Pramit's Comics Dump

Rakshak #4 pg49

Rakshak Issue 4

Written by Shamik Dasgupta, Comic art by Pramit Santra, Colors by Prasad Patnaik and Periya Pillai

Hullo there, children. I’m not a great writer, but bear with me a little, will ya?

The journey of Rakshak, for me , started somewhere in January 2016. I got a message from Asvin Srivatsangam from YDC and it was on. It became a strong project in my art career. Asvin, Shamik Dagupta(creator of Rakshak) and I discussed a comic artstyle for issue1, went with it but somehow, YDC’s base readership didn’t like the artstyle.

So, for issue 2, we changed the style a lot and still improving it to become acceptable to the comic fan base in India. A big challenge for me was to bridge a gap between my heavily inked comic art and Prasad Patnaik’s vibrant colors (at least, that’s what I felt). Prasad is a fine colorist but I felt that the style had to be matched to make it likable. We improved some in issue 2. Some in issue 3 with many different artists trying to handle the character and the Rakshak universe. And then, Rakshak issue 4 came up.

R4 combo

Rakshak all 4 issue combo avilable here- https://goo.gl/436fBp

I won’t say that I had to improve a lot in Rakshak , but what I did was to properly channel it so that the comic art is acceptable to readers. In Rakshak Issue 4, I kept at that pace so that the written words and colors are best synced to what I was drawing. It’s all about the team effort so that an issue comes on time and for that, I thank everybody in the Rakshak team.

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We live in a complex world today. We have political bias, criminal activities, judicial complications and social revolutions. More the people, more the problems. And that’s why , may be , Rakshak has always had a light hearted flow, as I felt. I think, Shamik Dasgupta(Creator of Rakshak) made it to create a sense of hope and understanding in its readership. Something that Western superheroes like Superman have. But again, Rakshak is not from Krypton and didn’t have any superpowers. Neither did he have the Wayne fortune. So, what came out of it was a good willed Batman , who’s not so creepy. In case, people felt an overdose of Frank Miller poses, I apologize for that and take full responsibility.

Creating peace by violence is something all tyrants of past have done. But Rakshak’s challenge was to create an understanding and a statement, no matter how hard the task is. Finally, I wish that Rakshak achieves what it is set out for.

PRAMIT  KR. SANTRA

AUGUST,2017.