First of all, a real thanks for taking
out time and doing this interview. Being a hardcore fan, I'm just
gonna hop on to my mission rather than being all gabby.
COMIC ADDICTS: I know many of our readers want to get
right to questions about 'Munkey Thugs' and 'The Damned Book', but I
think we should start by you telling us a little 'bout yourself.
BHANU PRATAP: Hey Anupam and Comic addicts, thanks
for this interview. I am already feeling like a celebrity( I hope to
make this interview controversial enough). But really, I am glad that
you guys are making a platform as cool as this available to us, as
creators and fans of the comic book medium.
Ok, I am Bhanu Pratap, a painter, comic
book artist/writer, or cartoonist. I was born in Una, Himachal
Pradesh, but brought up in Delhi. I am currently working out of New
Delhi, working on a few group art exhibitions, and two- three comic
projects(not counting the thousands I conjure up in my head
everyday). And I do plan to do a lot of things in these mediums in
the foreseeable future as well.
CA: You are both a writer and an
illustrator. So with this in mind: who have been the major role
models of your life?
BP: Is this the question where I get to
totally be a fanboy and name all the artist heroes I have? Yes!!!
Well I can’t name them all here, can
I?
Let me just try to name all the people
who have helped me get to this point in life and as an artist.
First role model would be my elder
brother, who inspired me to pick up pencil and draw Jambu (an old
Indian robot superhero). Then artists/painters like Phil Hale, Francis
bacon, Egon Schiele, Ashley Wood, Kent Williams, Euan Uglow, Andrew
Wyeth, N.C. Wyeth. Mangakas like Naoki Urasawa, Katsuhiro Otomo,
Taiyo matsumoto, Junji Ito, Atsushi Kaneko, Jiro Matsumoto (NSFW),
Okama (NSFW). Paul Pope, Alberto Breccia, Hugo Pratt,
Jose Munoz, J P Leon,
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THE ALEX TOTH and THE JACK KIRBY,
Moebius, Nicolas De Crecy, Nicolas Nemiri, Jason, DAVID MAZZUCHELLI,
Guido Crepax (NSFW), Al Columbia... Damn it, the list goes on… maybe I
can make a list and then you add it to the end note?
There are so many awesome inspiring
artists/writers/ demigods out there waiting to be discovered by more
and more comic book fans, and I would implore anybody who reads this
to know about all these stalwarts of art history.
Oh and I would also like to point
attention to sites like drawn.ca, conceptart.org and others like
these as great places to find hidden gems of the art world.
