Drawn To Doodling

Lines, scribbles and lots of humour are the tools of trade that fuel the creations of Sailesh Gopalan of Brown Paperbag Comics and Harshveer Jain of Storyseller Comics. The two Instagram artists talk to Tina Dastur about their love for their art, their favourite webcomics and making a meaningful impact through their stories.

A BAG FULL OF FUN

Even as a child, Sailesh Gopalan, the founder of the Instagram strip Brown Paperbag Comics, loved reading comics, watching animated shows and replicating the characters on paper. Outlining where his interest in doodling stemmed from, the 22-year-old says, “My parents tell me I’ve been drawing since I was a toddler. They’ve still kept some of my early drawings, so I’ll take their word for it. I grew up reading Indian comic books like Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha and international ones like Tintin, Asterix and Archie Comics, among others. My interests kept evolving, and so did my artistic style. I had a long phase of referencing anime and manga characters as well, from shows like Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z. I later got into comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes and Pearls Before Swine, both of which helped me shape my aesthetic and comedic style.”

On the choice of the name for his handle, he states, “Do you remember those old cartoons where characters would put a brown paper bag on their heads to hide their faces out of utter embarrassment? That was the idea I started out with, but ‘brown’ also resonated with the colour associated with us Indians. Most importantly, though, the name just had a nice ring to it, so I went ahead with it.”