Story & art: Jonas ’Isegrim’ Lidström
Translation: Åke Rosenius

And now for something completely different…

By far the longest, and weirdest (in a good way), take on Bernard the Barbarian that anyone has drawn. The full piece consists of 11 strips, including three optional ”extras” – 3rd to 5th strips below – plus a trading card. The first strip was included in Bernard's compilation book while the rest appeared on the Fenix website.

The word balloons and text boxes are translated from Swedish, but I didn't want to mess around with handwritten in-picture texts unless it was really needed; hence it's ”Lex Birger” and not ”Lex Bernard”. His name turns up in a few places; the runic text in the 6th strip says ”our Birger rocking phat” (more freely, ”our Birger is the shit”).  Anything that's in German and stuff has been left untouched.

I do recommend taking a moment to check out all the little details in these strips, there's plenty to discover there.

For context, the comic is based on the real but somewhat obscure literary subculture around the many European fencing manuals that were produced in the late Middle Ages. (Fencing master Liechtenauer is a real historical figure.)  ”Craculus, snapulum, populus” is of course a reference to Snap, Crackle and Pop of Kellogg's Rice Krispies fame.

The Dark and Hairy Annals of Birger Barbaren (strip #1 only)
Fenix website