Throughout the last year, and during most of the Corona period, my work focused on the phenomenon of the winter solstice. Two chapters of People Not Seen deal with the old heathen belief that on this longest night, the old year has ended, but the new year hasn't yet dawned.

In this cosmic rift, strange things could occur, worlds could overlap and unknown creatures roam the earth. Many Icelandic stories describe how in this night, the Hidden People are moving in long treks across the country, for reasons only shared among themselves.

Maybe because I was researching this topic, the past two years have assumed a similar dreamlike quality, even down to the temporal architecture of Midwinter Night:

• There is a Before that will never be again,  a time in which to me it was worth mentioning in my impressions from Japan that people were actually wearing face masks on the street.

• Then, a dreamlike Now, a dangerous time, an inbetween place, in which that astonishment of yore, like so many things, is turned on its head. I feel much more disconcerted by people not wearing masks, much more exhausted by not being able to work.
• And lastly, as of this writing, a glimmer of an After, the hope that 2022 will be the year where things get back to normal – a new normal, admittedly.

I see it as a privilege to have the winter solstice unfold on my drawing board,  as it's a daily reminder of how it wasn't darkness and despair people were celebrating around Midwinter for centuries, but the interwovenness of pain and hope, the seed of summer in the most bone-chilling cold, and the return of the light amidst the Longest Night.

Three main narrative threads are spun into the yarn that is “People Not Seen”.

The first and primary thread follows the art student Dirk as he arrives in Iceland and embarks on his quest for finding the fabled Hidden People. Dirk travels through the country and talks to seers, psychiatrists and hackers about the Elf phenomenon.

Most of the interviews, though, are with eye witnesses who have had first hand experiences with the invisible people. Some have only seen them from afar, others were invited into their rock dwellings.

In the last chapter of the book, all three threads are spun together to form the end of the story.

The first Berlin lockdown came as a shock to my workshop group, which was in the middle of putting together an anthology comic for the upcoming Comic Invasion festival in May.

They could have easily thrown in the towel once it was clear that we couldn't meet in person anymore and the comics festival had to be postponed. Instead, they worked diligently on their stories, met online and eventually published “Wanderlust”, a 52-page comic about the discovery of extraordinairy places: abandoned hospitals, prisons for children, and dilapidated ring-shaped houses – all emerging from the Sea of Fog on its cover:

Contact me if you'd like to purchase a copy of “Wanderlust”, or look out for it on the table of the Werkstatt für Comics at the Comic Invasion festival end of November – fingers crossed.

Björn agreed to meet me despite the ravages of his ill health.

In a retirement home near Búðardalur he recounted his meeting with a Hidden Lady when he was a boy.

Björn was invited into the rocks and is one of the few people who have actually seen Hidden People dwellings from the inside – and returned.

Marín was probably the only fellow student at the Lístaháskola Íslands art academy who didn’t roll their eyes when hearing about my Elf project.

As a child, she has had an encounter with Hidden People herself, and at some point showed me the coastal strip near Hafnarfjörður where it all happened.

After the success of our anthology comic at this year's Comic Invasion festival in May, the new September course is an opportunity to refocus on each participant's individual needs, questions and projects.

This time, Jens Harder will open the doors of his studio for us, present his creative process and answer your questions.

Contact me for details.

I met Ragga in an online forum, where she talked about having grown up in close vicinity to an Elf hill.

She studies folkloristics at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík and lives in the small town of Eyrarbakki.

With her dry wit and open mind, she has become a friend who at one point in the book takes me to her parents’ house and shows me her own personal Elf hill.

Come join me this weekend for another Comic Invasion festival at the Museum für Kommunikation in Berlin!

Publishers, artists, talks and workshops – it's going to be fun and it's all free.

My students/mentees will have booth Nr. 23 and I will be there a lot – come by and say hi! *\ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ/*

An Icelandic ptarmigan making its signature burp-esque call.

Siðurður is head of the psychiatric department of Reykjavík’s Landsspitalinn hospital.

He was kind enough to let me interview him about the everyday practical assessment and treatment of people who claim to have seen or met Hidden People.

Not a major character, he appears now and then to share the perspective of enlightened, Western medicine on the Elf phenomenon.

Snævar is an old pal of Magnús who now lives in the northern town of Blönduós, after having lived in Norway, Sweden, the US, Thailand and the Philippines.

During the many twists and turns of his life, the Hidden People have been a benevolent presence, once even saving his life.

Hearing Snævar’s detailed, self-deprecating and sometimes heart-wrenching accounts was a first step towards thinking: Could there be more to this than just folklore?