KOCHI: Hair tied up in a bun style, dressed casually in a pair of blue trousers and pink T-shirt and eyes round and wide: This is Momo who is the main character in Pooja Manjula’s comic series. The comic page titled ‘momo_tales’ on Instagram centres around the events in Pooja’s daily life. She has gained quite a fan following from across the state. Pooja sketches some of the most casual moments ranging from assignment deadlines to even questions about the purpose of life.
Hailing from Thiruvananthapuram, Pooja turned her pastime doodling into a full-time passion about a one-and-half year ago. As she began sketching comics on her iPad, she calls herself “a comic artist with a stylus”. She is an ardent lover of Calvin and Hobbes which is a comic strip by American cartoonist Bill Watterson. “I loved reading comics from my childhood and had a huge collection of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. Never had I thought of stepping into it until I entered college. I started scribbling in my books and making doodles,” she says. Pooja has done about 65 comics.
Initially, Pooja christened her comic avatar ‘Boo’. This was later improvised into ‘Momo’. “The comics became a hit when I posted a strip on an incident with my brother where he makes fun of me telling I am fat when I try a dress at a shopping mall. But, at the same time, my brother gets angry when others make fun of me,” she says.
However, to be known as a comic artist had not been an easy journey. “I look up to Bhagya Babu’s webcomic Awkwerrrd which is a hit among people,” she says. Creating comic strips is a stress-buster for Pooja. “Some day, I will compile these and publish my own comic book,” she says.