CHRISTINE MACHADO | NT BUZZ
Nearly a decade after returning to Goa, artist Nishant Saldanha is bringing a body of work that began during his years in America to readers in India. Four reprinted volumes of his comic series ‘Mr. Good Guy’ will be available at Literati, Calangute, on November 1, coinciding with the bookstore’s 21st anniversary celebrations.
This is the first time Saldanha is making the work available to Indian readers in printed form. “I’ve never been sure how many people here are familiar with the comic and I wanted to put
it out there,” he says.
Saldanha’s interest in comics began after he attended a class on the history of the medium. “I fell in with the form and with the idea that I could be a writer and a ‘draw-er’ at the same time.” At an animation programme at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Los Angeles, where he was enrolled, he says, “the focus was always on drawing, but I found that my ideas naturally began with writing”.
During his third year, he interned with Cartoon Network, where he had to develop a mock pitch for a television show as part of the learning experience.
As he worked on the concept, he felt that something was missing. He eventually realised that the story lacked a central antagonist. However, he was reluctant to create characters who could be labelled simply
good or bad.
“I didn’t like the idea of my characters being simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’,” he says.
This gave rise to ‘Mr. Good Guy’, an antihero defined by what Saldanha describes as “good intentions and broken outcomes”. One reader, he recalls, characterised the figure as “morally
ambiguous at best”.
The character took on a more personal significance when Saldanha decided to leave the U.S. and pursue an independent career as an artist, following several unsuccessful attempts to find his place in the animation industry. He began making Mr. Good Guy comics as a way of processing the disappointment and sense of loss that accompanied
the transition.
“I thought an artist shouldn’t be stopped by employment ‘hang-ups’ so I made these comics on paper, coloured them digitally and shared them on social media,” he says.
Once or twice a year, he would print the works and take them to comics fairs, where he sold copies and met other artists working in the medium.
The series gradually found an audience and received wider recognition when it was selected for ‘The Best American Comics 2019’, an anthology edited by Jillian Tamaki and Bill Kartalopoulos.
The comics showed Saldanha’s loneliness as a stranger in America and the challenges of growing up. They also addressed his concerns about the political climate at the time, particularly Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.
“There were other things I was thinking about, such as Trump’s first election and how the world seemed to change overnight as a kind of fear seemed to set into everything and everyone
around me,” he says. Saldanha believes his readers and peers in the U.S. also recognised Indian influences in the comics, particularly in their colours and visual details. He says, “One can’t really separate these things.”
Looking at the comics now, Saldanha can see how much of Goa has found its way into Mr. Good Guy’s world. “The wooden furniture, decorative elements, unusual objects, dark corners and red-and-black flooring are among the details that recall old Goan houses,” he says.
Since returning to Goa, Saldanha has explored different styles and forms in his work. He explains, “I enjoy the freshness of moving between forms and hope that what connects them is the thinking behind what I’m searching for
or investigating.”
Comics, nevertheless, are special to Saldanha. “Comics are also naturally associated with humour, which is a really wonderful way to process dark or difficult things,” he says. He also values their no-frills, ‘lowbrow’ charm and their ability to disarm readers without making light of the subjects they explore.
There are newer comics in the works, too, including the possibility of one in Konkani.
Alongside the reprints, Saldanha is also launching an online shop where readers can purchase archival-quality prints of
individual comics.
