Herman Hedning & Co [julalbum] #1
Herman Hedning & Co [julalbum] #1 (1990, Semic) marks the debut of Jonas Darnell's irreverent prehistoric comedy as a standalone collected album format, cementing it as a permanent fixture in Swedish comics culture rather than a mere back-up strip. The series launched the julalbum (Christmas album) tradition for the title — one that has continued without interruption for over three decades, making it among the most durable domestically-produced Swedish comic series of its era. Its full cast of recurring characters — Herman, Gammelman, Lilleman, Djävulen, Skaparen, and the biblical duo Adam and Eva — all appear in their collected album context here for the first time, introducing readers to the anarchic, anachronism-fuelled alternate prehistory that defines the strip's identity. Within the broader history of Swedish julalbum publishing, Herman Hedning stands out as one of only a handful of domestically-created (non-licensed) titles to establish itself as a long-running annual series alongside stalwarts like Bamse.
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Jonas Darnell created Herman Hedning in 1987–1988 at the direct request of his editor at Semic's Fantomen magazine, who wanted a short humorous strip for the editorial page; Darnell has said he was simply too busy — and too intimidated — to refuse. The strip debuted in Fantomen, the Swedish edition of The Phantom, and its success among readers led Semic to collect the accumulated strips into an annual Christmas album beginning in 1990. Darnell drew inspiration from his heavy-metal friends' banter and from childhood favourites such as the American strips Broom-Hilda and B.C., giving the series its distinctive mix of prehistoric setting and wildly anachronistic modern technology and social satire.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Herman Hedning first appeared as a back-up strip in Fantomen (the Swedish Phantom magazine) in 1988, created entirely by Jonas Darnell — writer, artist, and letterer.
- This 1990 album is the first collected standalone publication of the series, marking the beginning of a julalbum line that has been published annually ever since.
- The issue collects early strips featuring the core cast: Herman (the brutish, self-centred caveman protagonist), Gammelman (the genius inventor), and Lilleman (the kind-hearted perpetual victim) — the three central characters of the entire run.
- Also included are recurring figures Djävulen (the Devil, the strip's most frequent villain), Skaparen (the Creator, a parody of God), and the biblical pair Adam and Eva, establishing the strip's irreverent theological universe from the outset.
- The character Jonas Darnell appears indexed for this issue, consistent with Darnell's practice of including authorial self-inserts and meta-commentary within the strip.
- Herman Hedning is published not only in Sweden but also in Norway and Finland, and went on to generate over 700 strips by Darnell, with roughly 680 translated into English.
- The series launched its own dedicated magazine in 1998 (Egmont), running to over 130 issues; the julalbum series, which began here, predates the magazine by eight years and served as the primary collected format throughout the 1990s.
- The Seriewikin (Seriefrämjandet's comics encyclopedia) identifies Herman Hedning as one of the select few domestically-created Swedish titles to successfully sustain an annual julalbum tradition, alongside Bamse (from 1991), Hälge (from 1992), and others.