Meeting Maniacs: Yogesh Chandekar and Saumin Patel (a.k.a masterminds of The Jungfrao Encounter!) + Preview Artwork!

Vinod... Agent Vinod.

We have a very special treat for you today everyone!

A one-on-one session with the brilliant creative team behind the awesome new The Jungfrau Encounter: An Agent Vinod Graphic Novel, which is a killer idea in that it does not tie-in directly to the movie but is an adventure all its own – a potential new side to franchising a character? We think it could be, so along with the interview we were lucky enough to get some brilliant art samples from the book.

(Yogesh Chandekar is the writer who cooked up this mad adventure and Saumin Patel is the brilliant artist who has so vividly brought it to life!)

1. Before we dive into the big comic news for which we're here today – would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself working in graphic story-telling and comics?

Yogesh Chandekar (Y.C) : I’m an ex-advertising professional who simply got bored and left the field in 2007 to join Virgin Comics. Six months later, Virgin shut shop abruptly leaving me without a job. I had no intention of going back to advertising, so I did some freelance writing for a

while and on the side, began work on The Feast and Other Visions of Malevolence with my friends Ashish Padlekar and Saumin Patel. Fortunately, the Feast website (www.wix.com/thefeast/enter) got a terrific response and more comic-book work followed.

Saumin Patel (S.P) : I am a freelance Illustrator based in Mumbai. I was first attracted to comics during my art school days. But back then making comics was not financially lucrative option, so i did a little bit of web animation and quite a lot of illustration for advertising clients. For a few years it was all going great, as in advertising there’s hardly any shortage of work if you are willing to deliver work on insane deadlines, it pays you well too. I ran that loop for while but then I developed this nagging feeling that I was only investing my time in creating disposable art. I also had an intense desire to push my limits and upgrade my skillsets but the tight deadlines were not really helping. Around that time, Virgin comics came looking for artists. I applied and got selected and this was the turning point in my career. I was now producing art that I felt was more worthwhile and I had a renewed respect and understanding of the medium as well. There was an immense sense of satisfaction in making comics and so i decided to just stick around in the comic book industry.

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2. How did you find this project, or did it find you?

Y.C : Again through Feast. Saif was looking for somebody to do an Agent Vinod comic book and an old colleague of mine who was into in-film branding saw the Feast website and introduced us to the folks at Illuminati Films.

S.P : Yes, we owe a lot to Feast for getting us this project.

3. What has the experience been like and how has it been different from working on stories that are not tied into any existing property or characters?

Y.C : This being a Bollywood gig, I had my doubts initially, but after we met Saif and heard his thoughts on Agent Vinod, we were pleasantly surprised. At the core, Saif is a fanboy – very much like you or me or any other guy who grew up reading comics in India. His enthusiasm about the project was infectious and we realized that the things that excited him were not very different from the things that we got our kicks from. There was an immediate connection. Even though he had a direction in mind for the book, he gave us a free reign to come up our own stuff. So for me there was always a sense of belonging towards the project and I never once felt that I was working with someone else’s creation. In a way, Agent Vinod is exactly the kind of character that would have popped out of my head.

S.P : Even though we had an existing character in Agent Vinod, the story of the book has been created from scratch. It was loved by both Saif and Sriram. In fact, we were stunned when it was approved without a single change and were given complete freedom to tell this story our way. This rarely happens on commissioned projects but it did happen with this project. We are extremely grateful to Saif and Sriram, for showing faith in us letting us use their creation to spin our own yarn.

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4. This is set in the world of the upcoming Agent Vinod – how familiar are you with the details of the movie and how much of what you've created here was influenced by what you were shown/told about it?

Y.C : We simply love Sriram’s movies and always knew that his take on Indian espionage would be a romp. He shared an initial draft of his screenplay with us and as expected, it was good fun. But we mutually decided to keep the graphic novel independent from the film so as to let audiences enjoy the two as standalone stories in the same fictional universe. Apart from its essence, tone and a couple of characters, the graphic novel hardly has anything in common with the film. The story takes place before the events in the movie and, while the ending of the book does lead to the beginning of the movie, it’s not a prequel. Think of it more like a companion piece that talks the same language but has a voice of its own.

S.P : Along with a draft of the script, we also had access to Saif and Sriram. They were very co-operative and our discussions with them helped to us understand the way they looked at the Agent Vinod universe. The good folk at Illuminati also supplied us with whatever visuals we needed for referencing. The real challenge was to capture the film’s look in my semi-realisitc illustration style. I wanted a very distinct look for the book, something that could be exclusive to this universe if we decide to tell more stories in the future. I love anime and I tried to create a look which was heavily influenced by it. Soaked in single colour shadows, this world would look different and dangerous; something that would be possible only in comics and not on film. So from a visual perspective, we evolved into something that is far more vibrant than the film but which doesn’t look out of the place in the Agent Vinod universe.

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5. Do you plan to continue in existing property tie-ins such as this or are you more inclined to dabble in comic property's that are more creator-owned?

Y.C : Creator-owned work is the ultimate destination, but along the way I don’t mind working on projects like Agent Vinod, where the client has faith in you and gives you a certain level of creative control.

S.P : As of now i am not focusing on anything except putting out the best book possible. Be it a commissioned project or creator-owned, it’s got to be something that a fan can hold on to rather than just flip and forget.

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6. Would you have any parting words of advice and wisdom for all the aspiring artists out there who will be reading this and eagerly awaiting their copy of the book?

Y.C : I consider myself to be an aspiring artist too, so I rather keep my advice and wisdom to myself. But for those looking forward to this book, I’d like to tell them that we have worked very hard so that you can get your money's worth and hope that you have a ball reading the Jungfrau Encounter.

S.P : I hope they enjoy this book and it stays with them long after they have finished reading it.

7. As a last thought – are you working on any other projects at this time that we should be keeping an eye out for in the months ahead?

Y.C : We’ll be shifting our focus back on Feast now. It’s a dream project and it was unfortunate that we had to leave it midway to work on other paid projects. We had managed to gather a sizable fanbase thanks to the interest shown by the media and we don’t intend to keep them waiting any longer. There are also a couple of other projects in the pipeline but it’s too early to discuss them at this point of time.

S.P : Apart from FEAST, there is an image comics crossover book i will be working on. I don’t know the exact release date yet, as of now but these two are my top priority.

We hope you all enjoyed that – stick around for more of the usual comic madness in the next couple of days, before our very own MINICON v2.0 takes place on this Sunday, the 18^th (We hope to see you there!) where there will be loads of fun and mayhem for fans of comics and video-games alike.