World wide wit

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If the word ‘comic’ brings to mind Superman, Phantom, Dilbert, Calvin or even Tinkle, Diamond and Nagraj, you don’t belong to the new generation of blogging and networking night owls, always on the prowl for exciting new experiences. The New-Age comic is an extension of the SMS joke, illustrated and waiting to be discovered on a Web platform.

The age of the superhero is behind us and the modern comic tackles the absurdity of everyday life as in Sikh Park, where a good old Sikh inside a lift laments that he should never have had those mulli de parathe while his granddaughter tells him to exercise control since they are merely 60 floors away from their destination. It can also be as brainy as Arbit Choudhury, the hero of the ‘first MBA Comic’, who illustrates tactical mistake as ‘giving one’s girlfriend a birthday present she doesn’t like’ and strategic blunder as ‘forgetting her birthday altogether’.
Sikh Park, created by Dalbir Singh, a former O&M creative director, and Arbit, by a group of three friends while pursuing their MBA, may be among the best of the Indian webcomics which aim at fun rather than finances but there are at least 50 of them out there vying for your eyeballs. Their lines may not match the finesse of a Mario Miranda and the punchlines may never threaten those of R.K. Laxman but where they score is through their irreverent and often innocent take on life, powered by the social networking sites. It is a world of free access and a free-for-all attitude.
Arbit Choudhury is a collaborative effort of Shubham Choudhury, Nikhil Kulkarni and Hemantkumar Jain who graduated from NITIE in 2005. Shubham works as a manager in Cognizant Business Consulting, Nikhil as a manager in KPMG IT Advisory, and Hemant as a Business Transformation Consultant in Fujitsu. They are based in different cities and have been able to meet each other only three times in the last seven years but have been in touch electronically to create Arbit every fortnight. “I do the comic idea generation and pencil artwork, Hemant converts the comics into digital form and Nikhil is responsible for managing the IT and marketing aspects of our endeavour,” says Shubham.
It is their passion for comics that made them hook up during their MBA. “We realised that there was no comic character that highlighted the suppressed humour in the apparently serious world of management. Though Dilbert was known for his office humour, Calvin for his cynical outlook and Archie for college humour, there was no comic character who peeped into the comically jargonistic world of business,” says Shubham.
So they introduced management humour to the world of comics and Arbit Choudhury was born. They not only mail it regularly to a loyal group of fans but also upload it every fortnight on Facebook and Twitter.
A relatively new entrant to the Webcomic world is Almost Grounded, created by Manjiri McCoy, who works as a software developer in Portland, Oregon. ”I developed the comic strip in 2010 as a way to share my experiences as an engineer working with people in three different countries — the US, India and China,” says Manjiri, who was born and raised in Mumbai and left for Los Angeles to pursue her higher education.
Her primary aim was to make people laugh and she did it using the familiar world of computer companies. “The comic is written from the viewpoint of alien engineers who have been stranded on Earth due to unfortunate circumstances. For them, no human culture is familiar, and each poses a unique challenge as well as plenty of comical situations. The comic is illustrated by Brian Martin, a cartoonist from Virginia,” she says.
Almost Grounded reflects the multi-cultural exposure gained by its creator. “The audience I had in mind was anyone who is interested in learning about other cultures, or has to interact with them in the course of their business. One gains respect for other cultures when one learns about them, and comics are a great medium to do that,” she says. About 100 to 200 people read her comics every day but she hopes to increase this fan base by developing a comics app for mobile devices.
Freelance writer Sahil Rizwan’s The Vigil Idiot had its genesis in the Facebook notes that he started posting about the worst Bollywood movies he had seen. “That turned into a blog, and in a few months, it somehow evolved into a stick figure comic strip that pointed out the plot holes in the latest Bollywood releases. It was just one of those things that happened,” he says, adding that since it came into being it has got over 2.5 million page views. Sahil’s comic strips sometimes go on and on, pointing out flaw after flaw in a movie and one that provided enough dope was Don 2. “The way I see it, the length doesn’t matter if the comic is funny. I’ve never consciously tried to stick to a fixed number of panels. It’s hard to work that way.” His point is, the Internet has plenty of space and enough visitors for all kinds of comics!
Adman Dalbir worked in different cities around the world before starting his own film company in India. “I decided to start Sikh Park in the post 9/11 phase when Sikhs were mistaken for Arabs. I used to travel a lot and there was this trend of subjecting Sikhs to intense scrutiny at immigration counters. So, I decided to do something about it,” says Dalbir.
His background as an advertising professional meant he knew how to draw, was adept at production and had a clear idea about his target audience, making Sikh Park a big hit. “When it comes to themes, I found that if you try to be too intelligent, it goes above the head of some. So, the message should be simple. Though the characters are Sikhs, the situations are universal.” When he creates a comic, the feedback is a lot more instant than when he makes, say, an ad film. “One look at the ‘likes’ is enough to judge whether a comic is a hit or not,” he says.