Belated Find : Some radical India Authentic love

Well, I think I found this a year or so too late. http://nenena.livejournal.com/126717.html

Thanks for the kind words, Nenena. It is much appreciated. These are the moments a writer lives for :)

An excerpt:

The modern heir to Amar Chitra Katha, India Authentic comics are effing fantastic: A combination of spiritual lesson, high adventure tale, and artgasm after artgasm. All are fronted by Deepak Chopra’s poetic introductions. But the best part is the writing by Saurav Mohapatra. Mohapatra gets inside the heads of the gods and gives them voices that sound all-too-human; which is exactly what the Hindu gods, flawed and imperfect as they sometimes are, should sound like.

Read the whole post

Trolling on GreatBong’s site – an interesting social experiment

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 :D

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

Jimmy ZhingchakHa! 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..]

Albany Comic Convention update

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)

Ron's Table

(Ron at his table)

Nick T. with his book (courtesy Zach Rosenberg - http://nerd-quest.blogspot.com/2009/11/albany-shenanigans-and-little-comic-con.html)

Nick T. pimping AWAKENING (photo: Zach Rosenberg)

Read India Authentic #1 Ganesha and #2 Kali for Free

Liquid Comics has put India Authentic #1 GANESHA and #2 KALI online at Issuu.com. It came out back in 2007 and was my first ever gig :) so special place in my heart.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Authentic_%28comics%29

DEEPAK CHOPRA PRESENTS INDIA AUTHENTIC is a series of one shots reimagining Indian myths and legends for an international audience.

Issue #1 GANESHA

Issue #2 KALI

Read Mumbai Macguffin for Free

Liquid Comics has put their back catalog (most of it) on Issuu.com and you can read Mumbai Macguffin for free.

Mumbai Macguffin is sort of like Three Days of Condor meets Slumdog Millionaire meets Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels :P
Enjoy! :)

MUMBAI MACGUFFIN

Writer: Saurav Mohapatra
Artist: Saumin Patel

Synopsis:

A high-octane adventure through the never-before-seen underbelly of Mumbai, ace CIA operative Ike Flint finds himself out of his element and out of his depth when tasked with recovering a downed NSA satellite deep within the biggest slum in Asia. None of his experience can prepare him for the wild and dangerous characters his salvage uncovers: a wheelchair-riding gangster kingpin hooked on John Wayne westerns; a brilliant bar dancer who can solve calculus problems before breakfast; a trigger-happy cop who shoots criminals with the same nonchalance as if he were grocery shopping; a religious cult that will do anything to protect its phallic totem; and a crack team of Jihadists searching for the very thing Ike is seeking.

Mumbai Confidential cover

So here’s a cover mockup for Mumbai Confidential

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.

The one that got away :(

West Coast Customs presents RYDERS

West Coast Customs presents RYDERS

Towards the last days of Virgin Comics (now reborn as Liquid Comics), I was working on a pretty interesting project — a one shot titled RYDERS based on a license from West Coast Customs (of Pimp My Ride fame from MTV).

It was a kicker of a project to work on. I wrote a story about a near future America where much of the country is a barren wasteland after a cataclysmic nuclear strike by rogue nations. The population survives in huge fortified city states, where in order to keep them docile any form of ownership of private vehicles is denied by law.

Ryders is the story of a bunch of vehicular vigilantes who defy the status quo and become the law in the wastelands. They ultimately come head to head with the city states and thus begins the great muscle car rebellion :)

I wanted to get a Mad Max/Road Warrior meets Serenity kind of vibe for the story and the art by Dean Hyrapiet (Snake Woman, Virulents, Voodoo Child) was amazing.

Sadly, I don’t know if it ever came out or not. Well, them’s the breaks. Here is the comixology listing.

Mukesh Singh interview

Comics Waiting Room (vol. 3 / issue 19)

Comics Waiting Room (vol. 3 / issue 19)

I recently did an interview with Mukesh Singh (DEVI, Gamekeeper, Shadow Hunter) for Comics Waiting Room.

Mukesh was the artist for issues 1-5 of DEVI for Virgin comics and then moved on to Gamekeeper and Shadow Hunter. He was a Russ Manning award nominee for promising newcomer artist at San Diego Comic-Con 2008.

Currently he is working on the concept art for the MBX webisodes scripted by Grant Morisson.

On a personal note, even though I never directly worked with him, I’m a big fan of his work and believe that the comics world will be hearing more of his name in the near future.

The interview is online now and can be read here.

Mumbai Macguffin behind the scenes :)

KRATHA by Saumin Patel
KRATHA by Saumin Patel

Saumin Patel, my collaborator on Mumbai Macguffin and Devi has posted a lot of the behind the scenes type artwork showing the evolution of the concept visually. Do check it out at his blog/portfolio site –  http://pictorialcinema.blogspot.com/

He also has the art of one of my favorite DEVI stories (the KRATHA short from DEVI #11). Scroll down to see it.