Herman Hedning #4/1999 (6)
Herman Hedning #4/1999 arrives during the magazine's formative second year of existence — one of only six issues published in 1999 as the title ramped toward its steady eight-issues-per-year cadence — making every issue from this window part of the foundational run of what became Sweden's most durable humour anthology. Most significantly, the character index for this issue includes the entire Jävelberg family (Stan, Mavis, Derek, Sharon, and Damien), which are the Swedish-localised names for Lew Stringer's Suburban Satanists cast; multiple sources confirm that strip restarted in Herman Hedning in 1999 after its original home, the Norwegian comic Geek, folded, marking this as the period in which that internationally contributed strip found its long-running Scandinavian home. The issue therefore documents a rare moment of Anglo-Scandinavian comics crossover, with a British creator embedded inside a Swedish anthology at its earliest stage.
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
The Herman Hedning magazine was launched by Egmont in autumn 1998 after the cancellation of the Bacon & Ägg anthology freed Jonas Darnell — the strip's sole writer and artist since its 1988 debut in Fantomen — to anchor his own title. The 1999 run of six issues represented the magazine's first full calendar year and a deliberate expansion toward the format's mature rhythm. Lew Stringer's Suburban Satanists strip, originally created in 1997 for the short-lived Norwegian comic Geek, was picked up by Egmont and relaunched in Herman Hedning starting in 1999, adding an internationally produced back-up strip to what had been an almost entirely Darnell-driven production.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Herman Hedning #4/1999 is the 6th overall issue of the standalone Herman Hedning magazine, which launched in autumn 1998 under Egmont Kids Media Nordic.
- 1999 was the magazine's first full calendar year; only six issues were published that year before the series settled into an eight-issues-per-year schedule from 2000 onward.
- The issue is written and drawn entirely by Jonas Darnell (born 1964), the sole creator of the Herman Hedning strip since its 1988 debut in Fantomen, the Swedish edition of The Phantom.
- The Jävelberg family characters indexed in this issue (Stan, Mavis, Derek, Sharon, Damien) are the Swedish-localised cast of The Suburban Satanists, a strip created by British cartoonist Lew Stringer that restarted in Herman Hedning in 1999 after its original home, the Norwegian comic Geek, folded.
- The Suburban Satanists strip ran as a regular feature in Herman Hedning from 1999 to approximately 2004–2007 and received a standalone collected edition in Norway in 2003.
- Recurring cast members in this issue include the series' three prehistoric protagonists (Herman, Gammelman, Lilleman), the Devil (Djävulen), the Creator (Skaparen — a laptop-wielding God parody), and biblical figures Adam and Eva, all core to Darnell's satirical pseudo-prehistoric world.
- The Herman Hedning magazine was published by Egmont from 1998 to 2018 and simultaneously distributed in Norway (1998–2009); after Egmont dropped the title, Darnell revived it through a record-breaking Swedish Kickstarter campaign under his own imprint, Evil Ink.
- Stories from the 1998–2001 period, which includes this issue, were later collected in the hardcover omnibus volume Svammelsurium, part of Darnell's ongoing archival reprint programme.