''Mämmilä'' is a full-page comic strip by Finnish cartoonist

Tarmo Koivisto Tarmo Koivisto (born 3 July 1948 in Orivesi) is a Finnish comics artist and writer, cartoonist, and graphic artist. He is best known for his ongoing comic strip '' Mämmilä''. Koivisto is also known by his artist name Tape. Biography Koivisto ...

and co-written by Hannu Virtanen. Mämmilä is a fictional small country

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality ...

, supposedly in the Häme region, and was originally modeled on the municipality of Orivesi. The cartoon depicted various contemporary issues in Finnish life, from various social changes to the coming of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s and membership in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

. The municipality has numerous colorful characters, from local political leaders and potentates to Varpu-Viljami (local

dowser Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in Ge ...

) and Mohammed al-Zomal (

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constitut ...

n refugee), nicknamed "Mukku" after his pronunciation of the Finnish word " muikkukukko". Unusually for comic strips, the storyline happens in real time, and the characters in ''Mämmilä'' age normally, at the same pace as the comic strip in real life. For example, a girl called Sari was born in the comic in 1980, and is now an adult punk-style girl. The strip was originally published 1974 in a Swedish-Finnish magazine, '' Suomen Sanoma'' (Finnish News) in Sweden. The magazine was published only a couple of times per year, so the strip moved to Finnish magazine called '' Me'' (We) in 1976. In 1983, ''

Helsingin Sanomat ''Helsingin Sanomat'', abbreviated ''HS'' and colloquially known as , is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. Its name derives from that of ...

'' began its monthly magazine, and ''Mämmilä'' moved in there. ''HS'' dropped the strip after 13 years, because the readers wanted a strip about life in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

. Tarmo Koivisto still draws '' Tää kaupunki'' (''This city'') strip, written by various ''HS'' journalists. In 2002, Tarmo Koivisto published a comic album ''WWW.MAMMILA.FI'' in which the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

and shady business practices come to Mämmilä. It was under work for five years. In late 2006, ''

Suomen Kuvalehti ''Suomen Kuvalehti'' (lit. "Finland's picture magazine", or "The Finnish picture magazine") is a weekly Finnish language family and news magazine published in Helsinki, Finland. History and profile ''Suomen Kuvalehti'' was founded in 1873 and pu ...

'', a weekly magazine wanted to publish ''Mämmilä''. Because Koivisto has had many pages done for the next album after 2002, the storyline is not in real time right now, but eventually it will be.

Other places

Mämmilä is also a real-life village in Pello,

Lapland Lapland may refer to: Places *Lapland or Sápmi, an ethno-cultural region stretching over northern Fennoscandia (parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia) **Lapland (Finland) (''Lappi''/''Lappland''), a Finnish region *** Lapland (former pr ...

, .

References

* Invitation in

Suomen kuvalehti ''Suomen Kuvalehti'' (lit. "Finland's picture magazine", or "The Finnish picture magazine") is a weekly Finnish language family and news magazine published in Helsinki, Finland. History and profile ''Suomen Kuvalehti'' was founded in 1873 and pu ...

46/2006, ''Finnish''

Other places

References

Further reading