Bamse
is a Swedish cartoon created by Rune Andréasson. The highly popular children's cartoon first emerged as a series of television short films as well as a weekly half-page Sunday strip in 1966, before being published periodically in its own comic magazine since 1973.
Andréasson did all the artwork himself until 1975 and wrote all the comics until 1990. Francisco Tora did all the illustrations from 1976 until he was joined by Bo Michanek in 1983. Several new writers and illustrators were hired in the early 1990s, including Claes Reimerthi, Olof Siverbo, Johan Wanloo and Tony Cronstam. Andréasson continued to do the magazine cover illustrations until 1992.
The series somewhat changed direction when Bamse had children, specifically triplets, in 1982. He had a fourth child in 1986, and his friend Lille Skutt had one at the same time; this saw the series focus more on family, while also discussing other values such as gender equality. In 1989, the character Skalman noticed that Bamse's fourth child Brumma had some intellectual disability, later defined as her being on the Autism spectrum, which again brought up the subject of equality. The children did develop in real time within the magazine, but seem to have been fixed in age since around 1990. They are now around nine years old, in a narratively advantageous eternal state as third-graders.
Both the early Sunday strips and the early magazines have since been reprinted as glossy hardbound volumes.
In 1998, the theme park Bamses Värld started as an attraction at the Kolmården Wildlife Park, with theater performances, restaurants and houses from the comic.
Characters
Protagonists
- Bamse, the main character, is a brown bear who becomes the world's strongest bear by eating a type of honey called dunderhonung, specially prepared for him by his grandmother. Almost anyone else who eats it, apart from Bamse's pet bee and his daughter Nallemaja, ends up with three days of stomach ache. Bamse is also the kindest bear in the world, and is often seen helping those in need. The name Bamse comes from a Scandinavian word for 'bear' or 'teddy bear'. Bamse can also translate to 'giant' or 'big one', though that would be something of a misnomer, as Bamse is rather diminutive in size compared to many of the other characters.
- Brummelisa is the daughter of a forester who could always rely on Bamse helping out; soon they fell in love. In 1981, they all went on a boat trip to the north of Scandinavia, climaxing in a view of the midnight sun. Back home, Brummelisa and Bamse staged a secret wedding and became parents to triplets: Brum, Teddy, Nalle-Maja. Brum is artistically gifted, but somewhat shy. Teddy spends a lot of time by himself, and loves reading and learning. Nalle-Maja is the most extrovert kid, and loves sports and activities. Once their personalities began to shine through Teddy gravitated towards Skalman who noticed what the others failed to; Teddy's clumsiness stems from his eyesight and only needed a pair of glasses. Nalle-Maja has inherited more than just her father's looks; she also inherited his ability to get strong from the dunderhonung. To prevent her from injuring herself or her brothers, Bamse's grandmother attempted a new dunderhonung recipe to avoid making her strong. She partially succeeded; Nalle-Maja draws strength from it, but also winds up with the stomach ache. In late 1985 the triplets were informed on the arrival of another sibling; Brumma, who – when eating dunderhonung – neither gets strong nor is affected by the stomach ache.
- Lille Skutt is Bamse's and Skalman's best friend. He is a very fast but notoriously frightened white rabbit with a red bow tie. However, his ability to run quick and jump far has saved his friends' skins on more than one occasion. Lille Skutt is the village postman, albeit on a part-time basis. He also works part-time as the head chef of the local restaurant. Like Bamse, Skutt ended up marrying his girlfriend, Nina Kanin, best friend of Brummelisa. Nina and Skutt became parents to a son, Mini-Hopp, a hyperactive child with an apparent lack of fear. He has eight siblings, including Happ. Happ is a gay rabbit. He and his life-partner Lille Sixten have adopted a little girl named Suddan, who is slightly younger than Mini-Hopp.
- Skalman is an ingenious tortoise who invents all sorts of things, including spacecraft and time machines. He stores just about anything in his carapace except for locomotives, spaceships or atlantic steamboats. Skalman seems to be a polyphasic sleeper, and according to himself, his best invention is the food-and-sleep clock, whose calls he follows slavishly, even at times when sleep seems highly inappropriate. To this date, he has only ignored the alarm call a few times, including the discovery of a dinosaur's egg, the birth of Bamse's children, and a state of deep depression due to the false belief that his carelessness had caused the death of Bamse's children. Also, he has once mentioned that he is in one way unlike everyone else – if he would actually eat sleeping draught, he cannot sleep at all for a quite long time – not even when the alarm calls. None of the other characters come close to Skalman's intellectual level and he is sometimes seen playing chess with himself. Rune Andréasson said that he brought the food-and-sleep clock into the series for much the same reason as the dunderhonung; during a dangerous adventure, Skalman could just pull something out of his carapace to save them, or help the trio with his intellect. That is when the food-and-sleep clock calls Skalman to sleep, forcing Bamse and Lille Skutt to think on their own.
- Vargen is a black wolf who was the original main villain of the comic; a criminal and a bully who at one point was named "World Champion of Evil" by his colleagues, but later on proved to not be such a bad person if given a chance. Vargen grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and was introduced to a life of crime by his villainous stepfathers. When they eventually ended up in prison he knew that it was time to make a fresh start but his past turned against him as nobody wanted to give him the chance to better his life. Bamse, however, did, and eventually managed to reform the wolf by consistently treating him with kindness. Vargen occasionally slips back into his old ways, but as far as the other wolves are concerned he blew it by joining Bamse's club.
Antagonists
- Krösus Sork is an often cruel capitalist and secondary villain of the comic; born as a banker's son he was forced to play second fiddle to his brother Slösus who could not put a foot wrong. After Slösus later won a lottery, Krösus forged his own ticket, switched the tickets, claimed Slösus' prize and let the unknowing Slösus get detained for forgery while using the prize to build up his criminal empire. Slösus was devastated to discover the truth after his release and they had a falling-out. While Krösus has on occasion showed some small shred of conscience and generally commits crimes for self-profit and not out of cruelty, he seems the most amoral of the series' classic villains, willing to do just about anything that will improve his net worth. He displays an opulent lifestyle, regularly smoking expensive cigars and is never seen without his signature top hat, striped trousers and wingtip shoes, and decorates his office with gold and artworks, but seems to primarily enjoy hoarding wealth rather than enjoy a life of luxury. Krösus employs an army of voles for tasks such as burglary and fencing, generally avoiding punishment due to keeping his hands clean from dirt, on one occasion literally. As Bamse's children remarks on one occasion he does not seem to have friends, with all his relationships being strictly transactional and any conversation not disclosing information or concluding an obligation is quickly terminated, with the moniker "time is money!". In short, Krösus represents a crude image of the capitalist system and its logic, which featured prominently in early Bamse comics.
- Kapten Buster and his three clumsy sideman pirates, Rusken, Slusken and Stollen. They are largely incompetent and unsuccessful, and have mostly given up their life at sea thanks to a tendency towards seasickness.
- Knocke & Smocke are two large thugs with flat caps who have performed several unsuccessful criminal attempts. They usually rely mainly on brute force and are generally outwitted by Skalman or others.
- Reinard is a sly fox and the newest main villain of the comic, who became an addition to the crew in 2006. He is shown to engage in all kinds of villainy, from shoplifting to explicit attempts on Bamse's life. Reinard is narcissistic, completely selfish with no seeming regard for others' well-being; in addition, he frequently manipulates other characters into committing immoral acts seemingly for his own amusement, which make him the perhaps most vile character in the Bamse universe. While Reinard may appear irredeemable, his "weak spot" is his romantic attachment to Mickelina, also a fox, which has blurred his evil schemes on numerous occasions.
Moral values and criticism
Bamse and his friends are very clear about their views. They are strongly opposed to racism, bullying and violence. Bamse is not only the strongest bear in the world, but also the kindest, often repeating his slogan "Nobody gets better from being beaten". Bamse's own world seems to have strong implications of anarchism or libertarian socialism, combining private ownership with communitarian solidarity, though a single policeman, Pontus Kask and a small prison exists.
The original villain, a black wolf simply called Vargen, became a friend of Bamse after consistently being treated kindly. The only villain that is depicted as unredeemable is Krösus Sork, a crude capitalist who will do practically anything for money. Later, the fox Reinard Räv was introduced, which contradicted this earlier narrative. While shown as on the edge of society, Reinard is intelligent but uses his skills and efforts at disrupting the social order as a good in itself. By enjoying turning people "on the edge" to a life of crime he displays outright antisocial characteristics, roughly mirroring Batman's antagonist The Joker or Shakespeare's Iago in this regard.