Scandinavia and the World

I tried to include mostly comics from the past year, hopefully you guys haven't seen most of them! All text from this point on are the artist's notes on the comics that I thought were either useful or funny.

Brother Finland you came here to find peace. You need to stop this.

Yeah, we don't get a lot of sun up here in the North so the government makes sure to inform immigrants and women who wear veils that they need to take vitamin D supplements.

During U.S.A's early history British/Canadian armed forces burned down the first White House (or Presidential Mansion as it was called). This was (in part) retaliation for American troops destroying Port Dover.

As per tradition, here's the yearly Eurovision comic.

This Eurovision had a lot of firsts: Australia became an official participant despite preforming last year, the show was shown on American TV, an American preformed, and not a single Nordic country made it to the finals except Sweden because they were hosting the show.

I actually hope America joins Eurovision some day because they'd be the most amazing drama queens every time they lost, and nothing says Eurovision like drama.

It was Norway, btw.

Every time a news story from America says a "Scandinavian" did something, all the Scandinavian countries look suspiciously at each other.

This was an actual mascot from the Danish theme park BobBon Land, and I was so sad I forgot him in the previous comic about the park's weird mascots.

His name was Røverhul, a play on "røvhul" which means asshole. A direct translation of his name would be something like Bandit Hole, but I'm pretty sure they knew what they were doing when they decided to make him a pirate.

Years ago I talked with some Swedish people who told me about a French friend of theirs who was super proud that her car only had one dent, which came of as pretty bizarre to the Swedes.

I've been to France two times, and if you've been there too, you know how much sense that actually makes. Almost every single car we passed had several dents and scratches, and if you think people in your area are aggressive drivers you have not been to France.

And the reason why people drive like that in France is way more bizarre than you think, but I'll make a comic about that soon.

As promised, an explanation for why people in France drive so hazardly.

Toxoplasma gondii has a life cycles dependent on cats and rats and its effect on the brain is meant to make it easier for cats to catch rats, but sometimes cat excrements end up in farm animals' food, infecting them and passing it on to us. You only risk infection from meat if you don't cook it properly so it's mostly a problem in countries where heating meat can be a problem. France is the only European country where so many people are infected because French cuisine involves so much raw or mildly cooked meat.

This is of course not the only reason why French people are such aggressive drivers, but it does seem to be strongly linked to toxoplasma gondii.

(Also, if people don't want to get help after an accident, get help anyway because they might have brain damage)

I've often seen people on the internet make fun of fat people on bikes and wondered "What's so funny about that? How does people who think that's funny get around?"

Then I leaned that The Netherlands and Denmark are the "weird" ones, because here everybody casually ride bikes all the time, while most other places it's considered something you do if you can't afford a car or if you're a health freak.

So yeah, if you want to see lots of fat people on bikes, just visit The Netherlands or Denmark. You'll be pretty desensitized to it after a few days.

Nobody knows how to make history like England.

Some...unfortunate history.

The Scandinavians were pretty convinced that they were the best human race and that everybody else were below them. Especially in Denmark the scientists were very fond of using measuring tools to determine race and intelligence, which inspired Nazi Germany a lot. The Danes who had intended to use the "science" as a base for their welfare system were horrified when they found out what the Germans were using it for and started to realize just how misguided it was.

Nazi Germany loved Denmark though, and because the Danes didn't have an army worth anything, they used Germany's love a lot during WWII to try and help those the Nazis wanted to kill. That's how you end up with stories about Danes shipping 99% of their Jews to safety in Sweden, and how they made agreements with the Nazis that Danish Jews who were sent to camps go better treatment, more food and weren't killed.

As one Danish Jew in a camp said "We got crates with food, letters from our families, chocolate and candy, but the German guards always stole the cigarettes"

The amount of weird, ridiculous and scary things people have gotten themselves into while playing Pokemon Go is amazing.

And yet, the worst thing for America about being behind bars is that he can't play the game.

I've been watching a lot of videos by Americans in Scandinavian countries, and something they often bring up is that Scandinavians rarely jaywalk.The Americans then jaywalk less too because they're afraid Scandinavians know something they don't.

The reason is simple though; pedestrians and drivers have an unofficial agreement to follow the rules.
"I don't jaywalk and in return please respect the traffic lights"

And it really is smartest to follow the traffic laws in Scandinavia because the drivers aren't used to people crossing the street at random and therefore aren't prepared for it. However, they're usually pretty good at letting pedestrians cross even if there aren't any traffic lights nearby.

And also the bikes. Tourists are never prepared for the bikes.

On National Sleepy Head Day the last person sleeping in the house could be woken up by being thrown into a lake.

Brasil segundo os escandinavos

By now most of us know about Japan's high-tech electric toilets, but let's not ignore Brazil's electric showerheads and their scary wires sticking out of the walls in shower cabins.

There's no bigger motivator than being told you're not allowed.

This is legitimately how the potato got popular in France.

Early Russian space capsules had text on the outside telling people not to be afraid, it's just a human inside, because they feared people's reactions.

We have a lot of nut jobs in Europe too, the difference is that their range is limited so they only really fuck their own country up.

It's a common joke/wish in the rest of the world the everybody should be allowed to vote in American elections because everything America does has such huge consequences for the rest of the world.

I'm just impressed the Icelandic people came up with such a long process to remove poison.

Danish media is very excited about Mads Mikkelsen being in Doctor Strange, but we all know nobody outside Denmark will remember his character because that's just how Marvel rolls.

That big fancy bridge between Sweden and Denmark? One of the more hilarious parts about it's construction is that the Swedes started their part before the Danes has completely agreed to it, so suddenly the Danes had to hurry up if they wanted to meet the Swedes halfway. That's partly why the train connection between the countries is a bride on the Danish side but a tunnel on the Swedish side. It was quicker and cheaper to build a bridge.

You can however drive over the ocean all the way in a car.

EDIT: Oh would you look at that. I completely fucked up which side is a bridge and which side is a tunnel. Of well, yet ANOTHER unfortunately side effect of having a human do anything ever, especially one as stressed out as me right now. I hope you can one day find it in your hearts to forgive me for this grave mistake.

I warned you America would get a makeover if Trump won. This won't be a one-off joke either. He'll look like this for the next four years. Eight if America picks him again.

Sister America will stay the same because she belongs to the American Left.

EDIT: I will be the happiest person a live if four or eight years a from now I'll have to eat every bad thing I've ever said about Trump. Sometimes realizing you were wrong can be the best feeling in the world.

But Nazi Germany is in this comic because a lot of neo-Nazi groups and the KKK have supported Trump publicly because of his xenophobic, racist and sexist views. So you might have voted for him despite of those things, but they voted for him because of it.

So I will be beyond happy if you and Trump together prove the terrified Lefties and the happy Nazis and clan members wrong.

To be fair, it's fucking up the rhythm of our animal life quite a bit.

OMG Norway! It's tradition!

Every year a giant straw goat is build in Sweden and most years it meets a violent end. Usually by fire, but it has also been hit by cars and kicked apart.

People don't hate it. It has just become part of the tradition to try and destroy it.

A Swedish friend of mine works as a history teacher, and he sometimes send me little gold nuggets like this.

We don't know if the Scandinavians kept using the English king's face on their coins because they thought that was what coins was supposed to look like, or if they did it because it made it easier to use the coins in England

If you say Iceland is the most gender equal country in the world within hearing distance of a Swede you WILL get your throat slit.

Fun fact: The Scandinavian prisons are practically hotels compared to most other places in the world, but you have to pay for your stay. When you get out a bill is sent to you so tax payers won't have to pay for your stupidity. The government will then help you get back into society so you can get a job and pay it off.

Qin Shi Huang who united China wanted history to start with him, so he tried to destroy all documents about the past and killed every historian he could get his hands on.

He wasn't exactly successful seeing as I got this info from my historian friend from Sweden, and I assume he comes from a long genetic line of historians.

We try to pretend we've put our violent Viking past behind us, and then we call lawn mowers shit like this.

When you burn bridges but keep their phone number.

Soooo Denmark got a tiny bit obsessed with the U.S. ambassador and his husband. They even got their own TV show, and the queen threw a big goodbye party for them where Rufus was knighted.

It will be a tough act to follow for Laura.