GOOSE STEP IN E MINOR

GOOSE STEP IN E MINOR

Writer: Mika Jurva

Illustrator: Marko Turunen

English edition

Translation from Finnish Silja-Maaria Aronpuro

In the middle of his lunch break, private detective Arabacus Bunt is whisked away to a world he couldn’t even dream of the same morning. He is accompanied by a witty goose and its curly-haired assistant. Their goal is to find the Messiah girl, because she alone can lead the goose’s people to a new era of spiritual prosperity. If their mission fails, the world will spiral into destruction. It was written and will happen.

Humor, fantasy, action

14,8 x 21 cm, B&W, 96 pages

THE HISTORY OF ARABACUS BUNT

Marko Turunen

Goose Step in E Minor was created in June 1992 by two teenage boys, me, Marko Turunen, and writer Mika Jurva. The process was smooth. The entire story was ready in three weeks. At best, we managed to complete 6 to 8 pages per day. The original black and white zine was 68 pages long, and there were several images per page, unlike in this edition.

     One of the bookshops in our hometown, Kotka, sold Airtight Garage by Moebius. It was the first time I bought an expensive comic book in Finnish. I seem to recall it cost about 60 marks. I got excited about Moebius and made a trip to Helsinki with Mika to explore the comic stores and look for books by my new favourite. Mika was more into vinyl, so we also checked out the record stores.

    I read somewhere that Moebius didn’t have a script for the Airtight Garage and worked on the story a few pages at a time without knowing how the story would end. I proposed a similar project to Mika. For three weeks, Mika wrote a short text every day, and I went to pick it up by bike in the morning and drew it. I don’t remember how the character of Arabacus Bunt came about, but Mika was a fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, and I think they inspired him. In addition to music, Mika was also very into literature, and he had just read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency before he started writing Goose Step, so I believe that influenced the script.

   When Goose Step in E Minor was ready, we offered it to publishers. However, they weren’t interested, and Arabacus Bunt’s adventures only entertained friends and some casual readers. Later, I have encountered two characters who are very similar to Arabacus Bunt: The Finnish Hipporox and the British Hip Flask, who resembles Bunt surprisingly much. Me and Mika occasionally discussed new adventures for Bunt, but the plans never materialised. Mika died unexpectedly in 2003, and sadly Goose Step in E Minor remains the only Arabacus Bunt adventure.

      Around Christmas 2013, I bought a Wacom Cintiq pen display because of worsening issues with my eyesight. My eyes weren’t up for detailed drawing on a small scale anymore. I decided to give up paper and start drawing digitally, so I could keep the drawings big enough. Before my next big project, Hyperactive Sheik, I needed to get a feel of the new tool, so I started to redraw Goose Step in E Minor as an exercise. I thought I might publish it as a webcomic if I wasn’t terribly ashamed of the result. In my opinion, Mika’s script had stood the test of time well enough, but my drawings had obvious shortcomings (as well as merits). The redrawing was fast, as I didn’t really need to come up with anything new. Everything was there already. Drawing was fun and relaxed.

The book contains material from both the 2014 version and the 1992 version.

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