Table Tennis

Some days I think fondly of some creation and others I grimly accept that it's not very good. It's hard, you want so much to produce good and meaningful work but it can never possibly live up to your own expectations. Every work is ultimately a failure. How could it be anything but? The only work that ever succeeds is someone else's.

- Seth, CR Sunday Interview 

The lines above sum it all up for me. Making comics is an arduous task, many find the short format of it difficult, but for me it's the idea of making a fat book which frightens me. Ten months back, a good share of enthusiasm and belief made me compile 25 pages of my comic, but it took me only a few months to be dissatisfied with it. I had taken feedback from people, while most of it was encouraging, I, myself could see the lack of narrative discourse on the pages. The use of language in the comic was slightly off, it felt like sitting in an office wheel chair while working on a mahogany vintage desk. Language is a big cultural parameter, finding its substitute in another language is not an easy pie for novices like me. We need to leave the task of a professional to a professional. Another question which rang in my head was "How do we remember our past? Is it with characters, objects, songs or events?" To me it's events that connect the dots. Objects and characters are fragments of the event, they add decor and flavour to the anecdotes. The past is always dissected as thread of events in our memory, we just see it as a stitched fabric. Having done 25 pages already, I decided to move ahead with the comic and then rework the finished pages later. Some of the key decisions taken with the comic are - 

1. To make smaller comic strips for each event, this will come together to form the larger picture. It will provide freedom in making the closure for the story, and altering the drawing style. It will also take the pressure off from doing a brick shaped thick book. 

2. Use Hindi as the language for the comic. It will help in serving the story less unadulterated, although it can be translated to English later on by a good copy writer to make it available for a larger audience. 

3. Draw the way you like to draw. 

I am sharing the very first page I created with all these thoughts in my head. This is for the comic strip titled 'Table Tennis'. The type is hand drawn, working with Devanagiri script is surprisingly easy for me than the Roman one. I have used India ink for the inking, and then coloured it digitally. 

High res file here. 

Kavalier & Clay

It has been a terribly long time since I last blogged. A month long vacation takes its toll in many ways. For the past three months I have been awfully busy on a long project, the details of which will come out soon, but the project just soaked me in so much that I had to turn a blind eye to the ticking dates of the last blog post put up. Now that the project seems to be reaching its end, I can afford to take a breather and talk about the book I finished reading last night, it's called - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. The book revolves around the life of two jewish cousins in New York city who made it big in the booming comics industry of the 1930-40's second world war era before getting scattered away. It's a long read, and although it's a work of fiction, it's very well woven around the facts of comic book genre's behaviour during the two decades. Apart from being a well written novel, the author has really seasoned his two protagonist well with each passing pages, you sort of end up believing that these two cousins really existed back then. One of the cousins, Josef Kavalier is shown as the comic book artists who treats his medium as a weapon to fight against the evils of Hitler, at least that's how he begins with it, but slowly he gets engrossed in the beauty of the technique, the breaking of panels and his rendering of precise brush strokes. Comics become his escape door to fight wars first and later on a refuge for his own stories. With each descriptions of his crafted comic book pages, I really felt an urge to see them. In fact I searched for his name on google to see if there are any samples one could see of what these comic book pages must have looked like. Comics, considered a degraded art form back then, had an easy to afford liquorish charm to it. Through this step child of an art form when the two cousins live their belief and secret passions, one realises how strong its role is in a society where war rages on each day's account. Michael Chabon has rightly used Harry Houdini as the metaphor for comics. Here are some of my favourite parts from the book - 

"Forget about what you are escaping from," he said, quoting an old maxim of Kornblum's. "Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to."

He and his father had in their jocular, gingerly fashion loved each other, but now that his father was dead, Joe felt only regret. It was not just the usual regret over things left unsaid, thanks unexpressed and apologies withheld. Joe did not yet regret the lost future opportunities for expatiation on favorite shared subjects, such as film directors (they revered Buster Keaton) or breeds of dogs. Such regrets would come only belatedly, a few days after, when he made the realization that death really did mean that you were never going to see the dead person ever again. What he regretted most of all just now was simply that he had not been there when it happened; that he had left to his mother, grandfather, and brother the awful business of watching his father die.

For the last three months I have been strictly away from my graphic novel work, but my appetite seems right now to get back to it. Like Houdini, we are all tied up in our heavy iron chains of everyday obligations and rituals, and we all search for the golden key. The scam gates and rape cases bog the newspaper headlines making you feel like dead soldiers rotting in trenches of an eternal war. We all need a key, an escape... a superhero perhaps.

Old Shoe and New Comic

After spending a month travelling around Gujarat and Delhi, I am finally back to my room. I have been dying to get back and start work because probably that's the only way I know to be sane and literally in working condition. I had packed pretty economically for my travel which allowed me to carry only one casual pair of shoe, which I made full use of. I once had an accident in those shoes, so they looked pretty ragged to begin with, but a full marinated blessing of Kutch Salt desert and black mud slush added a whole new class to it. I wore them around each day and in Comic Con too where the shiny pointy shoes must have given it quite a bit of attention. But I walked around, doing my book purchase which really overshot it's estimate. All the more reason to love my old pair of shoes. Now that I am loaded with pending work list, I thought it would be good to get warmed up to the needed act. Therefore dear readers, I bring you a page which pays homage to people with old shoes and good comics/books. 

You can check the larger size of the image here. 

This one really helped me get back to my brush pen usage, and I affirm this again - inking will always be the best part of making comics. There are some sketches from the trip too which I shall put up soon too. 

Brainwave. Issue 15. Survival Skills.

This has to be one of the most awaited issue of Brainwave for me. After all, it talks about evolution and what's evolution if we don't drop a cockroach saga in it. The old friend of our forefathers has taken the seat again and this time in the form of an infographic. Apart from that, there is a small informational comic on the trash trail (an initiative by Daily Dump, run by Poonam Bir Kastoori). 
There is so much to draw in a period of one month that I at times resort to other ways of illustrating where you cut, paste and mold stuff to create a visual. This intent is helping me to opens new doors of exploration. I am planning to try some collage for the coming issues. For this issue I just coloured my hands with rolling play-doh. 
So here is the new issue with some play-doh molded illustration, Roach Baba infographic and the adventures of Rack Rat through the lugubrious landfills. 

The coming issue is about smelly gaseous stuff and the work so far has been sailing well. But, today I got to know that Robert Crumb, Chris Oliveros (founder of Drawn & Quarterly) and Gary Groth (publisher and co-founder of Fantagraphics Books) are making a visit for the Comic Con in Delhi. Need to rush up a bit and make sure that I land up there too. Hopefully.

Private Detective Kapil

I went to the Bookworm second hand book shop after a really long time this Sunday. I used to go there often in my early days of college. I remembered very well where the old comics were stacked up and in no time I was flipping through old and new comic books. My hands stopped at this comics titled as 'Private Detective Kapil - Thieves of Shalimar.' The edges of the book were wrinkled and the book cover very well made you aware that this piece belonged to the 90's and I being a kid of 90s grabbed this copy with much joy.

The typography done in its single point perspective, hand painted cover illustration and its parallel drawn perspective lines share the highlights of the local book shop illustrations. If you observe the cover well enough, you will notice how every inch of the space drawn has a mathematical instinct to it. Every action, shape...even the shadows are measured in its quality.
S.Chand & Company own the publishing rights (yes, the publishing house whose text books you must have mugged up during your tenth boards).
Now, lets go inside the book and see what Kapil and his gang have to offer to the readers.




Reading in between the lines and frames is not allowed here. No chance... you can let your imagination roll. Detective Kapil likes to think it loud. So, if you thought you will see some Shaun Tan kind of motion through images then you have a surprise. Detective Kapil cuts the long story short and helps you out by explaining each and every step of his actions.

And here look at our drunkard informer of police. Even with good number of glasses down, his HIC...going loud, he can balance the bottle on his palm. Caution: Please don't try this at home.
The colours matter alot when dealing with the comics of 90's. The flamboyant freedom with which its splashed around really sets the tone for the reading. No negative and positive space rubbish and no painful hours for drawing backgrounds because we have all the colours for you.

And If you look at the third frame here, you can notice that the comic artist has tried to venture into the areas of abstract art and cubism. But, just a subtle touch of it...just one circle does the trick.

Lets not ignore the acrobatic skills of our protagonist and by no means he wants to hide his talents. Show Off. Thankfully, here he chooses to think about it and not stating it.

Don't worry. Detective Kapil hasn't lost his head. It's just his floating head that can do time travel and show you his reflection, analysis and how he cleverly filters the information.

"SOK" the new punch sound...again an example of the artist's brave attempts at breaking away from the regular usage of BOOM, DHISHOOM. SOK - precise, pinpoint emphasis of attack and it has that swiftness in its appeal.

And those who have read Raj Comics would be well aware of the use of stars in fight sequences.

This stuff goes deeper than Sherlock Holmes. Detective Kapil is enough for all...no need of Watson and Gladstone on the side. And to your joy there is another story in the book titled as 'Private Detective Kapil - The Slow Death.' Deadly!!

Covered and Compiled

Comix India Volume 4 - The Real stuff is ready to come out. The concept for the cover comes from what non - fiction is supposed to be - writing the truth.

I also had to do a 2 page editorial comic. These are the images taken while I was at it. For now the issue has been compiled and will soon hit the sales. Keep a track of it on - comix india