Herman Hedning #5/2003 (37)
Herman Hedning #5/2003 (37) is a mid-run issue of one of Sweden's most enduringly popular humor comics, appearing during the Egmont era's peak output of eight issues per year — a publishing pace that reflected the magazine's strong domestic readership throughout the 2000s. The sheer density of its cast index, encompassing the core prehistoric trio of Herman, Gammelman, and Lilleman alongside recurring figures like Satan and the series' signature mordant supporting players, illustrates the creative ambition Jonas Darnell sustained across hundreds of installments. As a Scandinavian humor anthology, the magazine served as a rare platform for adult comedic comics in a market dominated by superhero and adventure material, giving the series cultural significance well beyond its geographic origins. The issue also appears to have featured the Jävelberg family ensemble — a modern-world cast that contrasts with the prehistoric main setting — making it representative of the series' ongoing experiment with parallel narrative worlds.
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Herman Hedning was created entirely by Jonas Darnell, a self-taught Swedish cartoonist born in 1964, who debuted the strip in Fantomen (the Swedish edition of The Phantom) with issue #1/1988 at the request of the magazine's editorial staff. The strip was initially published in black-and-white half-page strip format, transitioned to color when Fantomen did in 1991, and in 1998 graduated to its own standalone anthology magazine published by Egmont Serieförlaget under responsible publisher Ulf Granberg. By 2003 the magazine was running eight issues annually, each expanding the strip format into longer multi-page stories; #5/2003 falls squarely in this mature phase, approximately five years into the standalone title's run and the 37th issue overall.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Issue #5/2003 carries the cumulative number 37, confirming it is the 37th issue of the standalone Herman Hedning magazine that launched in 1998 under Egmont Serieförlaget — a figure verified by the Grand Comics Database series index.
- The magazine was running at a pace of eight issues per year throughout 2000–2009, so #5/2003 was a standard mid-year release in a high-output period for the title.
- Herman Hedning was created, written, and drawn entirely by Jonas Darnell, a self-taught Swedish cartoonist; the series debuted in Fantomen #1/1988 and became an immediate reader favourite before earning its own magazine in 1998.
- The responsible publisher (ansvarig utgivare) during this period was Ulf Granberg, who held that role from the magazine's 1998 launch through 2012.
- The issue's character roster spans both the prehistoric 'Creation' setting — featuring Herman, Gammelman, Lilleman, Satan, and Mumien — and what appears to be a modern-world or parallel-cast segment involving the Jävelberg family (Benny, Damien, Derek, Mavis, Sharon, Stan) alongside named supporting characters such as Kommissarie Barskebäck, Dr. Alabander Modul, and Jan Milou, reflecting Darnell's use of multiple concurrent narrative settings.
- The Fantomen character (here listed as 'Fantomen') is consistent with the series' well-documented tradition of Phantom parody and cross-reference, rooted in the comic's origin as a back-up strip inside the Swedish Phantom magazine.
- The Egmont era of the Herman Hedning magazine ran from 1998 to 2018, when Egmont dropped the title; Jonas Darnell subsequently crowd-funded a new independent publishing company via Kickstarter to continue publication under the Evil Ink förlag imprint.
- The series has been collected in large hardcover omnibus volumes (including Prekampbrium, Svammelsurium, Egocentrium, and subsequent volumes) that reprint strips and longer stories in chronological order, meaning stories from this 2003 issue may appear in one of those collected editions.