Long back, I had written a silly rhyming story / poem for my daughter Adya called “Elaine and the Bug-eyed Bugaboo“. It was different from all that I had written before and I had a whale of a time writing it. Since last year, Devaki Neogi has been adapting it into a kid’s book that we hope to publish as an interactive app on the iPad once it’s done. I’m really impressed by all that Devaki has been able to do with the source material and breathe life into it. If we have a good response to this, I plan on expanding the series into a bigger narrative called “Elaine of Blueberry Lane“.

The first story is about a little girl and her invisible friend who along with her dog rescue the bugs of the meadow from an evil tyrant.

Once upon a time, Sid Kotian and I decided to create a pitch for a mix of mythology, post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy and a healthy dose of kick-ass action. The result was something we called HELHAMMER. We shopped it around (and trust me it garnered interest at some fancy places), but due to various reasons it didn’t make it through to the finish line. Sid and I moved on to other stuff, but this was always the one that got away

Lately I’ve started working again on the script for this, because I’m absolutely in love with this world and its characters. For that reason, I won’t give away much of the plot (but I’m sure the astute reader will make the connection after one read) Just let me wrap up with this: The story has feuding gods, a wasteland wandering loner with a mysterious past, a severed head that talks and (my personal favorite) mutant hill-billy goat people with shotguns.

So here’s the five page pitch that we prepared for shopping around. Do leave us some comments/crits

The comic is hosted on issuu.com and needs Flash to view. For mobile devices, you can install the ISSUU app from Android Market. As for Apple/iOS devices, hard luck

As I mentioned earlier, Saumin Patel and I had collaborated on creating a short comic book homage to the work of the late Frank Frazetta for Chitrakatha website – a project by Saumin and Alok Sharma to produce a documentary about comic books in India.

Both Saumin and I are big fans of Frank’s work and personally for me, the first mental image I envision for high fantasy or sword and sorcery themes is always Frazetta-esque.

Don’t know if it ever made it to the Chitrakatha pages. Here it is in its entirety , for your viewing pleasure.

The comic is hosted on issuu.com and needs Flash to view. For iOS devices, you can go to http://issuu.com/mohaps/docs/the_witch_and_the_warrior_final1 and choose to download the comic book in PDF format.

I got my first big break writing comics when I cold pitched Gotham Chopra, EiC of Virgin Comics in 2006 after reading a news article on his foray into India themed comics. Luckily, he liked my spec script (what’d later become INDIA AUTHENTIC #2 – KALI) and signed me up to write a series of Indian mythological stories with forewords by Deepak Chopra. Somewhere down the line, I was offered DEVI and THE SADHU and then onward to some stories based on characters and storylines I cooked up (e.g. MUMBAI MACGUFFIN and JIMMY ZHINGCHAK – AGENT OF D.I.S.C.O.. It was a work for hire gig (meaning I don’t own the rights to any of the stuff I created), but it was great fun while it lasted. I got to work with industry legends like Ron Marz, built up a decent sized portfolio and got to work with some awesome artists like Sid Kotian, Saumin Patel, Dean Hyrapiet, Abhishek Singh and Shounak Jog etc. I also became friends with other writers/artists working on the Virgin titles like Samit Basu, Mukesh Singh and Vivek Shinde. The Virgin editorial staff consisted of seasoned industry hands like MacKenzie Cadenhead (WOLVERINE: SNINKT) and Mariah Huehner (LUCIFER), movie industry veterans like Seth Jaret and a bunch of young energetic first timers like Sana Amanat, Michelle Gomes and Gaurav Sikka.

Then came the event that we, the Virgin Comics alumni, jokingly refer to as “The Great Deflowering” and just like that, Virgin was no more. The founders of Virgin Comics, namely Sharad Devrajan, Suresh Seetharaman and Gotham, effected a management buyout of the Virgin portfolio sometime later and came back as Liquid Comics. I did a few more work for hire gigs for them and also branched out to doing one off gigs for Moonstone (PHANTOM), Top Cow (WITCHBLADE). Vivek and I went on to create our creator owned project MUMBAI CONFIDENTIAL and I had some hijinks/misadventures with some other Indian publishers on work for hire projects.

All in all, I look back very fondly of my time spent with Virgin Comics and I greatly appreciate Sharad, Suresh and Gotham giving me the chance to write comics (I mean write freakin’ comic books and get paid doing it! ). My dayjob (as a co-founder of the web conferencing startup Dimdim) started taking more of my time as did my two kids – Ayan and Adya. So I dialed down the writerly activities a lot in 2010 – 2011 and regrouped. MUMBAI CONFIDENTIAL started gaining traction (in no small measure because of Vivek’s fantastic art) and I also started working with Siddharth Panwar on DHURANDHAR – a modern day magic realism tale set in small town India.

So, I was pleasantly surprised recently when Liquid Comics launched Graphic India – a digital comics platform aimed at India. Featured were two of my books – MUMBAI MACGUFFIN (an action-adventure-comedy caper which was co-created with Saumin and inspired in no small measure by Guy Ritchie’s movies SNATCH and LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS) and MYTHS OF INDIA (a repackaged INDIA AUTHENTIC). I always considered the old Virgin Comics gang kindred spirits who wished to bring kick-ass comics to India and Graphic India is a great reinforcement of that belief. So I wish them the best of luck. (Do check out Samit and Jeevan Kang’s UNHOLI – an original serialized digital comic book exclusively created for the site).

To top off the week’s great news, Times of India posted their list of notable Indian comics and turns out two of my books – DEVI and MUMBAI CONFIDENTIAL made it to the list. So that was just delicious icing on the cake.

Yesterday, I got the sad news that a friend of mine in India passed away. I had never met him, but he was a collaborator on a couple of comic book projects I had worked with and we were facebook friends too. Even though we lived a few continents apart in the “real” world, the wonders of social networking kept us in touch. Facebook would keep me abreast of his life, one news feed item or tagged photo at a time. I knew when he got married, what new projects he took on and most importantly his “mood” — being a true artist, his posts would reflect the infamous ups and downs of the artistic whim. His forte was horror and the supernatural. He could tap into some dark cavern of his subconscious and come up with monsters and dreamscapes like only a few gifted ones can.

I got a mail from one of our common friends in the weekend that he had suddenly passed away. It was a shock on many fronts. But, as the day progressed, something even more shocking happened. Our friends started posting on facebook and remembering his work and life. He had influenced quite a few friends and fans and some of them (actually most of them) started @ tagging his facebook profile in their posts. Everytime I logged into facebook, it was a bit creepy to see his name hyperlinked to his profile pop up on my ticker. He’s survived by his wife and I can’t even begin to imagine the pain she must live through again when the same items pop up before her (a tagged photo of my friend smiling, an image he worked on, condolences from a common friend). Loss is something we all have to deal with, but I can’t help but cringe at the thought of the connected social/mobile world of ours scratching the tender wounds of a departed loved one again and again and again.

We hype our world as being connected, social and mobile. Everything is converging, everyone is connected and everything is shared. But that is not necessarily a good thing… always.

Image from here

1. Newsarama Best Shots Review http://www.newsarama.com/comics/best-shots-advance-110119.html
2. Comic Buzz http://comicbuzz.com/witchblade-141-review
3. Project Fanboyhttp://forums.projectfanboy.com/showthread.php?t=10308
4. Comic Buzz http://comicbuzz.com/witchblade-141-review
5. nFamous Gamers http://www.nfamousgamers.com/reviews/books/paper-monsters-witchblade-140-and-141
6. Comic Attack http://comicattack.net/2011/01/tcrevwitchblade141/
7. Pendragon Post http://www.pendragonspost.com/2011/01/23/witchblade-141-review-top-cow/
8. Comics Bulletin http://www.comicsbulletin.com/reviews/129590607378350.htm
9. Graphic Policy http://graphicpolicy.com/2011/01/31/review-witchblade-141/
10. Weekly Comic Book Review http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2011/01/25/witchblade-141-review/
11. Donuts and Top Cow Podcast http://www.comicbooknoise.com/topcow/2011/02/episode-5-witchblade-140-and-141/ (7m30s onwards))

Once again, hearty thanks to Ron Marz, Top Cow, Filip Sabik and Phil Smith for giving me a chance to write Witchblade. Here’s hoping that we get to do something together again, soon… ish!

Witchblade #140, the first of the two-part story I co-wrote with Ron Marz (art by Stjepan Šejić) for Top Cow (as mentioned in this post earlier) is hitting the stores tomorrow (8th December). Already there are a few advance reviews out and looks like it’s getting some love around “teh interwebs”

It shall be available in comic book stores on Wed 8 December, 2010. So run out and grab a copy.

So without further ado, here are the reviews so far:

• Project Fanboy (rating : 4 out of 5 stars)
• Player Affinity (rating : 8.3/10)
• Line of Fire Reviews @ Comics Bulletin (rating: 4 out of 5 stars)
• Comic Vine (rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars)
• Comic Book Revolution (rating: 7 night girls out of 10)
• Graphic Policy (rating: 8.25/10)
• Newsarama Best Shots Rapid Reviews
• Broken Frontiers

Some nice blurbs from the reviews above

Recently I was approached by the awesome folks at Top Cow asking me if I was interested in co-writing a 2 issue arc with regular series writer Ron Marz and art by Stjepan Šejić. Of course, I said yes immediately. I’ve long been a fan of Witchblade and especially Ron’s work on that. I was kinda bummed to have missed out on the Witchblade-Devi crossover earlier during my stint with Virgin Comics. So this, was in a way, a long standing dream come true.

Ron and I did a two issue arc (Issues #140 and #141) and #140 is due out on Dec 09, 2010. So rush out to your nearest LCS next week and grab a copy (or 10) . Here are the two awesome covers for the issue by Stejpan and Brandon Peterson.

Cover A by Stjepan Šejić

Cover B by Brandon Peterson

Many thanks to Filip Sabik and Phil Smith at Top Cow for thinking of me and giving me this chance.

Indian Express ran a piece written by Anisha Sridhar about Mumbai Confidential and Dhurandhar, my creator owned graphic novel projects under the Dhichkaon banner.

Alternatively, you may view:

Express Buzz online ePaper version
Text-only version
Hires PDF Version
Hires JPG Version

Quick Links:

Mumbai Confidential – GOOD COP, BAD COP Chapter 1 free online preview
Mumbai Confidential – Digital Short# 1
About Mumbai Confidential

Mumbai Confidential is a crime noir comic book series (about the infamous encounter cops of Mumbai) created by Saurav Mohapatra and Vivek Shinde [more...]

About DHURANDHAR

DHURANDHAR is a supernatural/occult comic book series (set in present day India) created by Saurav Mohapatra and Siddharth Panwar. Currently work on the first installment “THE MAN WHO RIDES TRAINS”, a 84 page black and white original graphic novel, is underway. [read more... ]

So, we have an updated preview for Mumbai Confidential, in full painted grayscale goodness. Vivek Shinde has done an amazing job and I’m indeed lucky that he’s my collaborator on this one.

The earlier preview was done in a no-frills b/w style (with an eye towards cheaper publication costs), but once Vivek did some explorations and a full chapter in the painted style, there was no looking back

You can check out the upated preview and read the details over at the Mumbai Confidential site.

About Mumbai Confidential

Mumbai Confidential is a crime noir comic book series (about the infamous encounter cops of Mumbai) created by Saurav Mohapatra and Vivek Shinde [more...]