I met Leif for the first time in 2003 at a friend’s birthday party. Leif had given one of his characteristic deer paintings as a birthday gift to our host.

When I started working on a gaming site for gay men, my friends and I started talking about which illustrator would be suited to the task of creating the characters for the site’s gaming cards. Naturally, Leif sprung to mind, but he proved difficult to persuade. As long as his parents and siblings were alive, he didn’t want to go public. Besides, he worried that his childhood friends in Northern Sweden would encounter problems if other people found out they had a gay friend. He was well aware that celbrating strength, beauty and masculinity still can be controversial.

Also, he was an internet sceptic:
”What do you mean, digital? I’m not a damn computer nerd, I draw with pencil on paper.”

Colour wasn’t entirely popular with him either:
”If I could handle colours, I’d paint, not draw!”