Achilles Wiggen was my own continuous science fiction serial which I created in 1983 - 2005. It was published in
Swedish Fantomen magazine and the examples above show clearly what happened to the serial when it was published
in magazine. The credit of who has created the manuscript of the 22 parts of the serial was stolen from the true
scriptwriter. The translater of the scripts has made himself as the writer of serial.
So, how this perversion of the facts has been possible?
The curious case of the manuscript of Achilles Wiggen:
Along the all episodes of Wiggen the managing editor of Fantomen Ulf Granberg translated my english scripts to swedish form. He made only a
slight editing concerning the dialog as he usually did to all Phantom scripts written by various scriptwriters. But with the case of Wiggen he went
further - at first he rightfully stayed as translater, but later he suddenly (without any consulting with me) published himself in the printed magazine
as the writer of story. That was very insulent act, but I was not in the position to complain it because it was so serious matter that an open quarrell
between him and me would have stopped the production of the entire comic and in the worst case stopped my career in the company. So I stayed
quiet waiting for better time to correct that treacherous act. That time became actual and necessary when the all 22 parts of Achilles Wiggen had
a possibility to be published in album form and because the person who has caused the whole mess is not in Egmont any more after he retired on
a pension.
And when he found out that there was a confusion of the rights concerning who is the real writer of Wiggen, he claimed that it all was a misunder-
standing and mistake and that he never had claimed that he had been the creator of the manuscript of Wiggen. This is very contradictory compa-
red to the information in those Fantomen issues in which Achilles Wiggen was published. In those issues it was clearly printed on the title page:
"Intrig & teckning: Kari Leppänen" and "Text: Ulf Granberg". ( Intrig = intrigue, plot teckning = drawing text = manuscript),
. But if mister Granberg thoughtlessly and indifferently did mean that the "text" was meaning "Swedish text" which he had done while translating my
English script and editing it , it gave every reader the wrong impression that he had done the original script for the story. And probably only after
my synopsis. In his position as managing editor of the magazine he knew well what he was doing and it only sounds as pitiful defensive attempt
to explain of what he has done when he is calling it "misunderstanding and mistake". It was unforgiving act and insult towards the one who is the true
creator of the product and thoughtless deed to cause discomfort and disappointment to him. And more thoughtless because by doing it he also
jeopardized his good reputation in case to be exposed - which usually happens sooner or later.
To use in printed magazine the form "text: Ulf Granberg" it also told, besides the average readers, to people who have listed Wiggen
serial in the net with full information, that the "text" means the writer of the script. So it is futile to claim by Ulf Granberg that it was all misunder-
standing and mistake.
Moreover he has claimed that he was the ideabank in the serial, which he probably was in his mind. He really sometimes had own ideas what
could happen in the story, but those were not usable and I didn´t like them because the next parts have been already clear in my mind. And I
did not like that he changed (without asking me) some names in the serial and also renamed Wiggen´s parts at first. Later, when the entire serial
was published in a Finnish science-fiction magazine, I returned original titles and corrected his childish tampering of the Swedish version. I had
decided before I started to make the whole project that it´ll be for younger readers, but while editing the text the translater turned it´s
dialog too childish probably underestimating the readers of the magazine - which was still more worse in Finnish translation published in Finland´s
Phantom-magazine. So I was in pains of shame when those tampered Wiggen adventures were published. Let it be a lesson what it is to work
in a syndicate.
Since I was forced to buy a computer because new times came and the publisher wanted to have comic pages sent by internet instead of mailed
copies, I stumbled on many Swedish websites about my Wiggen-serial and found out that there was false information concerning the text-part of
the serial. The info has been copied from the Fantomen magazines where my boss has made him as scriptwriter and thus given to websites wrong
information posing to be also ideabank of the serie. Since I contacted those websites the corrections have taken place and now, after many years,
I am the rightful owner of my hard work also in the net.
Yours,
Kari T. Leppänen - the creator of Achilles Wiggen
