A Heaven for Trishanku

Posted on January 7, 2010 by mohaps

The website for my new graphic novel project “A Heaven for Trishanku” (drawn by R. Manikandan) is live at AHeavenForTrishanku.com. Mani and I did Sadhu volume 2 : The Silent Ones together and it is a real kicker to be working with him again.

As a story AHFT is very different from anything I’ve done so far. It’s the story of Anwesh Bannerjee, a student activist in the ’70s who along with his “comrades” tried to blow up a bridge to protest against the “Bourgeoisie”-controlled government and ended up accidentally killing an Indian Railways worker who was on duty. Haunted by this guilt, Anwesh surrendered and the court sentenced him to Life imprisonment. Now after more than four decades he is set free and sets about finding the last surviving kin of his victim to apologize.

The story is set against the backdrop of Modern India well on its way to becoming America Light and is represented in the story by Anwesh’s nephew Manu, a 16 year old living in an ideological void populated only by the materialistic swarm of cell phones and iPod’s.

This is the story of Anwesh’s quest for redemption. This is the story of Manu’s unwitting search for an ideological anchor. This too is the story of an unusual friendship between a sixty year old and a sixteen year old, both adrift in the churning ocean that is India today, itself searching for an identity.

About A Heaven for Trishanku

A Heaven for Trishanku (AHFT) is written by Saurav Mohapatra (DEVI, SADHU, MUMBAI MACGUFFIN, INDIA AUTHENTIC, JIMMY ZHINGCHAK, PHANTOM CHRONICLES) and drawn by R. Manikandan (SADHU, KSHATRIYA : BLADE FO THE WARRIOR).

Mumbai Confidential Chapter 1 Preview posted online

Posted on December 28, 2009 by mohaps

Christmas came early this year. As promised, we are posting a preview of Chapter 1 of Mumbai Confidential Book 1 “Good Cop, Bad Cop“.

NOTE: The preview requires Flash and on low b/w connections might take a bit of time to load

So we’ll be back in Jan with new exploration and never before seen concept art and some other goodies. The MC Team has always valued our fans and community and this is our christmas gift to you.

If you want to link to it :

http://www.mumbaiconfidential.com/preview/previewchapter-1/.

Also we’re on TWITTER and FACEBOOK too, so drop us a ping if you feel like it.

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

About Mumbai Confidential

Mumbai Confidential is a crime noir comic book series created by writer Saurav Mohapatra (DEVI, SADHU, MUMBAI MACGUFFIN, INDIA AUTHENTIC, JIMMY ZHINGCHAK) and artist Vivek Shinde (PROJECT: KALKI, SNAKEWOMAN) set in (of course!) the Indian city of Mumbai.

Trolling on GreatBong’s site – an interesting social experiment

Posted on December 23, 2009 by mohaps

Damn! This $shit is addictive. I’m trolling on GreatBong’s site posting as Jimmy Zhingchak. Basically I’m just copying pasting from Rediff.net postings on the review of Three Idiots that GB has put up pretending to be someone who speaks exclusively in SMS-es (“Lyf lyk gud” and all that).

Man, people do take the anonymity of the web way too seriously. The comments started as snide and gradually decayed into plain old assault and battery. I’ll just keep at it till I get bored.

Maybe there’s a column in this somewhere

[UPDATE: Obviously, I'm doing this with GB's knowledge and with a fail-safe button he can press for me to stop anytime he wants.]

[UPDATE2: (11:44 EST) - now the abuses have turned personal and really bite-y. ]

[UPDATE-3 (11:49 EST) -- now trying a direct confrontation route ]

[UPDATE – 4 (11:53 EST) — okay, now I’m officially bored. The funny thing was this post showed up as a trackback/ping on the thread I was trolling and every post I had made was linked back to this website. Still, I guess cyber cojones give steroid rampage level meanness to people (especially with all the anonymity). Halting social experiment. Will proceed if there are any other responses.

My favorite part was posting a completely out of context Sachin Tendulkar career stat

So the interactive part of this experiment ends here. Thanks GB for being such a sport and allowing me to post/troll on that thread

Now I’m pretty sure, there’ll be responses to my earlier trolling posts even after I explained that I was trolling in this post.

Jimmy Zhingchak on Wikipedia

Posted on December 21, 2009 by mohaps

Ha! saw this during a wikipedia browsing session. Kinda made my day! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Zhingchak_(comics).

JZ was a real blast to write. I have fond memories of writing it. The character of Bhappi-da, the last of the DISCO gods is hands down my favorite ever, closely followed by Fukku Bhai from Mumbai Macguffin. Last I heard (from semi-realiable sources) UTV was making a movie out of it. Wonders of work-for-hire! I’m not involved in that. But will go watch the movie when (and if) it gets made.

Aieeee Saaalaaa!

Oh! and I used to maintain a kind of scrapbook of Zhingchak sightings on the wild wild web. You can find it here.

About Jimmy Zhingchak

JIMMY ZHINGCHAK – AGENT OF D.I.S.C.O., written by Saurav Mohapatra and drawn by Anupam Sinha, is a spoof and a homage of ’80s bollywood disco zeitgeist, detailing the adventures of a disco dancing superspy who fights Sir John and his evil F.I.R.A.N.G. for the Dept. of Internal Security and Covert Operations (D.I.S.C.O.) [more..]

Mumbai Confidential site now has a new look

Posted on December 19, 2009 by mohaps

I decided to unleash my nerd-ery to try and code a new wordpress template for Mumbai Confidential website. So read up a few resources on the web and one night’s coding binge got the new theme (aptly called “Mumbai Confidential Custom 1“) up and running.

Details are here.

About Mumbai Confidential

Mumbai Confidential is a crime noir comic book series created by writer Saurav Mohapatra (DEVI, SADHU, MUMBAI MACGUFFIN, INDIA AUTHENTIC, JIMMY ZHINGCHAK) and artist Vivek Shinde (PROJECT: KALKI, SNAKEWOMAN) set in (of course!) the Indian city of Mumbai.

comic books I read – a (non-comprehensive) list

Posted on December 14, 2009 by mohaps

I usually read comics spanning quite an eclectic range and one rule that I have is picking each book based on what I feel about that particular story. Though that being said, I’m much more likely to pick up a issue #1 by Ed Brubaker, Warren Ellis or Greg Rucka blindly .

So when someone asks me what books you like to read, it’s pretty tough to just say one or even five/six names. Currently my pull/read list consists of THE BOYS by Garth Ennis, AIR by G. Willow Wilson and UNWRITTEN by Mike Carey. Some of the other comics that I’ve read and really enjoyed (listed in no particular order) :

LAZARUS CHURCHYARD, TRANSMETROPOLITAN, PLANETARY, AUTHORITY and FELL by Warren Ellis and his run on Ultimate FF and IRON MAN : Extremis
PLANET HULK by Greg Pak
WOLVERINE LEGENDS v2: MELTDOWN by Walter Simonson
SWAMP THING, TOM STRONG. SUPREME and TOP TEN by Alan Moore
WOLVERINE: SNIKT! by Tsutomo Nihei
WALKING DEAD by Robert Kirkman
HITMAN, PREACHER by Garth Ennis and his PUNISHER run (especially WELCOME BACK FRANK)
THE PATH by Ron Marz
WAY OF THE RAT by Chuck Dixon
LUCIFER by Mike Carey
Frank Miller’s run on DAREDEVIL and DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN
Ed Brubaker’s run on DAREDEVIL and his work in CRIMINAL
Grant Morrison’s run on ANIMAL MAN
WHITEOUT and QUEEN & COUNTRY by Greg Rucka
MARVELS, SECRET IDENTITY and ASTRO CITY by Kurt Busiek
EMPIRE and KINGDOM COME by Mark Waid
POWERS by Brian M. Bendis
MIDNIGHT NATION by J. Michael Straczinsky
MARKED by Steve Ross

More Toughguys with guns

Posted on December 11, 2009 by mohaps

I just can’t stop drawing these

Artdump

Posted on December 6, 2009 by mohaps

Lately I have been experimenting with a minimal black and white style for hardboiled crime novels. As befits my limited artistic talent, I have been working off of photo references. Here are some of the pieces I have done in recent times.

Here’s lookin’ at ya, kid!

Posted on November 10, 2009 by mohaps

So last night while waiting for someone I had a meeting with to show up, I decided to doodle and chose to try my hand at drawing a very hard boiled Humphrey Bogart Here’s the piece with one of my favorite bogie lines from Cassablance. Done with the mouse and GIMP

By the time it was finished, my fingers were hurting like hell. So I kinda skimped on the ciggie smoke. Bogie was the inspiration for a hard-boiled Vampire story that I wrote for “The Harrow” sometime back called A DEATH BY ANY OTHER DAME.

Albany Comic Convention update

Posted on November 4, 2009 by mohaps

my table

Thanks to Ron Marz, I got to attend the Albany Comic Convention on Nov 1st. This was my first time as an invited guest at a comic book show and I enjoyed it a lot. The excellent folks at That’s Entertainment (especially George and Pete) hooked me up with a ton of Mumbai Macguffin and Sadhu vol 2. – The Silent Ones TPB, so that I had some stuff to sell. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy. I managed to offload almost all the copies I had gone into the show with. Hope you enjoyed those, folks!

The show was small-ish but a ton of fun. I shared tablespace with Nick Taplansky, writer of AWAKENING (Archaia) and Dave Rodriguez, writer of STARKWEATHER: IMMORTAL (Archaia) and SHADOWGIRLS webcomic.

Had a blast with Ron and Matthew Dow Smith (Dr. Who, The Keep). Scored some free copies of Ron’s Samurai TPB vol 2. and Con exclusive cover WITCHBLADE (done by Matthew).

Towards the end of the show, chatted with Dennis Calero and found that we have a common friend. Small world, indeed.

So all in all, a good time. Looking forward to heading back there next spring in April 2010. Here are some pictures from the show.
before it begins
(Before the Show Started)