Project Reveal: Were House : Vivek Goel shows and tell

Lets start with the obvious question Vivek, you have got everyone excited with the brilliant art you have shown recently at your and our facebookpage. Time to tell us some more about the origin of your new project: Were House:

This project basically began with a curiosity, to do something black n white. Since I do tight pencils and my art style is also very noir/dark, horror provided with the perfect opportunity. I am mostly tagged as being a mythology/fantacy artist (can't help it, this is what I have got to draw till date) I desperately wanted to break from it but since my other creator owned project Ravanayan wasn't goin to allow me to do that for a long time, I decided to do something in it myself :)

Click to see in full size

It seems you have chosen shape shifting animals as your subjects this time.

  I was always into animals and am very fascinated by the amazing concept of Lycantrope (shape shifting) and so the idea of doing a mini series based on different creatures depicting different degrees of Lycantropy hatched. It is a kind of project that has been done and a no. of times (take a werewolf) and that is why I wanted to give it a different take and took the native Indian animals as the lycantropes !!

Tell us a little about the team of Were House.

  I wanted to have a veriety and so i started looking for different writers and got blessed in the form of Super talented Akshay Dhar, Shweta Taneja and Soumya Das who have written the 3 stories and I have drawn them all !! 

Why three different writers? 

The reason of working with 3 different writers is that I wanted a variety in storytelling and it has worked amazingly, all of them have their own forte and their own unique ability to tell a story !! 

The final but no less important player in this series is my pencilling assistant Ankur Amre whom i discovered 5 months back, his internship in my office is nearly completing and now he is working very closely with me. He has played a pivotal role in the backgrounds of the GN.

You have said that you wanted to do this in Black and white. Why avoid colors?

Click for full size

 I really want to explore black n white medium of story telling, I believe that a good readble comic does not needs colour dependency (no offence to all my colourist brothers and sisters.), colouring always enhances your drawing but every comic does not need it...especially horror and crime !! I have experimented a lot in the art with this GN and let me tell you that if you handle your pencil carefully with the right amount of pressure, the result just comes out amazing . I got a tremendous opportunity to play with solid blacks and whites and i just loved each moment of it.

Before we end this interview , anything that you would want to tell us about the project?

 To wrap up, I can just tell that all 3 stories are connected in some way and will definately relate to your personal fears !!! i guarentee you that !! Wanna find out more, go buy the book, its out in May 2011......and oh !! yes...we have the same publisher for ravanayan and were house .

Project Reveal: Interior Art: Once Upon a Warrior

We are excited to reveal Interior Pages from the title:


ONCE UPON A WARRIOR.
(Copyright 2010 DISNEY / A BELLYFUL OF DREAMS ENTERTAINMENT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

This comic is an adaptation of the movie:
 ANAGANAGA O DHEERUDU

Starring Siddarth, Shruti Hassan, Lakshmi Prasanna Manchu.

Comic book credits are as per the following
STORY - PRAKASH KOVELAMUDI

ART - RAJ GOLAY (pages 1-30)
     ASHISH PADLEKAR (pages 31-33)
     SAUMIN PATEL (pages 34-72)

COLOURS - NEERAJ MENON, SAUMIN PATEL

LETTERS - ANAND RAMCHANDRAN

COVER ART - SAUMIN PATEL

EDITORS - RAJ GOLAY,SUPROTIM SENGUPTA

available at landmark mumbai and hyderabad now!

Enjoy the Preview !!

Cover

Art by Raj Golay :

Art by Patel Saumin

We also present the movie trailer for your enjoyment!

Vimanika in Action: A Comicon India retrospective

We sat down with Karan Vir Arora (Vimanika Comics) to take his perspective on recently concluded Comicon India.


Q: What did you think of the first edition of Comicon?
A: Well we just loved the 1st annual comic con in Dilli Haat ! we knew and believed in it from the day one that Jatin and his team could pull off such magnifico event , not only pull off but manage it superbly !

It was profitable for everyone ,we sold out! I mean people were ready to buy our wet posters and comics too!!(Post rain).

Not only did publishers and retailers get a chance to showcase their stuff but Aritists and writers too!


Q: What were your experiences during the con?
A: Well to start with as I landed at my stall and took out our comics people started to flock around and the stuff started to sell out like hot cakes like they were hungry tigers waiting for their hunt to arrive ,only this time comics were the hunt! I did not even get a chance to set up our stall!!

We also did quite a few workshops - how to write comics -was brilliantly presented by Kshitish and how to draw comics by Ratnakar singh and his team.And finally i did a interactive session with the fanboys and gals, post that i aswered loads of questions , Roamed around with Kalki in flesh and blood! -where people were holding on to him to get a shot with him,the model btw came all the way from Chandigarh to do this :)

It was lot of fun i was not free for a sec also ,selling comics,fans getting their pics clicked with us,signing autographs,taking workshops,interacting with the Media electronic and print and finally interacting with the Vimaniks!!! z

loved every bit of it ! Thats life!

Q:What are your plans for the next con?
A: Oh you gonna love what we got for next year ,its going to blow your mind ,lets just keep that a secret for now :)

Cause its only the beginning for Vimanika and Comic con India!!!

There's a new Gaurdian in town...

Full name of comic

Veera the Guardian

Creators

Writer: Nikesh Murali

Artist: Vinay Brahmania

Publishers

Dinamalr Newspaper

Release date

8th of February

What's Veera all about?

Veera, a poor slumboy while trying to escape from his abusive,alcoholic father is drawn into an adventure of cosmic proportions when he accidentally follows his friends, Vasu and Nayana into another dimension called Kaal. 

To his surprise, he finds that Nayana and Vasu are Guardians of the dimension, who protect its innocent inhabitants - refugees from the never ending cosmic war between the Gods and Demons. When Nayana is kidnapped by the cunning Moori and the evil Queen of Khandisa, Veera must team with Vasu and use his wit and hidden powers to save Nayana from being sacrificed.

Stay tuned to our blog for an exclusive interview with the creators and interior pages reveal..

UMM...UHHH....ERRRR......HMMMMM.....HOW ABOUT......NAAAA......DAMN IT....

Long time ago ( really really long time ago!) I asked a good mate of mine to contribute to this blog .. Why? Because he loves comics (obviously) , has a sharp tongue and an even sharper wit.

The article was supposed to be about comics you see, since we are a comic blog! But the damn fellow finally sent me an article and writes about everything else BUT comics.. 

Had he sent me the article on paper, I would probably have refused to even acknowledge the paper print - ! but as it is, he sent it to me online.. and when I started reading it , the wit I spoke about earlier captivated me .... Hope he has the same effect on you :)

So without much ado, let me present the new addition to our growing team: 

-  Vinay Pawaskar

When in doubt, procrastinate. So I did. For a long time. M was single when he asked me to contribute to this blog.  He made the single most important decision that all men and women eventually come to regret (Cheers mate. You are so screwed!) and yet I couldn’t think of a single thing to write about.

I stared at an empty word document till the time I felt that the blinking cursor was trying to tell me something in Morse code. Inspiration treated me like all the girls I fell in love with have treated me. It went and settled down with someone else. Leaving me to stare at an empty word document.

Trouble with a word document is that you can delete the damn thing and use it again. Before Bill Gates sold his soul to the devil to come up with MS Word, we writers had to use pen and paper.  In bygone times, one would write something, think it is crap, crumple the damn thing, toss it and expertly miss the dustbin. You may think that it was a sign of frustration. I think it was a motivating sight.

Imagine after 3 hours of doing so, you have an empty dustbin but your floor is hidden under paper balls. You can think, ‘Holy shit! I need to work on my aim. But behold! I have thought of so many things and rejected them. I am a god damn perfectionist.’ Thus having your spirits renewed you can continue doing so for another 3 hours then repeat the process.

But not so with the word document. You type, edit, copy-paste some stuff, re-edit it and then delete the whole damn thing. Do that for 3 hours and you end up with a blank document and a blanker brain.  That was the state of mind my parents often found me in and it led them to formulate various strategies that ranged from calling in the exorcist to getting me married off before my IQ became a single digit number.

Apart from the lack of inspiration, I was also hindered by a conflict. My ego had issues with my basic instinct. My ego craved a meticulously crafted piece of literature that would find a place in the Smithsonian and even pick up a Nobel Prize or two on the way. My nature, however, is to ramble like a psychopathic drunkard on drugs. Guess who won? My ego now has an inferiority complex but I now have 6 paragraphs that I haven’t yet deleted!

I realise this article doesn’t have anything to do with comics, something that I really love to talk about. But we’ll get round to that in the next article. Somewhere deep within I feel my ego brighten up. ‘This article may have been all over the place but the next one will make Stan Lee want to shake my hand’ it vows. Know this true believer that in life, as it is while browsing porn on the internet, when one window closes another opens.  

(P.S: Vinay: Your next art + tickle better be about Comics! or else!  - Manks)

Exclusive: Level 10 on Comicon India

Shreyas and Suhas  , Level 10's dynamic duo offer their perspective on Comicon India exclusively to the adventures team..

What is your take on Comicon india 2011?

Totally exceeded any and all expectations we had. We were kinda expecting a small intimate affair with a smattering of comic aficionados. We were caught surprised, and certainly did not expect the kind of footfall the con finally received. This may have had a lot to do with the location (Dilli Haat), but we sold out all our comics, that means as far as comic enthusiasts are concerned, they were present in droves!

 What did you do throughout the comicon?

Visited all the stalls, met with a lot of fans. It was almost like attending a small gathering of friends. Many of our comic followers I know only by their handle or name via facebook and emails. It was refreshing to put a face to the name and finally get a chance to talk comics with more of our ilk

Are you coming back next year? If yes what are your plans?

Absolutely! Next year we shall do more cosplay and of course carry a lot more books :)

What are your expectations from next comicon?

We expect more people to turn up. If this comic con taught us anything is that comic fans come in all shapes, sizes and ages and with this con, hopefully more fans would be enticed to crawl out of the woodwork and proclaim their love for this medium more openly. We have hidden in the shadows for too long, now India, nay the world shall bear witness to the eccentricities of the Indian Comic Buff! 

Ravanayan Creators on Comicon India

Vivek Goel and Vijayendra Mohanty

Vijayendra Mohanty and Vivek Goel, the brains behind the upcoming Ravanayan series share with us their first hand perspective on Comicon India:

- What's your take on the first comicon

VG: First of all, we actually did not planned to visit comic con, 3 weeks before the event i recieved an invitation frm Jatin Verma for Ravanayan, myself and Mohanty asking us to conduct a workshop. We spoke bout our presence in it and then decided to be a part of it as this would have been the biggest exposure for Ravanayan to all the comic fans in India under a single roof !! I then decided to make 2 exclusive posters of Ravanayan just for the comic con.

 It was truly an amazing experience for us being an insider of the industry and to actually participate in the convention. Though very small as compared to the san diago comic con etc. but no less than in spirit !!! You should have seen the cosplays and that too mostly among adults proving beautifully that comics are no longer just for kids :) 

VM: As Vivek says, I think that the Comic Con was a great success. It got looking in the general direction of the community and it made something of a splash in the media.

As one of my friends pointed out, perhaps, in the years to come, the Con will attract a more dedicated adult audience. As it is, the people most enthusiastic about the event were people our age -- the ones who grew up reading comics and battling misconceptions.

- What did you do at Comicon?

VM: The one thing that we did most at the ComicCon was have fun. The convention was something of an oddity for me (and I suppose many others). The comic book fandom in India is not organised, except when the organisation in question is an online mailing list or a close-knit community of like-minded friends. So a space and an event dedicated especially to the comic book cause was a most welcome change. Our official purpose for being at the convention was to promote Ravanayan, our upcoming comic series, and that purpose was served beautifully.

VG: We did a workshop on ravanayan (i did a lecture on cover making) on the 1st day and did a signing session on the 2nd day where amazingly my friend and ravanayan colourist Yogesh was also present. I donned a horned headgear and a fake moustache to come into the charecter..Hope people enjoyed that.

 

- What's ahead for the Ravanayan Team?

VG: Strategy for ravanayan remains the same as i told u in the last interview, just the 1st issue will now come in double size in May ;) 
Publisher is very much finalised but this is still not the time to reveal it. March would be it.

Mark my words man, the next comic con would be huge !! The success of this event has paved the way for a much bigger event frm next year onwards. This was more like an experiment for all of us (publishers and artists) that is precisely why  most of the artist community just came as spectators. People will have a clearer idea what to do and expect from next time onwards.

You will not find us doing any workshop frm now on, as we will be inside a booth ;)

The time of just knowing the character and its comic books is gone, with events like these now titles will be known by their creators as these events give people like us to get connected to the random reader directly and vice versa.

For the 1st time in my life i had so many things to do and so many people to meet and 8 hours seemed too short. It felt like a 2nd home to me (its just the toilet was too far away..lolz)