About
Hi there!
My name is Arvid. I'm a comic book writer. This is my site! Yay.
Rex Mundi is a project I worked on for about ten years. It's a quest for the Holy Grail told as a murder mystery.
I also created Zero Killer, set in a world destroyed by nuclear war in 1973. A collection comes out in August.
My next big project is a novel based on my love of Celtic and Norse mythology.
In the meantime, I'm doing work for lots of publishers, including Dark Horse and Dynamite Entertainment. I'm also working on an illustrated novella through Radical Comics with Joseph Kosinski, the director of the upcoming Tron: Legacy movie.
Aside from the tenets of the Bahá’í Faith – I became a Bahá'í in college – I have but two creeds in life: 1., pie > cake, and, 2., metal > punk. Metal RULES. I’m also married to the beautiful and lovely Robyn Nelson, née Sklar. I studied Kempo for about fifteen years, and I took opera lessons all through high school, so beware: I will rock your world when it comes to karaoke or jump-kicking.
Be my friend! And if you want to drop me a line, please do: arvid (at) rexmundi (dot) net.
About this site
Arvidland is the best way to stay informed about all of my projects. I'll also post little snippets now and again about things I like. I'm going to try to keep it interesting (don't laugh). I promise I will never, ever post pictures of cats in Halloween costumes, or details about me making a peach cobbler. Or whatever.
I also promise – and I've already been guilty of this, but no more – to stay positive. There's more than enough negativity and nastiness on the Internet as it is, thank you very much. Any time you see a new post, it will be because of something I love, not something I despise.
So there you have it: interesting and positive. Happy reading.
last update: 06.15.10
October 19th, 2009 - 16:48
Bonjour monsieur,
Yes i’m french, and parisian “de surcroit” !
Well, i’m a big fan of uchronia, steampunk, alan moore, and lovecraftia (and marvel comics in my young days…), whatever I never heard of you and Rex Mundi until …
One day we went to a hard-discount-shop which solds lots of items for home decoration and while my wife was looking for kitchen hardware i stumbled into a special price offer of comics near the exit (in between curtains and cd’s storage furniture)
I discovered (for a very interesting price) the french edition of the first volume of rex mundi (semic books) ! (I also bought ruse n° 2and 3 n° of the authority)
waoou ! uchronia ! Paris 1933, no french revolution and a beautiful europen map . Moreover the hero was a detective called sauniere. ahaha what a joke! I suppose not a lot of americans know the story of the real abbé Sauniére and his templar treasure mystery. “cerise sur le gateau” ,I saw at the end of the book some newspaper articles “d’epoque” le journal de la liberté”.
I’ve only read two chapters but I’m already becoming fan
bravo for your work !
October 20th, 2009 - 08:30
Merci, monsieur le Comte! Would you believe I had the idea for Rex Mundi whilst gazing at the church of St. Germain des Prés in Paris?
I believe a new publisher is going to be re-issuing Rex Mundi in the near future… expect it soon!
Never mind the oddity of a comic written in English, set in France, and then translated back into the language the characters are supposedly speaking in in the first place…
October 23rd, 2009 - 13:19
Ah St Germain des Pres, one of the places I like the most in Paris, in a street near (rue Dante) you can find 5 or 6 shops with imported material of sci-fi, fantastica, comics, mangas etc… but no kitchen hardware !
Have you heard about la Brigade Chimerique ? it’s an uchronian french comic on europeans pulp heroes in between world war I and II. The subject is why have all the europeans superheroes from this period have disapeared ?
Reallly it’s a little and beautiful pearl. I don’t think it has been puiblished in us or elsewhere, but let me show you the link to their site, and tell me what you think about the design and the spirit.
http://www.brigadechimerique.com/index.php?pid=1
à plus…
November 17th, 2009 - 07:54
The Chimerical Brigade – I’m guessing that’s how you’d pronounce it – looks fantastic! It hasn’t been translated into English? C’est domage! Ah, comics really are better in Europe, especially France. The creativity and the quality of the execution is orders of magnitude over and above all of the garbage we pump out here in the United States.
How I wish I could speak/read/write French at a level above that of a Neanderthal! I’m a European trapped in an American’s body.
November 21st, 2009 - 19:35
Oh la la! don’t be so cruel to yourself and your nation (at least for what regards comics).
When I was young (in the 70′s-80′s, I discovered marvel comics and it was a real evasion from all the very “conservative” comics here in france. A whole universe of heroes…. it made me dream and escape frome reality. In France we have heroes, but no super ones. This is a translation of the author of Chimerical brigade introduction “The frustration is without mystery: not only there is no super-hero in France, and more widely in continental Europe, but it seems impossible to create one which is not a tribute, a parody or an imitation weakened by the major figures of the US comics. Something “lack” in our imagination, we can’t say what exactly. There are many readers and authors to have felt this lack.”
As we say : we dream of paradise, and paradise inhabitants dream of our place.
a+
November 23rd, 2009 - 17:35
See, monsieur Comte? French people are so terrific they even understand and appreciate American comics.
Hah hah. I’m kidding, of course, I do realize American comics have a lot to offer. I suppose it’s just like anything else: most of it is garbage, but there are a few priceless gems lurking in the muck.
Thanks for that translation, it got me thinking. Superheroes are uniquely American, aren’t they? Just like gigantic transforming robots are uniquely Japanese.
December 20th, 2009 - 14:35
and just like good wine is uniquely french….
and just like good beer is uniquely belgian….
and just like good pizza is uniquely italian….
and just like good music is uniquely british….
I shouldn’t but i’m showing you the unique real french super-hero
http://iheartjq.com/?p=1
More seriously, as France “exception culturelle” is thank god protecting us from USA cultural invasion, yes we can ! i’ve recived the not-traduced-in-french following chapters of rex mundi from amazon. But i will not read them until christmas as they are my presents. By just giving an eye thru it i’m impatient … I think you are the only one who have reached the goal of having a serious and beautiful uchronian comic. Moreover you have “saupoudré” it with sherlock-holmes, ocultism; detective story, etc which gives it a whole very intersting taste.
Speaking of detective, have you been influenced in some way by your predessor edgar allan poe in writing the story of a french detective (i’m speaking Auguste dupin of course) ?
Have a good christmas and don’t be to cruel with the turkey
December 22nd, 2009 - 08:11
Would you believe I’m a vegetarian? Absolutely no turkeys died as a result of me on Thanksgiving. On the other hand, it was The Holocaust of the Brussel Sprouts.
I love that French super hero! And I absolutely agree with you, the British really do music better than anyone else. How I love British electronica.
I really appreciate your praise of Rex Mundi! I’m absolutely nuts about Poe, but Julien’s character is actually more based on hard-nosed American PIs, like Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. That was sort of the “big idea” behind Rex Mundi; doing an American-style noir detective story set in Europe. I mean, whether it’s Father Brown or Sherlock Holmes, European-style detectives are always three steps ahead of the police, who are basically good but also bumbling idiots, missing the size 13 bootprint outside the window or the bloody handkerchief shoved up the chimney flue or whatever.
That’s what I like about American detective fiction: the cops are just as smart as the gangsters. And just as dangerous. By the time the main character gets there, not only have they already figured out exactly what happened… they’ve already been paid off, too.
September 6th, 2010 - 16:41
Bonjour et Bravo …
I had a good surprise when I went to my comic store next week. Rex Mundi is reedited in french and was on a good view just on top of the new comics. Moreover your Kull book hardcover in french was not very far from it. It’s arvid invasion of France !
I’ve seen that it is publicated with an other story of a certain frere Mathieu, pity it was not on original U-S printing of REX.
Well i hope you will have great success here.
I’ve recently craeted a blog to promote things I like : comics, movies, music etc to my friends far or near. I’ll be pleased if you visit it as my last post is on Rex Mundi . I’ll try to put on our two posts by week.
http://we-can-utopia.blogspot.com/
Longue vie au Roy