So Bue, you have uniquely evolved the modern-day Curriculum Vitae , can you tell us where the inspiration came from?
I made my first version of my drawn CV a couple of years ago. I was receiving unemployment benefits, which means I regularly had to meet with a consultant, whose job it was to help me get back into the labor market and check up on my job search.
A part of his guidance was of course to get me to write a proper CV. I always felt ashamed about my CV. I hadn’t had any jobs or positions that look good on paper - my only full-time employment was when I worked half a year as a dishwasher in Norway. Neither does my education; Besides a bachelor's degree, I never finished my other degrees, and according to the wills of the government, I have studied for way too long.
At that time I had just made “The House in Sønderhå” a comic about a my childhood home. It somewhere in the process of turning a house - a thing you usually wouldn’t think as the subject of a comic, that I realized that I had the power to turn everything into a comic. I set up most of the night in my studio before the meeting with my consultant, finishing my artwork for my CV. I remember I was very happy and satisfied, when I stood there with the last piece in my hands.
However, my consultant, however wasn’t very happy when I handed him the CV the next morning could I see by the look in his face. “You need to do a proper CV, this won’t do it” he said, showed some CV templates on his company’s home page and send me home with the order of having written a proper CV by the time of our next appointment. The current CV you can see on my website and Instagram is an extended and redrawn version. The first version was ok, but then I did it again because I am looking for employment (if anybody has anything, please contact me!) and because I wanted to have a clear reply, when people ask me what I am doing. Then I will hand them my CV and say “I do comics!”