Myrkky #3/1990
Myrkky #3/1990 is among the earliest regular installments of what would become Finland's defining toilet-humor comics magazine, arriving in only the second year of the title's two-decade run and serving as one of the first Finnish-language showcases for several characters — Kokonainen, Puolikas, Palle Runqvist, Rhesus Miinus, Rullalauta-Naamio, and Tommy Tussi — who would spend the 1990s as household names among a generation of Finnish readers. Because Myrkky was both the Finnish adaptation of the Norwegian Pyton and a venue for original domestic content, early 1990 issues like this one mark the formative period in which the magazine was still closely tethered to its Scandinavian source material while beginning to cultivate the roster of recurring characters that gave it a distinct Finnish identity. For collectors of Nordic comics history, the 1990 issues represent the ground floor of a publishing phenomenon that outlasted every comparable Scandinavian humor title of its era.
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Myrkky launched in 1989 as the Finnish-language edition of the Norwegian humor magazine Pyton, brought to Finland by publishing director Marjaana Tulosmaa of Semic Kustannus (later absorbed into Egmont), with Antti Marttinen installed as editor-in-chief — a post he would hold for the magazine's entire twenty-year lifespan. The third issue of 1990 (cover-dated May, toukokuu) was published while the series was still in its foundational phase, drawing the bulk of its content from Pyton's back catalog; GCD reprint cross-references confirm the issue contains translations of strips originally published in Pyton #5/1987, including work scripted by Rolf Håndstad under the pen name Rhesus Minus and drawn by Tommy Sydsæter, as well as a strip by Frode Øverli. The magazine's content was anchored in crude sexual and scatological humor that, per its longtime editor, was conceived as a raunchier counterpart to MAD-style satire.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published by Egmont Kustannus (then operating as Semic Kustannus) in May 1990 (toukokuu) as the third issue of Myrkky's second year.
- Myrkky was the Finnish-language adaptation of the Norwegian magazine Pyton, and early 1990 issues like this one drew heavily on Pyton's existing story library via translation and reprint.
- GCD cross-reference data confirms the issue contains at least one strip scripted by Rolf Håndstad (credited as 'Rhesus Minus') with art by Tommy Sydsæter, reprinted from Pyton #5/1987.
- A strip by Norwegian cartoonist Frode Øverli, also from Pyton #5/1987, is confirmed as reprinted in this issue via GCD reprint trail data.
- The characters Kokonainen and Puolikas (the drunken duo), Palle Runqvist, Rhesus Miinus, Tommy Tussi, and Rullalauta-Naamio are all indexed as appearing in this issue; all became long-running recurring fixtures of Myrkky throughout the 1990s.
- Antti Marttinen served as editor-in-chief of Myrkky for its entire 1989–2009 run; he was the consistent editorial voice shaping the magazine from these early issues onward.
- Myrkky was notable as one of the only Finnish periodicals of its era that regularly published work by Finnish comics artists alongside translated Scandinavian material.
- The series ran from 1989 to 2009 — outlasting its Norwegian source publication, Pyton — making the 1990 issues part of a relatively small cohort of issues from the magazine's rarely-documented first two years.