Comics / Comics News

Kellerman's ROCKY launches in METRO

By Leroy Douresseaux
July 29, 2006 - 14:58

THE DAILY, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL COMIC STRIP "ROCKY" BY SWEDISH CARTOONIST MARTIN KELLERMAN STARTS UP IN METRO USA

On Monday July, 17 the New York and Boston editions of daily free 
newspaper Metro -- "The World's Largest Global Newspaper" -- 
presented a different kind of daily comic strip: Martin Kellerman’s 
ROCKY.

Kellerman’s Rocky is one of the most acclaimed new comic strips to 
emerge in the last decade. Being autobiographical, the themes and 
humor of Kellerman’s comic strip are closer to TV series like 
"Seinfeld" and "Friends" than the more traditional and bland comic 
strips running in most American newspapers.

Kellerman has also used his character to do unique comics interviews 
with some of the biggest names in the music industry, like 50 Cent, 
The Game, and Pharell, and some of Kellerman’s personal favorites 
like Slick Rick, M.I.A, and Arctic Monkeys.  A number of these 
interviews have been published in American/international magazines 
like YRB and Vice.

Rocky has been running daily in Europe since 1998. Today the daily 
strips, and the weekly and monthly full pages of Rocky run in some 40 
newspapers and magazines in 8 countries.  In Sweden and Norway, Rocky also has its own monthly magazine.

The first English-language Rocky book The Big Payback was published 
by the well-respected Fantagraphics Books in the USA in November 
2005, with the second volume scheduled for Spring 2007.  The Rocky 
books are also published in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and 
Italy; plus France and Spain later this year.

This autumn work on a 3-D animated Rocky TV series begins, with a 
full length animated film to follow. Kellerman is both writer and 
director of these projects.

What will probably be amazing to American readers is how similar the 
day-to-day experiences of these Seinfeld-watching, Big Mac-eating, 
hip-hop-listening Swedes is to theirs. Rocky is a reminder as to how 
utterly global our culture has become - and a reminder that laughter 
is truly universal.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12