Bernadotte, our French king

~Now available in stores!~

I am proud, and relieved, to present the project that I have been working on for the past four months: “Bernadotte, vår franske kung” – which means Bernadotte, our French king in Swedish. It is a comic about the life of Charles XIV John, or Karl XIV Johan as he is called in Sweden, and Carl III Johan in Norway. All 36 pages are drawn and I will be putting everything together next week.

Karl XIV Johan's biography in brief
Karl Johan was born in 1763 in a small village near the French Pyrenees as Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, son to a low-level lawyer. To escape the legal profession he enrolled in the army at the age of 17. He did quite well there, but his career road was blocked by the laws of the time, which stated that only those of noble birth could gain officer’s rank. This and many other things were over-turned come the French revolution in 1789. Although Jean Baptiste was not a whole-hearted supporter of the revolution and the chaos it brought, it did provide him with rapid advancement and was the catalyst of a fantastic life story in which he served first the Republic and then the emperor Napoleon, and in which chance and coincidence would eventually take him to the distant northern land of Sweden where he was made king and given a new name.

The current king of Sweden is descended from Jean Baptiste. The crown princess Victoria is to be married next year, which coincides with the 200 year jubilee of her French ancestor's election to crown prince of Sweden.

For this project I have taken care to be historically correct, and there are plenty of Easter eggs for those who know their history!

The production team
The comic is written by Maria Bergström, drawn by me and coloured by Gabrielle Nilsson, known as Gabbi here on Deviantart. Anne-le Sahlin has provided support though additional historical research. The publisher is Kulturpoolen i Falun, who specializes in historical comics and often pick relatively new artists to work with. I have made one comic for them before, “Little Selma from Mårbacka”.

How to purchase
The comic is now available to buy! Many stores will not have it on their shelves yet, but you can remind them or, if you can't wait, the comic is available through the following vendors:

Bokus (on-line) [link]
Bokextra (on-line) [link]
Skivlagret (Eskilstuna, Halmstad, Johanneshov, Kalmar, Kristianesand, Motala and Trelleborg) [link]
Skolshoppen (on-line) [link]
Ord & Bok (on-line) [link]

ISBN number is: 978-91-977522-9-9.
At present the comic is only available in Swedish.



Links
Please note that the colour work of this piece is © Gabrielle Nilsson. I only drew the lines.
Preview pages for Bernadotte, our French king [link]
Poster for Bernadotte, our French king [link]
Karl XIV Johan on Wikipedia [link]
Kulturpoolen i Falun [link]
Little Selma from Mårbacka [link]