Aliens made in Sweden

Ha ha ha. OK, I'm convinced. Amazon *really* sells everything!

“Ville” is a classical Swedish comic, first published in the magazine “Vi” 1975-76, later as a freestanding comic album in 1977. The plot is (perhaps) a political satire, but it's also possible that Jan Lööf's magnum opus doesn't have a message at all, simply being an entertaining story.

The main character, an ordinary Swedish middle-aged man named Ville (complete with nerdy-looking specs and Inga-like girlfriend), is contacted by aliens from another world. Despite their superior technology, the aliens (who, strangely enough, look exactly like humans) need Ville to become their representative on Earth. The goal? To contact the Swedish Social Democratic government and push a limits-to-growth agenda to save the world from ecological destruction. The capitalist-bourgeois elite isn't convinced, and hire a string of suspicious characters to foil the alien plans.

A red-haired American torpedo and a crazy Norwegian ship captain kidnap Ville, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme and King Carl Gustav. The victims are placed at the bottom of the North Sea in a secured submarine. The plan is to force the aliens to rescue Palme, the king and the contactee, thereby revealing that the Space Brothers aren't peaceful liberals but violent monsters (or Soviet agents). Unfortunately for the scheming capitalist militarists, the aliens manage to pull off the rescue operation without revealing themselves. In the ensuing stand-off with the bad guys, the kidnappers are apprehended by the police. Meanwhile, Ville is taken onboard the alien mother ship to await further instructions.

Unfortunately for the heroic contactee, the alien high command has decided to change the plan, giving humans another century or so to fix their problems without outside intervention. All of humanity is induced to forget the events that just transpired (including the very existence of the aliens). Everyone, that is, except Ville whose memory for some reason cannot be erased. The previously benign aliens therefore decide to abduct their own chosen prophet, forcing him to remain on the ship as it prepares to live orbit…forever. At the last moment, Ville is saved by the only Space Brother with a conscience. Back in Sweden, Ville's attempt to foment a Green-socialist revolution ends badly, since nobody remembers the aliens. The poor contactee-cum-abductee ends up in a mental institution, but is eventually released to the bosom of his trope girlfriend, and promises to vote Olof Palme in the next election…

“Ville” is extremely entertaining, and pokes good-humored fun at the 1970's Zeitgeist. It's all in there: the Club of Rome, leftist activism (Ville at one point comparing himself to Mao), anti-American stereotypes, UFO contactees with a plan… At least in Sweden, Palme and Carl Gustav were also very much part of the spirit of the times.

“Ville” created a scandal when it was serialized in “Vi”. Palme was a regular reader of the magazine, but strongly objected to being caricatured as some kind of weird action hero, and discontinued his subscription in protest. The king didn't read “Vi” at all, but seems to have taken the whole thing with a large grain of salt when asked by reporters (!) to comment the affair. Personally, I think Palme overreacted, and according to an unconfirmed rumor at Swedish Wiki, it was really his family rather than Palme himself who objected to “Ville”.

Be that as it may, I must nevertheless give this classical comic (only available in Swedish, Danish or German) five stars.