Swedish artist turns Carl Bildt's tweets to cartoons

The Local catches up with a Swedish illustrator Henrik Tomenius, who has captured the interest of the world through his tongue-in-cheek illustrations of tweets by Sweden's Twitter-savvy foreign minister Carl Bildt.

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Tomenius, 35, is an illustrator from Uppsala, eastern Sweden, whose artistic take on Carl Bildt has got people talking.

“Carl Bildt’s tweets are not intended to be funny but still they all hold comic potential as they are personal and raw,” he told The Local.

“I just need to tweak the meaning of them in one way or the other and the drawing is usually done.”

Tomenius’s comic versions of Carl Bildt’s tweets have resulted in thousands of people following him on Twitter (@carlbildtcomics), eager to see Bildt’s tweets coming to life each day.

“People seem to like it as it is a new approach to Twitter and tweets, and also as a new way of ridiculing a famous politician,” he told The Local.

The choice of Bildt was simple, according to Tomenius, and added that the 140 character limit of Twitter opened new doors for him as an artist.

“I chose Carl Bildt because he travels a lot, meets different people, voices his opinion about all manner of things and because he’s famous,” he said.

“The challenge of making something fast out of a short text like a tweet. The shortness of the tweet leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which is good for me."

While unsure of whether the minister himself has noticed the comics, Tomenius sees big things ahead for the fictionalized version of Bildt he's developed through his cartoons, including potentially even a book.

“It would be fun to collect the best tweet comics in a book or something... Maybe together with some longer Carl Bildt adventures in comic form.”

The Local has gathered some of Tomenius's previously published comics in a gallery which can be viewed by clicking the link below.

The Local's Carl Bildt comics gallery

And starting this week, we'll be updating the gallery with new installments from @carlbildtcomics at least once a week, so be sure to keep an eye out for more creative cartoon interpretations of Carl Bildt's tweets.

The Local
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