Blue whales, Camomile, and Everything in between

What Coopers may Come

2011-08-27T01:30:00.000-07:00

It must've been the turbulence that jolted me out of Daydreamotopia. It could also have been the wailing child. Actually, it must've been a combination of both along with the sudden awareness of losing altitude. But gone were the flying blue whales mounted with twin mini-guns and the kevlar clad riders on them. I suddenly found myself again on seat 19b of Indigo's flight back to Kerala. People were panicking all around me and the oxygen masks were hanging from tubes above every seat. I stared out of the window only to see the greenery coming straight at me. The coastline was nowhere to be seen. The "highly unlikely event of a water-landing" seemed more unlikely than how any flight attendant had ever made it sound. This was it! Had to make those last round of phone calls (from my own mobile phone of course. I do not subscribe to the hoax that the 'signal from my mobile phone would interfere with the on-board system'. Even if it did, it wouldn't make much of a difference now, would it?)(And sorry humanity, there would be no last minute deposits in the sperm-bank). But it was too late already. It was getting increasingly difficult to breathe and I had to use the oxygen mask. Thats when I noticed that the oxygen mask of the passenger sitting on my right had failed to drop down. Conforming to the repeated requests from that Lady Bountiful inside my head, I turned right with an intention of sharing my oxygen mask with my hapless partner-in-death, only to find myself staring at a very familiar face that shouted "Are you insane? Don't you know that 90 percentage of airborne diseases are transmitted through shared oxygen masks??". It was Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. Something was definitely wrong here. If it indeed had been him on my right side all this while, how come I never noticed? Thats when I made a promise to myself. What promise? We'll get there in a bit. But by now, the under-side of the plane had started grazing against the coconut palm leaves, the sound of which reminded me of the red bamboo wind-chime that a very dear friend of mine had gifted me. When I opened my eyes, I was indeed staring up at the aforementioned wind-chime that was nicely dancing around in the morning breeze that had swept in through my bedroom window. Yes, it had all been one super-realistic night…er..day-mare

Now, before I talk about the promise, let me warn you that it might seem highly unlikely that one would make such a trivial promise while faced with such a dire situation. But I did, and being a man of my word I'm keeping it. The promise was this "If this whole thing turns out to be just a dream, I promise that I'll blog about it however silly its gonna make me look". So here I am, sitting at my lappie and typing away. I also realize today that I have hardly blogged in the recent past. I have also been neglecting my Deviantart account. Thanks to Rosh's and Sinu's vehement participation, some of my artwork was still being put up on the Libera Artisti fan page on FB. But I guess I have been a little too caught up in my world, cooking up stories, making comic strips, and sorting out a few personal issues. I have been gone for long enough to be forgotten by the cyber-world, the place where it all started a few years ago. So please consider this the first step towards me trying to rebuild a world that had collapsed due to a year and a half of complete neglect, and wish me good luck

Photo session with Ms Anonymous shakey hands

2011-02-15T04:23:00.000-08:00

Look what you did to me... You made me bleed over the whole damn wall for you!

Stepping into MMXI

2011-01-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

2011 is gonna be a major year for my team-mates and I - both personally and professionally. Each of us has a different story to tell about his personal life. But to sum it all up, let me just say that Sinu, Rosh, and I are at very different, but equally crucial points in our lives. Professionally, the three of us are at exactly the same spot!

We aren't just a brotherhood of freelancers anymore, we are,...wait for it....wait for it..... a registered company! New office building, gadgets, art-thingummies et al! And here we are, officially unveiling our new logo. We are also starting off on one of our dream projects. A lot of fingers and toes crossed here

The Libera Artisti will continue to be run by us, but we'll be bringing in fresh talents too for various projects. I kid you not, there are some very unique projects in the offing. So all of you talented lot out there start sending in the links to your portfolio blogs to liberaartisti@gmail.com and one day you might just get THE call. You can also visit us at www.liberaartisti.com

2010 had been, ....well... one heck of a roller coaster ride. But lets just remember the brighter side and all those happy moments

And here's to a joyous year!! Happy new year, folks!

FAQ

2010-12-23T01:19:00.000-08:00

Frequently Asked Question, ofcourse. In fact this question is one that I have been asked the most number of times. So I thought I might as well post a reply to it here :)

My name is <____> . I'm aspiring to be an illustrator.I read your comic strip every Saturday on Zeitgeist and I find your artwork highly intriguing and interesting. I would like to know more about illustrating and about the qualities needed to be a comic artist. How were u driven towards this line ?

You see I am a student of Bsc multimedia studying in Cochin

Waiting for your reply

Art admirer
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi <_____>

Thank you! I am glad to know that you've been following Marcus and more

The first step towards getting better at any form of illustration is life-drawing. It is best to keep drawing inspirations from the world around us than from anywhere else. That way we remain true to ourselves as far as our art is concerned. Grab a sketchbook right away and start taking it wherever you go. Draw as much as you can, - from around you, from your memory, and from your imagination. Soon enough you will start incorporating one with another and realize what interests you the most. Also, your art will evolve into something unique, something that will eventually be recognized as your style. That moment of self-discovery is very important for each of us

As for me, I've grown up on comic books and I've always been drawn towards sequential art. More than anything else, I love stories -both telling them and listening to/reading them- and I found sequential art to be the best medium through which I could tell a story. But I hadn't taken it up as a full-time career until 2008. Drawing was always a fun-activity for me. I hadn't thought about making a living out of it until one fine day in late 2007 when I decided to throw away my engineering degree, resign my job, and say good-bye to the corporate world once and for all

Was it the brightest decision of my life? I am yet to find out. But the bridge has been burnt, and I can only walk forward now. All I can guarantee you is that the satisfaction that comes from getting paid and recognized, by doing what you love doing the most, is plain euphoric!

I hope that was helpful

Regards

Kishore

The much awaited grey fedora arrives

2010-11-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

...and i just cant help flaunting it :). This one comes as a gift from my friend Ashof

I'm back!

2010-08-24T03:59:00.000-07:00

And I'm back from Bangalore. It had mostly been a fun trip, except that I was down with food poisoning during the last few days, and hence couldn't catch up with some of my friends I badly wanted to catch up with. It was extremely kind of Pratheek to let Merryn and me crash at his graphic-novel-heaven of a house! Maybe someday, a hundred years from now, it shall be known as the Pratheek memorial graphic novel museum :P. He has such an amazing bookshelf! Might write more about the Bangalore trip in another post

Now that I'm back, I'll start working on silent symphonies, our first graphic novel, which is more like an anthology of visually narrated stories. But before that, I have a few minor projects that I'll need to complete within a week or two. The ones that I have been pushing off to "after the Bangalore trip"

The Marcus strips continued in the Indian Express despite my absense, thanks to my farsightedness :P. Tsk tsk! Happened to have a couple of buffer-strips ready. You can read them here --> MARCUS

Here is a review that came in The Hindu about Tail Tales, the children's book that i had illustrated for --> REVIEW

And here is a picture of me with my folks that my sister Sharon clicked on my return. Love 'em both to pieces!

An Interview

2010-08-19T10:56:00.001-07:00

Here are scans of an article titled "The evolution of the Indian Graphic Novel" that came on The Sunday Guardian, Aug 15th

Below, is the complete unabridged version of my interview, just for you guys

There has been a sudden spurt in the field of graphic novels in India. When did it start and why do you think it is gaining momentum?

The so called sudden spurt in the field of graphic novels was triggered by the coming of European and American graphic novels. Our readers began to realize the potential of this medium and started becoming aware of the limitless possibilities in storytelling that it offered. It became all the more evident when block buster movies were made out of best selling western graphic novels like Sin City, 300, and V for Vendetta. All of a sudden Graphic novels were more than just comic books for children. They became an efficient medium of storytelling that was way less expensive to make than movies and with the possibility of being way more expressive than novels (if well made). With the sudden increase in readership, came the increasing demand in the market for newer, original, and more importantly Indian stuff. Now more and more artists, writers and publishers are entering the Indian graphic novel industry. What we are witnessing could be the advent of a whole new era of storytelling

How did the whole genre of graphic novels evolve in India? How has the evolution come about?

Though the term 'graphic novels' is recent, India has had a long tradition of comic readership. It had started as early as 1947, with Chandamama publishing its comic magazines. I think the adaptations of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata in comic-book format in the 60s may have been our first attempt at what we call graphic novels now. After that came a comic-book era during which many western comics (like Phantom and Mandrake) were made available in India through publishers like Indrajaal comics. Soon afterwards more western comics like Archie, Tintin, Asterix, etc started gaining popularity in our country along with our very own Amar Chitra Katha. Though none of these could exactly be called graphic novels, they still helped our readers get acquainted to the medium of western sequential art. Graphic novels are nothing but an extension of this art form. It tells bigger, more serious stories to a bigger, more serious crowd. Not that children and adolescents don't enjoy them, but there are also graphic novels that target just the mature reader

Why do you think there has been a lack in this specific art form?

Frankly, I don't think there has been a lack per se in the art form. It is a multi-billion dollar industry around the globe, be it the western graphic novels or the Japanese Manga, churning out thousands of graphic novels every year. Its just that we have had so very few original Graphic novels being created in our country that our readers still rely majorly on the European, American and Japanese industries to keep them entertained. But there are new publishers coming up in India exclusively for graphic novels and there are plenty of original graphic novel scripts being written. Also we have a lot of talented artists in our country. So I believe that in the next five years the scene is going to change

Do you think that graphic novel is a highly underrated medium in our country and is more about superheroes and mythology?

It has been mostly about superheroes and mythology. Not that I am against these genres, and yes, I do enjoy them as long as the stories are well-crafted and told. But supehero and mythology comics are being done to death in our country through repetitions and shallow, clichéd plots. And most of these have been targeting the pre-teen and early teen readers. Its about time we moved a level up and looked beyond the niche market that these comics have created. By sticking to just this target age-group, we are forcing the more mature, intelligent reader to look up solely to the Western and far-Eastern markets for a satisfying read. There however has been many exceptions too that deserve to be acknowledged here, like Amruta Patil's dark and intense graphic novel Kari, and Tejas Modak's humorous take on the Noir genre with his graphic novel Agent Anonymous, to cite a few examples. Yes, the graphic novel is a highly underrated medium in our country and its full-potential is yet to be realized.

Also, many of the graphic novels existing in the market today portray stories that are gory in nature with a lot of bloodshed, rape. Why?

Well, there are two categories when it comes to this. There are the graphic novels that have blood and gore as part of the harsh realities of life. These probably require it for the story to be more convincing. Then there are the ones that have these just because they sell. I am not a big fan of the latter, but I am not denying the fact that sometimes the shock-value does help. Not only in sales, but also in delivering the impact. What I personally feel is that the impact is all the more stronger when it is kept subtle and toned down instead of going for blatant in-your-face acts of sex and violence.

Where would you place the Indian graphic novel scene on a global scale? Why

Even though a lot of comics and graphic novels are being sold in India the volume of original graphic novels being produced here is very low. The number of international releases that we have each year is almost as low as being non existent for us to be of any significance on a global scale right now. The graphic novel industry of our country is presently in the same state as Bollywood was in the global scene 50-55 years back (during the early years of what was known as the Golden age of Indian cinema), with a reasonable number of movies being made to be viewed only within the country. But though we seem to be starting off late, we have always had immense underutilized potential waiting to be unleashed. Story telling through art has been part of our heritage and it dates back to the 5th century AD mural paintings in the Ajanta caves and beyond. One way in which our contributions in the global graphic novel industry can stand out as unique is by introducing the aspects of our traditional art forms in sequential art. Of course, it goes without saying that it can happen only if the graphic novel communicates efficiently and has a gripping story to tell. We should also be able to tell stories that are unique to us, but still can be related to by readers from the other parts of the world. That way we will be able to provide the international reader with a whole new well-cherished reading experience, and in the long run make our mark in the international market

Is there a mature and understanding audience for graphic novels in India?

International best selling graphic novels have always had a substantial readership in India. So I would like to believe that we do have a mature and understanding audience for graphic novels. But frankly, that is one of those things that is yet to be found out. I do get a lot of positive feedback from the readers of my comic strip (Marcus and more) in the New Indian Express and that gives me hope that my graphic novels too would be loved as much

In what ways are graphic novels different from comics?

The sheer volume of content is what separates graphic novels from comic-books. Graphic novels are what can be called the movie-equivalent of sequential art. Of course the challenges are many since unlike a movie, a graphic novel does not have anything that is not visual. But a picture speaks a thousand words. efficient paneling can control the pace of the narration, proper lettering and onomatopoeia makes it audible, and efficient use of colors brings out the right mood

Who is your favourite graphic novelist(s)?

Neil Gaiman has always been a favourite graphic novel-writer. Will Eisner has been a huge inspiration. If it hadnt been for him, the medium wouldnt have been born in the first place. I totally admire the works of Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist) in their noir series Blacksad. Anthropomorphized characters have never been more expressive. Among the more recent graphic novelists, I'm addicted to the works of the twins Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

What are your current projects and from where do you draw inspiration while working on these?

Besides an ongoing fortnightly comic strip, I am also working with my team mates Roshan and Sinu on the first graphic novel from the Libera Artisti. It is called Silent symphonies and it is an anthology of four stories, two of which are by me. What makes this graphic novel unique is that the stories are purely visually narrated without a single word being used. This is a huge challenge as far as the medium is concerned, since usually a major part of the storytelling in graphic novels happens through dialogues and narrations. Since neither of these will be used in this book we will need to explore all the graphical aspects of the medium to the maximum extend possible for efficient storytelling.
Inspirations are usually drawn from life itself and the things that happen in and around it. As storytellers we are constantly on the look out for new stories and sometimes its actually the trivialities of life that triggers a whole chain of thoughts. It might be a person we know in real life or certain traits of his/hers that give birth to a character

Sunshine, rainbows, and lollypops

2010-07-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

This time around, I'm signing into this blog to be nice :). Today morning, I woke up, brushed my teeth, and hit a considerably large creative block. No amount of early morning caffeine was helping me get around it. So I thought I'd take a break and go through all my umpteen different blogs. Today happens to be the first day on which I went through this blog under a thoroughly objective, dispassionate light. I am disappointed! The first thought that came to my mind was "Boy! This blog must belong to a grumpy old underdog of a spiteful billy-goat!". The kind that snaps and charges at you at the slightest sign of provocation. But dear friends, that is the farthest from the truth. Though not highly people-trained, I'm generally well-behaved. The people who maintain close proximity with me would totally vouch for it. Writing spiteful blog-posts is as evil as I can possibly get ;)

In my defense, I've been hitting this blog only when in a bad mood. Taking into consideration the infrequency of blog-posts here, you can with no further doubt, arrive at the conclusion that I'm mostly a happy person. :D Without further ado, let me move on to letting you guys know about the good things that have been happening around me.

I am not an unpublished artist/writer anymore! Yaaayyy!! I now have an ongoing comic strip in Indian Express, which is one of the leading national dailies in India. Its called Marcus and More and the stories revolve around the lovable chihuahua Marcus, Jinx - a witch disguised as a black cat, space aliens, and of course, a few not so significant humans. The first strip came out on April 24th and it has been going well since, finally gaining me some exposure. For those of you who have missed the previous strips, here is a link where you can read them --> Marcus and More

Also, on the 24th of this month, Amma's Tales brought their second book called Tail Tales out in the market. The book is written by Dr. Hema Vaidyanathan and of course, illustrated by yours truly ;). Rosh is the colorist and Merryn the graphic designer . You can read more about that and also take a sneak peek inside it here --> Tail Tales

Right now, alongside the Marcus strips, I'm also working on the first graphic novel from the Libera Artisti. Its an anthology of four 24-page stories, two(stories, of course, silly! Not pages) of which are going to be by me. The other two stories are by our beloved artists, Rosh and Sinu. It should ideally be out by the end of this year. I will keep you guys updated on that either through my blogs or through the Libera Artisti page on Facebook.

As for the highlights of my 'non-professional' life, I got to re-bond with one of my best friends. What is funny is that we hadn't noticed that we had drifted apart over the years until all of a sudden the walls(that we didn't even know had formed between us) disappeared and we found us closer to each other than ever before

Hopefully, in two weeks, I will be traveling to Bangalore to meet Merryn and a few other important people. In all probability, my next blog-post will be on that. So until then, its adieu from your friendly neighborhood graphic novelist. Peace out! :)

CRANK

2010-07-26T01:28:00.000-07:00

There are those days when you know that you've woken up on the destructive side of your bed. It starts off with waking up, looking straight up at the ceiling and waiting for the first words of the day to materialize inside your head. "OH FUCK!". Whatever you touch on this day, is doomed! You leave a trail of destruction.... broken hearts, shattered dreams, pain, and tears. Oops!!!..Almost forgot to mention smashed phones and cracked mirrors

Dignified $#!T

2010-03-09T08:28:00.000-08:00

Warning: Profane content. Not for the easily offended

I haven't been around for very long, but one of the valuable things that life has taught me is to never take failure into the heart or let success get into the head. The reason why I'm forced to say this right now is because of a recent conversation I had with a friend of mine a few days back. There is this certain person working in a certain studio, who is equally famous for his brilliant art as he is infamous for making the lives of his teammates hell. I am an admirer of his art, and I've never met him in person. So it wouldn't be fair on my part if I judge him (which I don't intend to) based on what iv heard of him from others. But what really annoys me is when someone says "Its OK if he throws tantrums because he is so damn talented". Now does that mean that if a talented person throws his s**t at you, you'll take it happily? My dear friends, ... get inspired by good art...promote talented artists... but please do not take hero-worship to a whole new level. Believe me when i say this - There is no such thing as dignified s**t! S**t is s**t irrespective of who s**ts. Please do not let anyone walk all over you. None of you deserves to take s**t from anyone else, talented or otherwise. SO please...DON'T! With that said, I hope that this certain talented person in this certain studio continues to hone his skills and keeps producing amazing art. I hope that along the way, he gets a wee bit wiser, if he really is the kind of person iv heard he is (Word of advise: If people respect you, be happy about it. Bask in the glory, but do not forget to return the favor. They aren't respecting you because they're too eager to take your crap). I also hope that the so called down-trodden team-mates of his grow a spine each sometime soon. Good luck to all of you out there

Sneak peek!!

2010-02-07T01:36:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd let ya guys sneak a peek into a work in progress. Here is a random screenshot of my desktop. And that's yours truly, tripping on Frank Sinatra and doodling away to glory!

Random quick post-ling

2010-01-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

This isn't a real post. You may think it is. But you're wrong. This is just a quick post-ling to put an end to the inactivity around here. I have been terribly busy juggling too many balls, and surprisingly, I haven't dropped any of them yet. I will be giving you an insight about the things I am up to soon enough
A friend recently asked me if I'm an atheist, probably because my religious views have always been obscure. Hell no, I'm no Atheist. Atheism is no fun. I am more like an observer of the things that people do in the name of religion. Sometimes they make sense. Most of the times they don't. But if there were no God, atheists would have been a jobless lot with nothing to disprove

P.S: Speaking about the things people do in the name of religion, you might wanna read this article I found online - LINK

P.P.S: Do check out my other blogs! There are post-lings there too!!! :D

From Frustration to Flying Elephants

2009-12-24T01:36:00.000-08:00

Being an unrecognized artist and an unpublished writer can be quite a frustrating business. Especially when one does it on a full-time basis. I can verywell imagine what America must have felt before being discovered by Christopher Columbus. There is always a part of you that keeps telling you that success is just a few more miles away, you will get there in good time, and hence you must keep going. But there is also this other part that creeps into focus every once in a while (most often accompanied by an unpaid bill or two) blaming you for having put everything else at stake to pursue your dreams. In the resulting implacable debate, it is always the former that succeeds and ends up convincing me to carry on in the path that i have chosen. It tells me to get there or die trying and I just heed

Fort Cochin turned out to be far more beautiful than i had expected it to be. Last weekend I got to hang out there with a bunch of awesome people. There is never a dull moment when story-tellers, writers, editors, and artists gather around a coffee table. And there I was, right amidst a group of fellow-sapiens, sipping on a cup of earl grey, and deeply engaged in trading tales for tales. After that, we took a stroll about the harbor and I realized for the second time since Vasco how much i loved the sight of ships - sailing away and coming in from far far away, each having a story of its own to tell. There was this red cargo ferry, the color of blood, heading off towards the horizon. Its name, 'The Red Pearl', was painted across its back in bold white letters. I kept watching it till it looked no bigger than a tiny speck of blood from a pin-prick on the surface of the water. Oddly enough, it reminded me of the umpteen times I've had my skin scraped by thorns while playing with my cousins in my aunt's rose-garden. From somewhere off the shore came what I think is a destroyer, going by the the stuff I have learned from my grandpa's lectures about the different types of ships and boats that they use in the Indian Navy. It was the same greyish blue color that the sea was during that hour of the day. On its deck, in the scorching sun, stood motionless and in attention, eight navel police men in lightning-white uniforms. They looked just like the front row of white pawns in a game of chess that was just about to commence. The knight...rook..erm...captain...Master chief at arms..or whoever he was - that pompous man in the slightly more dignified looking uniform - seemed to me, judging by his vigorous lip movements, to be abusing them. It was bad enough to be made to stand out there under the burning gas-ball. I thought about how much I would have hated the guts of Mr. Pompous-in-a-more-dignified-looking-uniform, had I been one among the eight hapless pawns standing in attention on the deck and being shouted at

On the other side of the harbor were Chinese fishing nets that looked like those giant catapults that were used to haul rocks at the charging troops during the medieval days. If you have played 'Age of empires' or any of its succeeding strategy games, you would know what I am talking about. We stood there watching as one of the contraptions was being pulled up from the water, expecting to see a truck load of ill-fated fishes rising to their doom. Instead, in the middle of the giant net, jumping up and down as if on a trampoline, was a single fish hardly a foot long. Those Chinese nets could have been put to better use if they had been improvised to catapult people from one side of the harbor to an awaiting giant cushion on the other. It would any day have been more fun than traveling across the harbor on a slow boat

You might find the streets of Fort Cochin to be very similar to how you would have pictured an 18th century port-town to be: Intricate paths of cobbled stone, with antique shops, old cafés, inns, and foreign currency exchange counters tightly packed together on either sides. You get to see people from almost every corner of the world trotting, walking, and cycling around as though they all belonged there

Before sundown we were seated in a rattling mess of a red bus heading to a friend's house where we were being put up for the night. As the bus tossed us about while careening through the pot-hole infested roads of Cochin, my mind shifted from its former state of frustration to my regular world of flying elephants, white whales, and steam-punk cloning machines made out of dismantled old train engines

Loners Inc.

2009-12-12T00:55:00.000-08:00

I recently happened to have a conversation, more like a debate actually, with a fellow artist and a good friend of mine about what it is that makes artists and writers tick. We both ended up agreeing to one point. Most artists and writers are by nature introverts and the lack of human interactions actually seem to be helping us in exploring a lot more inside our heads than outside. Yes, we do miss out on a good deal of social life, sometimes to the extend that we get referred to as being anti-social, which is not quite a good thing. It is not as if we don't enjoy being with friends. It is just that we prefer solitude by the end of the day so that we can sort things out in our heads and cook up something worth our while. We need time for some serious daydreaming. After all, we make a living by trading our dreams

The flipside of this is that we learn about human nature more from movies and literature than through actual interaction. Our social circle stays restricted to just the handful of people we are able to share our comfort zone with. So coming up with characters and images that every reader/viewer can relate to becomes a challenge at times. Finding a balance between art and social life continues to remain a tricky business to me

Getting back to life, and things around me, I woke up today with a semi-gothic poem ringing inside ma head and I wrote it down first thing in the morning. Dreams fade away by mid-day and are best documented before breakfast! Then I found time to read Will Eisner's brilliant work, New York - The big city, and it inspired me into thinking why not document the unique things that happen around where I live, in what Rosh mockingly calls my Indo-French style :). Then i made a very long list of all the things that one gets to see only in the streets of Trivandrum, one of the Southernmost cities of India, and the homeland of yours truly.
So here I am, presenting to you all, Trivandrum - Life in the small city (link)
Merryn is on a train headed South to her home as we speak and I wish her a safe n happy journey. Come back to me soon!

Evolution

2009-12-09T10:24:00.000-08:00

One of the joys of being an artist is that we get to watch what can be described as our own style gradually evolving. As children, most of us start off after being inspired by one or more of those art-Gods out there. As time advances, something unique to each of us starts showing in our work. Whether it is the good kind of unique or the bad kind of unique is what decides our success or failure in as an artist. Then again, the beauty of art, like that of any other form of beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder. In the end, it all comes down to the Darwinian theory of natural selection. If the unique traits of the artist are appealing to the viewers and à la mode, they get passed on. If not, they face extinction. As simple as that

As a part time artist, I have been experimenting with umpteen different styles. Its not until recently, after art and storytelling became my first priorities, that I switched predominantly to a style that I felt I can do most justice to in terms of expressiveness. Of course, I am aware of the fact that I am nowhere close to my evolutionary best and perhaps there is no such thing as one's evolutionary best at all. The only thing one can do, I guess, is to keep competing with ones own best piece of work so far. That way you get to evolve in the direction you are meant to evolve instead of ending up as another poor man's Mr. X or poorer man's Ms. Y. The world, or nature, if you prefer putting it that way, cant possibly require more than one Mr. X or Ms. Y, can it? If it did, each of us wouldn't have been born different, right?

Okay.. time to get back to more mundane things. The day had been rather productive. Rosh, despite spending a good deal of his time waiting outside the burrow in the nearby field, hoping to get a clearer and closer picture of the lesser Indian civet, found enough time to finish two out of the three cover pages he is supposed to finish by the end of this week. They have come out really well too. Good job, bro. I am done with the letters for the first chapter of our graphic novel, and spent my spare time writing the script for a short comic. Its going to be a 4 page psychedelic shortie, and I hope to get it done during my leisure hours. Thats not all, folks; here is a piece I did during today's warm up session: link. Hope y'all dig it!

Day 1

2009-12-08T00:37:00.000-08:00

This being the first day since I started this blog, which is chiefly aimed at tackling my occasional writer's blocks, I've decided not to leave it untouched. So here I am taking a break from finishing up a rough draft of the pages of the graphic novel that I intend to take to a meeting on the 19th. Rosh, my colorist, and the closest I have to a brother, just walked by muttering "I just realized that the only woman the Hulk can do it with is the Elastigirl"

My letterer/girlfriend/love of my life (definitely not in that order) seems to be in bit of a mess post an episode involving blood, guts, and mutilated body parts, the gory details of which you can read in her journal, if you have the stomach for such stuff. Which means I'm gonna have to do a rough version of the lettering as well; which in turn means, I've got my hands full for the next ten days. So I'm gonna have to put my short-story 'Jaque and Jill' on hold for a bit. Let me apologize to all of you who are eagerly waiting to read the rest

I have posted some of the doodles that were done during the sketching session a La Café coffee-day last night . Maybe sometime today, I will be posting a picture that Rosh took of the strange visitor (which, to my great disappointment, was later found to be, as wikipedia tells me, a lesser indian civet, and not a denizen of wonderland) that came out of a burrow in the neighborhood. Good day to you all!

Brazil

2009-12-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

I was never a big fan of Eurodance pop groups and that is prettymuch the reason why i was never into Vengaboys. No offence to anyone; It is a highly subjective thing and is purely a matter of choice and taste that i found them to be quite irritating
But today, to my own surprise, I found myself humming 'To Brazil'. The credit, however, goes not to the Vengaboys, but to Terry Gilliam's masterpiece - Brazil
Never before, have i found a movie to be equally funny and disturbing at the same time. The movie offers you an alternative vision of not only the future, but also of the past and the present; and that too, with a steam-punk touch to everything
In a grim looking future, where society is controlled by a massive monolithic organization, a benevolent bureaucrat lands himself into trouble (and pretty deep...erm.. trouble at that) for trying to point out an administrative error
The movie deserves praise for its sheer originality in terms of both the characters, and the designs of environment and props. Despite being 24 years old, the movie is a visual treat even by today's standards. Jonathan Pryce, as the meek bureaucrat Sam Lowry, does a very convincing job; and Robert de Niro's cameo as Archibald "Harry" Tuttle, an illegal freelance repairman who defies the system by fixing things for the sheer joy of fixing them and that, sans bills, receipts, or any other administrative complications, leaves a long lasting impact
If you have read the novel 1984 by George Orwell or the graphic novel Oink: Heaven's butcher by John Mueller, and liked either one or both of them, then this definitely is a movie for you. It will take you on a trip you wont forget anytime soon and leave you with enough food for thought to last you at least a week
So in goes Brazil into my mile-long must-watch movie list