Saree-pallu tucked in her waist with a sharp ‘Katana’ in her hand, she is once again set to save the day. Indie artist Abhijeet Kini is gearing up to release his third edition of Angry Maushi- Katana special which is a part of his trilogy series involving guns, fists, katana.
The third installment of the Angry Maushi series where the Marathi lady is all set to embrace herself into a ‘Ninja’ is being released at the Mumbai Comic Con 2014; and this time all his fans will get to see Maushi indulge in a new style of combat which is very different from the ones previously defined by guns, bombs and fists.
Kini was also nominated for Best Penciller/inker at Comic Con 2012 for his Angry Maushi part one.
After reading about all the superwomen in spandex from DC and Marvel comics, who expected that an illustrator like Kini would launch a Marathi Maushi to save the world from malicious people? Our AnimationXpress.com’s Niyati Handa got in touch with the talented illustrator who spoke about his latest comic.
What inspired you to write this comic? Could you elaborate on the story line as well? How are your characters different from others?
Angry Maushi is a socio-political satire, with dark humour. It is not a kid’s comic and has some graphic cartoon violence and crude language. Each comic in the series has a loose central plot and all the other subplots are spoofs of current affairs or personalities. Although the series is quintessentially a Mumbai setting, the humour is pretty generic. And since the responses we have got for the first two books has been positive and have a little bit of a cult following building up, the idea was to have it as a trilogy. So, the first book had guns as the weapon of destruction, the second book was only about fists and now the third one will be swords. So I call it the “guns-fist-sword trilogy”. Inspirations for these comics is quite general, I spoof a lot of things I read about or personally dislike. But the central theme for the third book, which is titled “Heavy Metal”, is that Maushi is in hiding after the events of the second book, and there is a threat of a Japanese ronin clan with an army of samurai robots which has emerged. So there is a lot of ‘ninja’ action in this one. The characters in my stories are spin offs and satires of existing characters; much like my Mad Magazine inspirations.
Who has been involved with you till date and how do you plan to market your new project?
I have handled the entire comic alone. I have written, illustrated, coloured and lettered the comic myself, as was the case with all the previous comics I have published as well. My wife Diksha ideates with me for the plots, scenes, etc and tells me what can be done and what can’t be done. After that, I take it up.
There is no big master plan. We have launched the Maushi comics at Mumbai Comic Con for the last two years so we thought it to be a natural possibility of launching the third part at the Mumbai con this year too. Our merchandise has a lot of Angry Maushi products which move quite well and we use the online platforms as well, for the sales. But it is at the Comic Cons that we really get to reach out to the target audience directly. Diksha takes care of the marketing and merchandising, so once the book is out, she will take it from there.
How many more volumes are in pipeline? What is your target audience?
I concentrate on the edition I am working on. So it is to be seen what’s in store for future volumes. I have plans for other titles that I have created, maybe I’ll concentrate on those next.
We target all age groups with our merchandise and art-prints, since there is something for everyone. But the Maushi comics are definitely for 16 years and above readership. We don’t sell these comics to kids…
How many pages does the comic consist of? What’s the price? What are your expectations from comic con this year? How many copies you plan to distribute free at Mumbai Comic Con?
‘Angry Maushi: Heavy Metal’ will be a 20 page comic and as I am a print loyalist, I believe digital comics don’t give the thrill a physical, hardcopy does. We also make it a point to price all our items at our stall and our basic inventory in affordable brackets. So the prices range from Rs 100-Rs 200. The comics usually sell for Rs 120 or so at the comic cons (online sales attract shipping charges). We may sell Maushi 3 for about Rs 100-120. Unfortunately, we will not be giving away the comics for free, since we print a limited quantity at high costs. So profits are very negligible. There is no question of freebies in comics.
Is there any new merchandise?
We have a lot of artprints, posters and magnets with my creations on them. They were huge hits at the Dubai and the Singapore comic cons, followed by Bangalore and Hyderabad. So I am thrilled to display them at my own city’s comic con!
What kind of response are you getting from your readers for your earlier comics? In case the comic doesn’t bring about good profits, how do you plan to cope with it?
The response has been positive and encouraging. We were happy to see that Angry Maushi has been liked by people across the nation and the world. We have sold out the copies we had taken to Dubai and Singapore Comic cons and have even shipped quite a few to the US. This goes to show that good content can be liked across.
If we were money driven, we wouldn’t have been in this profession. When a self publishing comic creator decides to get his work in print, the thrill of having the comic in hand is good as a million dollars, same goes here for me. I have already found gold in the positive feedback I have received from people all over the world.