How did you decide to become a drawer/cartoonis t?
Actually I´ve never decided that. I just never stopped drawing. I used to draw a lot already when I was about 4 or 5 years old, and few years later I found myself drawing cartoons. My cartoon was published first time when I was 14. it was a one-page story considering healthy living, and with that I won first prize in one competition.

Was it a difficult choice to make? Why?
The choice was easy to make, because one day I just realized, that I´m a draftsman and nothing else. I think I had already drawn a couple of years for my living when I understood that I have no other job, a nine-to-five-job, you know. I´ve never thought seriously to go to have a real job.

Did you go to a school for drawers or cartoonists?
No. I have graduated in Lahti Design Institute, where I studied four years graphic designing. Though, there were courses of illustrating and so on.

How do people consider comic strip in Finland?
Well, not very seriously, if you compare situations in Finland and France, for example. Even though things are going better all the time, ordinary finns still find cartoonists quite a weird creatures, i think. Some finnish comic strips has become quite famous, but it doesn´t save the whole situation. Cartoonists are not very highly valued. But luckily things are going better…

What comic strip/artists did have a major influence on your work?
There are many of them, for example Joakim Pirinen from Sweden and Mauri Kunnas and Jukka Tilsa from Finland

Do you still read comic strip? Which one?
Marvel-comics, Tex Willer, Tintin, Alix, Knight Ardent and many Finnish comics.

How could you present your work to our readers?
I have some newcomics with no subtitles that could be most easily understandable. I guess that some of my short strips might be easy to translate good enough so that also french readers could understand them.

Has your work been translated yet?
Some few works have been translated in swedish, deutch and english.

What are your current and future projects?
My most famous cartoon character, Jasso the Cat has a ten-year -birthday 30.8.2002, so it has had a Celebating Tour with exhibitions and other happenings around Finland, five cities until now, so that has taken most of my time this year. Also two Jasso – comic books have been published this year. The tour goes on and takes my time rest of this year, I suppose.
And then I have my job: I illustrate newspapers, magazines, school- and other books for my living, make some layouts, draw postcards etc.

Do you think that internet is the future medium for comic strip?
I´m not very familiar with internet that way. I like to read cartoons from books myself, not from computer.

Do you still work with a pencil and a paper or have you replaced them by a computer?
I use pen and pencil, then i scan works, fix and color them with my computer and then i send them as e-mail attachments. That suits me very well. I´ve used computer that way from 1996.

What is your favorite movie?
Well…Jackie Brown, maybe…and Pulp Fiction, of course. And Dancing With Wolves (the director´s cut), all Clint Eastwood -movies, all Juliette Binoche -movies,The Crying Game, Betty Blue, Until the End of the World, Matrix, Smoke, and so on…I just can´t say one favorite movie, because there are so many movies that have really moved me.

What is your favorite comic strip?
The same situation like with movies. Lately I´ve read for example Fort Wheeling from Hugo Pratt, who is a great artist, but I also liked those about three hundred Tex Willer -comic books I´ve read during last year. And Spider Man -comics from seventies. Soccer Conny from Joakim Pirinen is one of my biggest favorites!

What is your most precious object?
I don´t know. I collect and have collected lots of things during my life like stamps, buttons, beer labels, electric games from eighties, marvel-comics, scraps, stones, stick-on labels, feathers, metapterygoideum-bones of pikes (you can count their ages from those bones), and so on, but still I don´t feel kind of materialistic. Most precious things in my life are my girlfenrd and our two kids, Leo 4 years and Juho 8 months: I could live without everything else but them.

What is your favorite bar/restaurant?
I haven´t been in bars lately, but my favorit beers come from England; ales are my favorites, especially those strongly hopped. I also love coffee. Black coffee! But, well, cappuchino has its place in my heart, too.