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.

A few days back, my friend and artist/collaborator Saumin Patel (DEVI, MUMBAI MACGUFFIN) sent me a mail. Saumin is a big fan of Frank Frazetta and upon seeing Ron Marz‘s tribute to Frazetta, he too was inspired to do something.

Thus was born “The Witch & The Warrior“.

Now, Saumin’s visual storytelling (having worked with him on a bunch of projects) is perhaps amongst the best I have seen. So for a change, rather than working from a “Script”, he free-styled some sketeches/roughs with a basic story idea in mind. Our goal was to use some iconic Frazetta imagery, in a story reminiscent of those that he provided covers for. I then took a crack at tightening the story and the images into a 11 page script with dialogue and Saumin came back with astounding pencils for it. The pieces are now lettered and ready. Once Saumin finishes inking and coloring them, we’ll post it on the web.

But while we wait for that, pictured above is a rough lettered version of the cover for your to drool over. Hope you like it (as much as we did creating it).

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).

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.

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.

I just can’t stop drawing these

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.

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.

Cross-posting from 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.

Well, it’s been a long time since my last post. Just been busy. Not too many gigs to speak of. Most in progress are stuck with artists. One interesting bit though, just now putting finishing touches on a short story commisioned for an anthology based ona  favorite character of mine. Will post more details as soon as I’m allowed to.

In other news, got my San Diego reservations done. Looking forward to it.

 Some new Nine Panel Grid columns are also online at http://www.comicswaitingroom.com/ninepanelgrid.html