Bakarmax

Comic books are one of the mainstream forms of entertainment. Even though comics are a series of art and text, they are considered siblings to films. Each panel of a comic is an equivalent of a scene from a film or a serial, where the actor’s positions, camera angle, lighting, colour palette and dialogues have to be kept in mind while building the scene. Many times comic book adaptations simply use their source comics as the storyboard, as it can be seen in the case of 300, Watchmen, Batman v Superman (from The Dark Knight Returns and The Death of Superman), Captain America: Civil War etc.

Comics are a big part of popular culture today. Many films (The Dark Knight, Avengers: Endgame, Superman), serials (The Boys, Invincible, Daredevil, Doom Patrol), video games (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Spider-Man, Injustice: Gods Among Us) and nowadays even audiobooks (Sandman) have made comic book adaptations and have been considered the pinnacle of their fields. Many Indian comics have been adapted into successful serials, including but not limited to Tarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashma, Shaktimaan, Chacha Chaudhary, Nagraj etc.

The reason why comics always make up for successful adaptation is because nothing is left open ended for the director. Unlike a book or a mythology where there is only text and a lot of things are not described (like how exactly a person looks like, how much light is in the scene, what kind of an environment has been created in a scene, how people react when someone says something just to name a few), a comic panel describes everything perfectly as to how the scene must look like. The vision of the cartoonist is kept intact.

Another reason why comics often make up for successful adaptation is because of having a number of issues. A character goes through several adventures and sees all the stories that the audience can read. When any story is taken positively by the reader, the scene can be used further for any adaptation, and if the story is not liked by the reader then, well, there is always another issue. If the series runs for too long the bad stories will get buried in time. Since comics use graphic design and storytelling, it requires a visual designer to think out of the box to create something unique that stands out from the rest. 

After the 4 Week Internship Program held at the Department of Design, Delhi Technological University, everyone was asked to pitch a story for a webcomic. Each of us was developing their story from the beginning of the workshop. Employees from Bakarmax were present as guests who were specially invited for the day of the pitching. Whoever pitched the best story and had decent illustrated concept artworks to help understand what the comic will look like would get their webcomic published on the official website of Bakarmax. Out of all the students who had attended the workshop my story was chosen, as the jury was impressed by my sense of humour and unique storyline. 

Although the 4 Week Internship Program ended in July 2020, it was not until September 2020 that my work finally began. The webcomic took 5 months to be completed, and was finally published on 10 March 2021. By the means of this internship I was able to learn how webcomics are made and what are the important things that we need to know in order to make a good strip. All the important links are given in the Bibliography section at the end of the report.

The internship opportunity that I received with Bakarmax was a great chance for learning the procedure of creating webcomics and implementing the same. Therefore I consider myself to be fortunate to receive this opportunity and be a part of a renowned webcomic company. I am also grateful to meet and work with the professionals who led me through this internship period.

I would like to express my special thanks and gratitude to Mr Sumit Kumar, CEO of Bakarmax for selecting my story during the 4 Week Internship Program organised by the Department of Design, Delhi Technological University, 

I would also like to express gratitude to Mr Mukund Sharma, Operations, Sales & Biz Dev, Marketing for guiding me throughout the whole project while I wrote and improvised over my story, suggesting improvements for my concept art and finally approving my comic to be published on their website (yet to be done at the time of writing the report).

Other than them, I would like to thank Prof Ranganath M Singari, chairman of 4WIP 2020 and Dr Ravindra Singh, co-chairman of 4WIP 2020. It was with the help of this event that I was able to meet and pitch my idea to the Bakarmax team and be able to tell the story by means of their webcomic series.

Apart from being able to meet and pitch the idea, the 4WIP event also helped me learn a lot of new things about the method of making comics and see the art in a completely new and different way. I am grateful to Prof Ranganath M Singari and Dr Ravindra Singh for the same as well.

Overall my contribution to Bakarmax has helped me see the field of comic making in a completely reformed way, making me realise how deep and meaningful the process is. Instead of being just another form of entertainment, comic books combine the techniques of photography, art and storytelling.

And finally, I am thankful and thus express my utmost gratitude to Bakarmax, for giving me the opportunity of making a webcomic and telling a story that I had come up with.

Sincerely

Puroo Kumar Roy

Bachelor of Design

Delhi Technological University

2K18/BD/37

Bakarmax is known among the Indian comic artists as one of the most popular webcomic platforms. It has been used a number of times in order to voice opinions and tell satirical stories. Most of the comics are over political issues or targeted towards a more mature audience, but there are also some that are completely sarcastic. A number of comic series have come out of the platform - Musalman, Small Thunder, Falahdeen, Faisal Khan, Ichchadhari Tatti, How I Plan To Die etc.

Other than comic strips, Bakarmax also makes animated shorts, wall murals and mascots among other things. They hold their workshops at the Delhi Studio, called Delhi Doodle. In the CBAM 2021 awards it was nominated for all the categories, among which it won an award under the Best Publication House - Adults category, while Small Thunder won under the Best Continuing Series category. In Comic Con India 2019 and 2018 Bakarmax won the Best Webcomic Award.

Bakarmax was founded by Mr Sumit Kumar, a former writer of Savita Bhabhi and the author of two graphic novels The Itch You Can’t Scratch, Kashmir Ki Kahani and Amar Bari Tomar Bari Naxalbari, and is also the co-creator of Aapki Poojita. He came to the 4WIP to teach cartoon making and approved my story after pitching. Afterwards I only had a brief interaction with him before I started working on my comic.

Mr Mukund Sharma is the second in command for the platform. He looks after the operations, sales, business devs and marketing. He was my mentor in the project. Rachit Varma is the Vice President, and Divyesh Sangani is the illustrator and animator. I never got to meet the latter two.

There are many other individual contributors and freelancers in the company who publish their own comics in order to get recognition. After the contributors/cartoonist completes the comic, they have to submit it to Mr Mukund Sharma who gets those comics published on the website and share it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The website is very flexible, and almost any kind of comic gets published over there.

For my internship I had to create the webcomic that I had pitched during the 4WIP event. I needed to write the full story with all the dialogues, sketches, illustrations and finally combine them all together. Normally in comic book companies all these tasks are carried out by separate people, but Bakarmax is more of an individual contribution website so each contributor has to do all the tasks alone.

For making a comic book, the first job comes for a comic scripter, or a comic book writer. The writer must have a definite idea in mind while creating the story. The story can be divided into an introduction, an emphasis over an important point, the plot twist or in depth lore of the story, the climax and finally the conclusion. Once the skeleton of the story has been formed in this manner, the cartoonist can proceed ahead with working over exploring each of those points for the sake of dialogues, narration and character behaviour.

After having made the entire story, the cartoonist then proceeds to sketch out how the characters will look like. A couple of concept arts are just enough to understand what they have to look like. For example the comic character can be drawn from 8 different angles for a better sense of visualisation. They can also draw the characters in certain situations to understand what they will most probably look like when drawn in the actual comic.

After coming up with the rough sketches, the artist then draws the rough sketches while taking help from the writer. Every dialogue or action that has been written down in the script must be drawn out. Overdrawing can be considered acceptable, but drawing less than needed will cause unnecessary jumps, which will be very similar to a reader what a sudden cut in a scene is to the movie spectator.

Once the rough sketches for all the scenes have been drawn, the illustrator finalises the sketches and colours them. The speech bubbles are then added over the images. The illustrator must keep the speech bubbles in mind while making the panels, since they would want enough space to be left in the panel to accommodate a speech bubble without having it overdrawn on an important part of the story.

I had my concept prepared back when the story was pitched, so I had to directly start from writing the script. In the beginning I had prepared Sinky to be an episodic comic, so I had only prepared the script to a certain point. However, when I talked to Mr Mukund Sharma, he told me that they did not let interns or individual contributors make episodic comics. Therefore I had to write my entire script from scratch, all the while trying to compress the entire story within the single script.

I had to delete many parts of my story which I had kept only for the sake of adding a comical element or as a running joke. I had to create a completely different approach with my story, keeping it more direct and cutting out all the unnecessary background events. For that purpose I had to remove a character, reduce the lore for many background stories for many other characters and add context to scenes which we are going to otherwise follow up to those scenes which I had now removed.

Below is the entire script which was finalized by Mr Mukund Sharma.

Sinky Script

By Puroo Kumar Roy

Scene 1

Sinky fixing springs in a pair of shoes.

Sinky: Hey Koshka, come here and take a look!

Koshka, Sinky’s pet cat comes into the scene. Sinky holds the shoes together while putting them on the ground.

Sinky: I just made a pair of shoes which are connected to my phone with Bluetooth. 

Sinky picks up Koshka and moves away from the shoes. He takes out his phone from his pocket.

Sinky: Now see what happens when I press these buttons on my phone.

As Sinky presses the buttons, the shoes spring up in the air. Koshka is amazed.

Sinky: Ha ha, did you see that? If everyone gets to wear them, we can all travel anywhere much faster!

Sinky: Now it’s just a matter of taking these to the AIRD and getting them approved for commercial use.

Camera pans to Sinky’s face. He’s very excited.

Sinky: The scientists over there will be impressed, and they will say…

Scene 2

Camera is on Dr Ayyar’s face.

Dr Ayyar: This is a terrible idea!

Sinky: What! But why?

Dr Ayyar: Do you actually think tossing people in the air can possibly have no consequences? Someone may fall and die!

Sinky: But sir, it’s not like everyone is being forced to wear them. Only those who are actually interested will try them.

Camera behind Sinky

Sinky: You see, there was a time when even cars were supposed to be a “dangerous invention”. We all remember how scared we were when we drove for the first time. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. Can’t the same happen with this also?

Dr Sharma: No, you cannot compare cars with this. The reason why you’re afraid of driving a car for the first time is because you may injure “others”, not yourself.

Dr Kumar: Here the safety of other people is also at risk. When you’re in the air, you don’t have control over where you land. What if you land on someone?

Sinky (thinks): Damn! I didn’t think of that one.

Dr Kumar: Also, since you have no idea where you will land, what if you land in the middle of the road and get hit by a bus?

Sinky looks blankly.

Dr Sharma: By the way Dr Arish, you haven’t said anything until now. Is there something you’d like to add?

Dr Arish: I think Mr Yashodanandan here has a great idea, but a terrible execution. 

Camera on Sinky

Dr Arish: It’s not something I normally say, but there’s no way I can ever approve this invention for commercial use. If Mr Yashodanandan wants to use it and kill himself with his own ignorance, he’s free to do so. But I won’t let an innocent civilian get punished for his flaws.

Dr Sharma: I second that. I reject this invention from commercial usage too.

Dr Kumar: Third with that. I won’t approve this either.

Dr Ayyar: I hope you have your answer now, Mr Yashodanandan. If you had taken a more critical analysis over what you were making, probably you wouldn’t have found loopholes in your own words.

They all get up to leave.

Sinky: But I can make adjustments and then it will be fine!

Dr Arish: Then do them! We’re not saying we won’t review it again. But that’s for some other day.

Sinky is left speechless. He is sad. He gets out of the AIRD headquarters with the shoes in his hand.

Sinky: That went terrible. What will happen now?

Sinky sees a thought bubble of his school teacher.

Teacher: Surindra, you should have focused more on your studies. Look at the terrible things you’re making now!

Another thought bubble comes up on the screen. It’s of his girlfriend.

Girlfriend: It’s okay Sinky. So what if you’re the biggest idiot ever? I still love you.

Another thought bubble comes up. It’s of his dad.

Dad: If you had filled up all the bottles and put them in the fridge, you would have been a better person.

Another thought bubble comes up. It’s of Koshka.

Koshka: Meow meow, meow meow meow!

All the thought bubbles burst as Sinky shouts while grabbing his hair with his hands.

Sinky: What do they know about the masterpiece I have made? I will show them. This is a great invention and I’m the next big scientist!

Sinky wears the shoes.

Sinky: I made these for transport, right? So now I will use them to reach back home without any accidents.

He looks at his feet after wearing the shoes. The camera angle is to show him very tall.

Sinky pulls out his phone and opens the app for using the shoes.

Sinky: Okay, so here goes nothing.

Sinky gets shot up in the air. He screams. As he travels in the air, a trail of A’s is written along his path.

He reaches a very high height above the clouds. A bird flies by him.

Then he starts falling. Once again a trail of A’s follows his path.

He lands back on the ground, on his feet. The springs absorb his momentum.

Sinky: Phew, that was…

Sinky gets launched up again. His glasses and phone are left behind.

He hits a flock of birds.

Then he hits a cloth line and gets a pant on his face.

As he removes the pants, he screams. 

There is a person standing in the place where he is about to land.

Sinky falls and lands on that person. Sinky finally manages to stop bouncing around, but he has fallen down and is in great pain.

As he sits up, he sees the person whom he had hit is dead. He looks around. Everyone is looking at him.

He tries hiding his face and walking away, which he does uncomfortably because the springs are still outside and he is badly injured.

Scene 3

Sinky opens the door of his house.

Sinky: I’m back.

Sinky sits on the couch and removes his coat and tie.

Sinky: Don’t ask what happened. Please don’t ask what happened.

Koshka meows.

Sinky: I said don’t ask. I have made a huge blunder. I should have listened to the jury and not taken it all on my ego.

Sinky switches on the TV.

Sinky: I’m just gonna watch TV and distract myself from whatever I have seen in the last 10 minutes. Go in the corner and be a cat or whatever it is that you do.

Sinky switches to the news channel. The News 100 is being shown. News number 58 gets shown.

Reporter: Two masked men robbed a woman in Surat.

Sinky: Man, why do things like these get coverage? This isn’t journalism, this is just a show of sympathy. Imagine how that woman will feel if she sees this…

News number 59 gets shown.

Reporter: The plaza at a mall was hijacked by a terrorist who held a remote to detonate a bomb, when an unidentified man flew from the sky, took him down and went away.

Sinky is shocked. News number 60 gets shown.

Sinky: Wait, that was me. I was in the news!

Reporter (in background): Two adolescent teenagers who were in love with each other committed suicide, they were upset about their families not agreeing to their relation.

Sinky: Koshka! I just ended up doing something good!

Koshka: Meow!

Scene 4

Sinky is giving an interview to the media.

Reporter: Sir, how did you fight the terrorist with such grace?

Sinky: Well, such things come out as an instinct. If someone really wishes for the society to progress in terms of how we think, that person has to take the initiative. Today it was my turn.

Another reporter: Sir, is there something you’d like to tell the audience watching you right now?

The screen pans behind. Sinky is being shown on TV. He looks at the screen and grins.

Sinky: Would you like to jump like me? I’ve got a perfect invention for you all.

Dr Arish is looking at the TV. He’s holding a can of juice in his hand. He crushes it and looks angry.

-x-

As all of these images have been prepared, all that is left is to create one long JPG file on which all these images will be put together. There will be box arts to promote this webcomic on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the other social media platforms from where Bakarmax gets its viewers from. 

By the means of this project, I was able to understand the art of making comics. Even though we used to just dismiss them to be a regular form of entertainment which is mostly used in superhero, political or comedic purposes, this cannot be further from the truth. The reality is that making comics tests our knowledge about storytelling cinematography and our drawing skills. The reason behind the decline in comic books as a piece of entertainment is not because people are losing interest in it, but rather because it is a very complex process and most people generally avoid getting into all the trouble of making it.

This is the reason why we mostly see webcomics use simple arts style instead of going to complicated methods, while on the other hand big comic book publishers like Marvel and DC always hire very expensive artists to make photorealistic illustrations for them. Artists like Wang Ling (known by his artist name WLOP) and Alex Ross are popular due to being the comic book artist home every big brand wants. The Japanese comics, better known as Manga, often published their comics without adding any colour to them, since adding colour will take a lot of time and money.

Most of the knowledge that I acquired through this internship programme was practical. If someone heard something told me about the procedure that involved in making a comic, I would have just thought of it to be something I already knew about. However, it was when I had to actually do the entire thing that I understood that this entire process is much easier said than done. As I took the role of a story writer, an artist and an editor, I understood the effort that went through in publishing a comic on an individual level. These methods are used by those people who have to publish their webcomic on an indie platform like Webtoons or Deviant Art.

As a visual design student who wanted to perceive film making and game development in order to tell the stories that come in my mind I see that comics are one way to narrate my story faster and without having to involve too many people. I could make as many stories as I want and publish them on an Indie platform. All I need to do is have a good story and understand what kind of drawing style will suit it. I do not need to rely on learning how to make 3D models the way one needs to do when making a video game story driven video game or learn CGI which is important for someone who is making superhero movies. Just a graphic tablet is enough to tell a story in a visually interesting manner.

• Bakarmax : An Indian webcomic

• The winners of the first edition of CBAM Awards - AnimationXpress

• About - Bakarmax (the mention of Comic Con India Awards given here)

• 'India's first Muslim superhero?' The strange tales of 'Musalman' and 'Chandrashekhar Quaid' (freepressjournal.in)

• Bakarmax presents Dalit Unchained: A webcomic inspired by Jyotirao and Savitri Phule-Living News , Firstpost

• Savita Bhabhi And I: A True Love Story | Youth Ki Awaaz

• Sumit Kumar (Bakarmax): The Fantastic World of Comic Book Realities | PGRadio ep. 66

• Puroo Kumar Roy - Bakarmax

• Sinky - Bakarmax

• Sinky on Behance