1993-1997
KARI KUKKO, BELSA THE BABYLONIAN AND THE OTHERS

Summer 1993, I learned how to ride the bike and I also began to draw comics more seriously. Before this, I did draw some comics based mainly on some teddy bears we owned (although in my drawings they didn't look like teddy bears) but now was the time for a main character called Kari Kukko (Kari the Rooster) and his wife Kaisu. I also experimented some other adventures, but was only able to finish several Kari's stories.

Or perhaps I should be more accurate. I was able to finish other stories. Actually, from 8 to 10 years old, I was full of stories. I started 'playing programs', monologues, short movies where I played every role. I only stopped doing those thing after I accidentially run into a door glass and nearly killed myself. In this case, fortunately the hospital was near.

Another quick way to finish stories was to play them with LEGO figures. I carefully structured and arranged the houses, castles and ships and some LEGO figures even had their own names and traits. I wasn't completely alone there with the LEGOs though, I had one close friend from the same school and sometimes my cousins. But we three never had a chance to play as a threesome, and even when there were two of us playing, there usually were two different plots and almost no interraction.

At the same time, I began to notice something was wrong with my mother. Policemen sometimes came to my house looking for her. She had to spend time in the same mental hospital, Visala, I visited later. Meanwhile, I stayed either at my grandmother's place or in substitute families. Latter occasions exposed me 24/7 to typical pop culture, for instance Looney Tunes and The Simpsons. Those were the substitute families in Kalajoki.

Autumn and winter 1994 came, bringing on a long-lasting character, Belsa Babylonialainen (Belsa the Babylonian), who was to live in the seventh and sixth century BCE. The Bible was a vast source of inspiration, as well as other events in the ancient world. The first adventure of Belsa took place during Nebuchadnezzar II's sack of Jerusalem. The second was about Nebuchadnezzar II's image of gold, and although it ended up unfinished, I was able to continue Belsa's adventures for a total of 20 complete 'albums' or 'books', if you will, even after being separated from my mother for good. I also read Mika Waltari's book 'Sinuhe the Egyptian' very quickly when I was 11 years old.

Other late-Kalajoki era comics were Lammen Väki (Folk of the Pond), Ukko, and Heppu Humanoidi (Heppu the Humanoid). Lammen Väki and Ukko were about talking animals and their interraction with hunters and peasants, respectively, while Heppu Humanoidi was sci-fi, of course.

Meanwhile, school went quite well, but looking back to it now, I knew many things already. I was picky about what I wanted to learn, and also, it was easy to blame the new teacher who started to teach at that school in 1995. The new teacher was into gymnastics and sports more than the one we had for the first 2 years and six months. I had an impression he ignored teaching world history, concentrating more on local history, too. But then the most practical thing I managed to learn at the age of 10 or 11. To tell the time using a normal clock, not a digital one like before.