Graduation

Norwegian high school graduates are... special.

In Sweden, high school graduates celebrate by driving around town on the back of large trucks, before going home to celebrate, get graduation gifts and probably party a lot. I have no idea what people do in Denmark and Sweden, but they probably have something fun too. 

In Norway, meanwhile, the high school graduates:
- Party pretty much every night for a month (slight exagerration, obviously not everyone does this, but there is a lot of partying)
- Dress in dungarees or coveralls (and matching hats)  that they cover in all sorts of profane decorations. The colours of the outfit are determined by what course you went in upper secondary scool: Blue is economics, Red is all other theoretical subjects (this is the most common colour by far, followed by blue in 2nd.). Black is for those who have taken a more practical route and will go straight to work after finishing school (meaning no further studies). Green is agriculture - at least i think so - i have never seen anyone in this colour. Gold is for members of the graduate student board. 
- Drive around in custom-painted buses for a month playing loud music that keeps people in nearby houses awake at night. There are contests for having the best bus. (not everyone does this - some places it is more common to have a van or a car instead - which is probably significantly cheaper)
- wear custom-made hoodies/t-shirts and other merch to match the buses. for some reason, the buses have "cover names" for the first months of the year, before revealing the real name around may. This means it costs even more money.
- release horrible songs about drinking and having sex.
- Go to huge gatherings - which means more partying and drinking.
- hand out specially made cards to little kids, who are absolutely crazy about them.
- Do stupid pranks and are frequently accused of vandalism. There is a whole list of stupid (or rather amusing) things to do that will earn you the right to tie some weird object to your hat as proof of having done said thing. The list often includes things like drinking a certain amount of alcohol within a certain time, doing specific things after drinking a certain amount of alcohol, doing embarrassing things in class such as showing up in your underwear only and confessing your love to a teacher, various sexually themed dares etc. 

...and all of this happens before the exams are taken. 
but why all this partying before the actual graduation, you say? Well, it wasn't always like that. The final exams used to be on the 16th of May, the day before the norwegian constitutional day, the 17th of May. The recent graduates thus had two reasons to party: they had graduated, and it was the national day. In an attempt to tone down the partying, whoever was leading the country at the time decided to move the final exams so they took place after the 17th. Without the national day, the partying would probably be toned down a bit. However, graduation partying and the 17th of may had by this time become so ingrained with each other that they couldn't just be separated like that. the graduates still celebrated on the 16th-17th of may as they had before. Also, now there was really no limit for when to begin the partying. Hence nowadays, the celebrating and partying starts in late april, while the preparations for it begin more than a year before. Most school kids campaign for the exams to be moved back to before the 17th of may, so they can party without it interfering with their exam preparation. 

The shading and anatomy of the characters turned out a bit sloppy, sorry about that. maybe it needs more lineart.