up in Ghana at a hospital while the American president (Clinton) at that time was in the same capital (Accara) holding a meeting with the leaders of the country. It is strange how life turns it’s way, I have not been to America yet, but Ghana was great. But one day I hope to travel to the US, see the BIG trees, maybe a comic convention. I can tell that the people who traveled to Hollywood when I ended up in Ghana also made it into the Titanic Oscar party, under the cover of being journalists.

S: And what is life like in Norway? I’ll bet it’s really cold right now.

T: Where I live it is winter without snow (or very little snow) and frost in the daytime. I did see the first flowers come up from the ground in the middle of February. The weather is more like England in my part of the country- rain and wind. Norway is a long thin country, so if you turn the north end of Norway about 180 degrees it will end up in Roma. Because the country is so long we get nearly all kinds of weather, so it is one of the most normal topics people talk about. I don’t think life in Norway is that different from life in northern US or Canada. Norwegians like to go hiking in the mountains and be out in nature, and they have a religious relation to nature. I think that the biggest church in Norway is the forest. It is where Norwegians find that there is peace and balance in life.

S: How did you become a Christian?

T: Well, I don’t remember not being a Christian. I grew up in the Christian religion and tradition that is part of what Norway is founded upon. So you can say that I just follow up my traditions and what I know. But then again you can say that every day you wake up you chose to be a Christian. It is an everyday choice (LUKE 10.25-37). I have stayed a Christian because it feels like I am home- something good to hold on to in life.

S: What projects are you working on right now?

T: I am making a 2D animated intro to the pilot episode of a stop-motion children’s TV series. Also working on a Parable 2 story, alongside some children’s book projects and my weekly web comic “A cup of TEA - A diary in memory of the forest“. This year I have also started to build an archive of all that I have made through the years. I made my first comic in 1991 and have never stopped making stories and art. So now I am making one big digital archive. It is like a treasure hunt- looking trough old work, finding ideas long forgotten. I recommended it to everyone who has made stuff over many years. You will be amazed, and have fun. Both in seeing your past ideas, and the progress you have made from the start.

In two weeks, tune in for an interview with Ben Hatke!