manta ray | comics & graphic novels

Looking at the Ghats

mantaraystudio — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:41:34 +0530

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Friday. This piece was published on 7 June 2013.

The Mumbai Way

mantaraystudio — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:34:31 +0530

by Rohit Keluskar

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Friday. This piece was published on 31 May2013.

An in-between storey

mantaraystudio — Wed, 29 May 2013 08:11:53 +0530

by Akhila Krishnan

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Friday. This piece was published on 24 May2013.

Pride of Kathiawar

mantaraystudio — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:31:53 +0530

by Prabha Mallya

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 15 May2013.

3 weeks back, on April 20, we released the print editions of...

mantaraystudio — Sun, 12 May 2013 23:46:28 +0530

3 weeks back, on April 20, we released the print editions of Mixtape 1 and Twelve Preludes at Coffee on Canvas, Koramangala. It was an art + comics event, where we showcased some of the original art and prints from the comics.

The last time we did something like this was at Goobe’s Book Republic on Church Street, for the release of Hush. Those were really early days, and only a few folks turned up… but this time around, it was way beyond anything we expected.

We were amazed and awed and inspired to see so many Manta Ray fans at ConC, the place was packed and the energy was electrifying! We were putting up the last minute touches when the first of them walked in at around 5 in the evening, and for the next three hours and more, we were at ConC signing, sketching, chatting with everyone who came to say “hi” and pick up our first comics in two years!

We had a wonderful time, in the past 3 years, this was one of our best days ever and as it turned out, it was also the best day that ConC ever had!

A big, BIG THANK YOU to everyone who came to ConC that evening, to our collaborators, creators and comic-ninjas who made these two books happen, our friends who helped us set-up the show and manage it during the event, and the ConC team who did everything to make it go smooth and make it a success!

A few weeks later, we would have a smaller event at Mumbai, more on that, soon!

Picture Shuroo

mantaraystudio — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:40:36 +0530

written by Tina Thomas

illustrated by Rupesh Aravindakshan

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 08 May2013.

My rookie year

mantaraystudio — Wed, 01 May 2013 08:58:38 +0530

by Gokul Gopalakrishnan

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 1 May2013.

The making of "Career Planning" > Part 2

mantaraystudio — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:22:00 +0530

by Jasjyot Singh Hans

It started when Dileep asked me if I’d be able to team up on a TSP with one of the guest pitches. It’s always fun to work with people you haven’t worked with, the only unnerving part being not knowing what to expect.

When I first read the script, it was really fun and I was immediately relieved. In the past when I’ve worked with Arjun Kolady (who is also great to work with), the script is so loaded (and even a tad intimidating), I spend a lot of time reading up on the context/ poking him about references to be able to find a clever representation, a balance between too cryptic and too obvious.

Moreover, this was a script I related to. It seemed to talk about people I felt I knew. Dileep asked me if I wanted to see Shezah’s draft, something she herself had done and sent in as a part of the pitch, but I thought it was best to not see it at that stage.

After thoroughly reading the script a couple of times, I chalked out an extremely rough panelling, as a way of simply distributing space on the given format, and breaking the script from words to panels. This step mainly requires figuring out how many panels you’ll need to be able to carry out a script sequence,which determines the number of rows, and how one would want the comic to progress. I find it easier to keep a previous TSP as a frame guide, just so I don’t mess up the size or go beyond the format space.

At this stage, it’s better to refine the rough more and more; then show it to the editor and the script writer. Character design work happens side-by-side. Since the characters don’t stay constant in this particular script (they’re the same, but they’re shown in different ages throughout the comic), I thought it might be a good decision to keep some characteristics similar, so one wouldn’t think of it as completely different character sets (for example, the girl’s hairstyle). Once that is done, it’s always fun to customize the title panel a bit instead of having a flat white box, and in this context & layout, the superhero seemed to work, with the cape trailing to form a negative space for the opening line of the comic.

It’s good to constantly keep going back to the script, to make sure one isn’t missing out on any bit. What I realised was that the boy’s character in the comic has a lot of dialogue. And one would need space for the speech bubbles. Oh, the lettering! **In most comics, the letterer comes in much later in the process. Once the comic is inked and coloured (which of course, is done allowing for space for the lettering), the lettering is added by another person** But in this case, with some panel bits becoming text heavy, it was important to tweak the layout right now, maybe even place some of the text, to see if it works. Otherwise, it always finds a way to come back and bite one on the derrière (which it did).

The roughs were shared, and mostly any change that needs to be made is suggested by Dileep at this stage, so the rough is reworked and the process is repeated. Here, I got the nod of approval right away, and began the process of inking.

The inking here was done digitally, and any way you do it, this is the most ‘zen’ part of comics. One can ink for hours and hours at a stretch, and the joy of seeing the comic get closer to its final stage can’t be described in words. I generally trace out bits I’m sure of, make the panel borders, and then work on the rest.

A lot of times, the rough-to-final translation isn’t as smooth. The second row of the panels, with the addition of all the text, became too cluttered on the right, so I pushed the last panel there onto the next row.

Once I shared this with Dileep, it was decided that it might be better to put it where it was in the rough and narrow down on the previous panels a bit to make space. Only one problem, the lettering in the previous panel did not allow for so much space. After consulting our Manta Ray secret expert team, the arrangement below was decided upon. And even though it seemed to hide the girl character’s epic hipster clothing, all seemed good. **Why does the boy’s t-shirt have a pineapple on it, you may ask? Because Apple was already taken, and custard apple seemed way too farfetched**

So this is how the comic shaped up and the final low resolution file was shared.

This is where Dileep points out minor changes, typos etc. and a Manta Ray TSP is born!

To view in high res, click here.

The making of "Career Planning" > Part 1

mantaraystudio — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:29:00 +0530

by Shezah Salam

“When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician — make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor — make good art. IRS on your trail — make good art. Cat exploded — make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before — make good art.”

- (The ever-awesome) Neil Gaiman

So there I was, huddled in a dark corner of my room, wondering (as I’m told most 20-somethings are prone to do) what the hell I was doing with my life. The last I checked, I was this environment-conscious, socially aware teenager with dreams of saving the world, and within a blink of an eye I found myself one of a hundred marketing monkeys working for a multi-national tobacco conglomerate (Yes, those of cancerous fame). Not being able to resolve the grand debate between head and heart, I did what I always do in such situations and followed Neil’s advice – I made art about it. And that’s how the idea behind ‘Career Planning’ first came to me.

Not long after, on a chance trip down my twitter feed, I came across Manta Ray’s invitation for TSP guest pitches. So, I wrote a rough storyline and, with all the rudimentary photoshop skills I could muster, sketched out my comic.

A Van Gogh it was not, but the good people at Manta Ray liked the pitch and teamed me up with the artistically gifted Jasjyot who would breathe life into this with his mad illustration skills. I translated my comic into a detailed panel-by-panel script for his reference, allowing him to make his own artistic interpretations of what the comic should look like, guided by Dileep - who is the editor of The Small Picture - and without whom we’d be pretty lost. And then Jasjyot stepped in.

P.S. Just so you know, during the second development phase of the comic, I left my job at the big bad tobacco company. I guess it’s true that art imitates life, but once in awhile it can be the other way around =)

Tomorrow: Jasjyot takes a deep dive into the illustration and design process of Career Planning

Career Planning

mantaraystudio — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 02:11:12 +0530

written by Shezah Salam

illustrated by Jasjyot Singh Hans

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 24 April2013.

The past few weeks have been hectic, exhausting, frustrating (at...

mantaraystudio — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 01:41:00 +0530

The past few weeks have been hectic, exhausting, frustrating (at times), exciting, and ultimately, rewarding too.

It’s been back to back days of 4-5 hour sleep nights, skipped lunches and splitting headaches, interspersed by hours of pouring over black tones trying to get the “right” black, waiting forever for vexing printer troubles to be fixed (when you’re on your feet from 1 in the afternoon to 10 in the night at a printer’s place, trust me, it feels like forever) and deploying all the broken Kannada we know to converse with fabricators and print technicians.

And after a few weeks of all of this, it just feels SO GOOD to see all of this slip away and dissolve into thin air, as the pages of Mixtape and Preludes roll out of the printing machines. To see the stacked pages, waiting to be cut and pinned and trimmed and fashioned into good old physical books, that look and feel so good in my hands. To number each one of these 100 books, and bundle them into sets, ready to go out… It’s a wonderful feeling!

And then to see the framed original art and prints… such a joy! They’ve come out so beautifully!! And they’ve gone up, and hopefully, everyone who drops by at Coffee on Canvas will see the love and energy and enthusiasm that has poured into these pages, especially the original pages which look quite fabulous, really.

So, we just wanted to share this excitement and some pics from the making, before we go live tonight.

Indian Childhood Policy

mantaraystudio — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:54:17 +0530

written by Hemant Anant Jain

illustrated by Garima Gupta

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 17 April2013.

Autumn

mantaraystudio — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:39:01 +0530

written by Sharada Annamaraju

illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 10 April2013.

Sunset People

mantaraystudio — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:15:00 +0530

written by Annie Zaidi

illustrated by Rajiv Eipe

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 3 April2013.

Address to the nation

mantaraystudio — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 07:45:00 +0530

by Gokul Gopalakrishnan

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 27 March2013.

21.30 (IST)

mantaraystudio — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:03:00 +0530

by Akhila Krishnan

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 20 March2013.

Flamingo Heights

mantaraystudio — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:34:17 +0530

by Hemant Anant Jain

Read a high resolution version here.

The Small Picture is best viewed in the newspaper edition of Mint, where it first appears every Wednesday. This piece was published on 13 March2013.

PRELUDES poster by the talented Mr. Jasjyot. The...

mantaraystudio — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:51:44 +0530

PRELUDES poster by the talented Mr. Jasjyot.

The ‘loop’ has a more ominous role in Love Like A Sunset, the 2nd story in the collection illustrated by Jasjyot.

mantaraystudio — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:57:49 +0530

PRELUDES is here. Stories by Pratheek Thomas Art by Pia Alize...

mantaraystudio — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 06:36:13 +0530

PRELUDES is here.

Stories by Pratheek Thomas

Art by Pia Alize Hazarika | Archana Sreenivasan | Jasjyot Singh Hans | Prabha Mallya

Edited by Dileep Cherian

Manta Ray’s Digital Firsts. 66 pages. In PDF and CBZ formats.

Available here.