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. 

George Sprott and the Dominion City by Seth

Last week I finished reading another book by Seth titled as 'George Sprott'. It deals about a Small town TV showman called George Sprott who for most of his life time spent shooting videos in the Arctic and later airing it on TV for the audience. His show which once was a popular air time slowly started to fade away in its last stages but still clinging on to its cult followers. The story has been put together through interviews, anecdotes, flashbacks, dream sequences and a few more other narrative tools. The various viewpoints coming together to patch a story together gives an overall weight of the character, his charm and traumas. It helps the reader's mind to approach the character of George Sprott from the eyes of many who may have despised or loved him in small to sumptuous amount. But there is one thing where Seth has taken the medium a notch up by creating the mock up of the whole environment. Each of the sections in the book are separated by the pictures of cardboard houses, shops, restaurants, broadcasting office, theatre and all the elements that create an architecture of a city called Dominion where George Sprott comes from. It creates the ghost town that exists in Seth's head when he is making his characters walk through its streets. The full model of the city was up on display and I got a few photographs from the Drawn & Quarterly site to share it with you all.

You can take a look at the full series and the room in was up on display from this flickr link - Seth: Dominion City

Seth's Genius

While finishing the last pages of 'Best American Comics 2007' I read some pages of 'Wimbledon Green' by Seth. I then went to my book shelf and took out the copy of 'It's a good life, if you don't weaken' by Seth again. I had picked it up at Comic Con. As I reached the end of it, Seth had affirmed his genius of storytelling. I am sorry for this crude comparison but his story flows as effortless as George Clooney's acting. Seth's characters dig a comfortable hole for you in their head where you can sit and be part of their conversation, thoughts, ramblings, judgements and many more nuances of the speaking mind. And the beauty is that these conversations are centered around everyday's joys and perils of a human life. There are two places in this book which I bookmarked because of the big thoughts it presents in simple words. I think there is a lot of truth held in these spoken sentences. Here they are -