After a hectic couple of weeks and the Mumbai Comic Con now over, its great to be back bringing you comics of all shapes and sizes. But the Convention itself gave us so many great new reads and amazing new talent to enjoy that I want to review arguably my favourite of the new contenders from among those launched in Mumbai: Milk & Quickies by writer Anupam Arunachalam and artist Abhijeet Kini, the latter of whom many of you will already know from his work on UBiMa (a.k.a. Ud Bilaw Manus) from Pop Culture Publishing.
This talented duo has done something that is a great concept and personally I feel the Indian comic industry needs more of: bring a variety of styles and stories and really let the reader see what Indian comics are capable of bringing to the table. In this case they have done so with five distinct stories of varying length told over twenty-six highly entertaining pages.
I was wondering how to go about reviewing this given the way the book as a whole is composed and elected to touch on each story briefly and a bit of a general review on the book as a whole. Filled with just as much a variety of art as there are stories, Kini and Arunachalam bring us quite a variety for all tastes. So with that in mind, lets begin shall we?
A trail of smokeless fire
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| Cooked with a fiery tang! |
A short and quirky little tale about searching for something of great importance and value. Like other aspects of the stories he has written here, Anupam takes a simple background that is very nicely rendered by Abhijeet and then overlays that with a narration that both moves with the images before you and yet carries a far deeper layer of thought beneath it. Sets a great tone for the rest of the book.
Taste
One of the two longer stories brought forth here, its also one of the most entertaining, disturbing (in bits and a humorously good way) and slightly on the darker side. With an art style that echoes bits of the one used for UBiMa, the cartoonish art coupled with the subject matter and strangeness makes for a unique reading experience. Possibly my favourite of the five.
The Box
A selectee for Warren Ellis's Three Panel Open, this one pager is something to which I think everyone who has grown up in India during the 80s and early 90s will instantly relate. A few simple nostalgic recollections of the days when the original Ramayan first started airing here in India, bringing back so many memories of the days when Doordarshan ruled the roost.
The Shortcut
The second long entry in this anthology. After a mix of thoughtful and serious but fun stories, we now finally get a good dose of old school humour here. With an art and story style that reminded me quite a bit of the very entertaining stories from Tinkle way-back-when, this was a great little comedic escapade. Simple but effective story of a royal challenge for two vastly differing noblemen of the kings court with a plain wit behind it, this was a somewhat predictable but nonetheless fun piece. The art as mentioned is Tinkle-like but felt finer and of a better finish.Cutting to the chase
Ending the book on a more sombre and thoughtful note – in that much like the opening story – this story is a more linear and shorter-time-frame narrative spanning just a simple car ride. We follow a hitchhikers encounter with an oddly amusing older gent who regales him with a tale that leaves you thinking and definitely so by the time you reach the final page. Not the best told of the tales present, but does not detract from the overall book and ends it all nicely.
So there you have it folks – this first helping of Milk & Quickies from a clearly creative pair is up for your sampling and enjoyment and who knows, with a little luck and enough love (and sales) coming up we might get treated to more in the future.
And so until next time kiddies, cheers one and all...
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