Äijälä Läjä - Kuolemisen taito: Sarjakuvia vuosilta 1995-2017 BOOK
"The art of dying" is a collection of cartoons from the 1990s and 2000s by artist and musician Veli-Matti "Läjä" Äijälä from Tornia. Läjä, who is best known as the singer of the Finnish hardcore punk pioneer band Terveiden Käsien, along with hardcore and special music (e.g. Aaviko kone ja mooti, The Sultans, The Kolmas, Death Trip) has also excelled during his career as a cartoonist and illustrator of album covers. His cartoons have previously appeared in Kupla-lehti, Like-sanomis and in the self-published publication X, which drew on sadomasochism and leather/rubber fetishes, among others.
"The Art of Dying" contains Läjä's forgotten underground comics from 1996–2017, a large part of which has appeared from the beginning in the Sarjari magazine edited by PA Manninen. Between the covers there are also strips published in Like-sanom and a bunch of previously unpublished material. The themes familiar to Äijälä's art are present in the album's dark cartoons: dark humor, perversions, pain and death. The foreword to the work has been written by cartoon hero PA Manninen.
Numbered set of 300 hardcovers.
Abraxas 2024
