BENGALURU: IPL fever has got the entire country excited, cheering for their favourite team and crossing fingers by placing bets. Each industry is looking at how they can capitalize on this craze for profit, and this team of comic artists is doing the same, but with a twist. By illustrating stories around IPL and its fans, the team is giving cricket a whole new perspective.
Appupen, founder and editor of Brainded India, says, “Crik X as a piece was initially commissioned from ESPN Cric Info as a 12-part comics series two years ago. But was discontinued after eight parts. Every month, we had these elaborate strips going on. We came back to the story and figured there’s nothing like this out there. Now we don’t have any restrictions, so we can finish the storyline, have a parallel, and also have a different ending to it.”
The strips are divided in 64 parts, which is being put out in 50 days. The strips have been released ever since the start of the IPL, however, these are not directly linked to any of the matches, “We realised that it’s madness, it’s like a party that is overdone. Many youngsters in our country are forced into this sport, but only 11 people are allowed on the team. For those who get into it, there’s either cricket or there’s nothing, he says.
Personal experiences and observations on how the sport has evolved in the country is what drove this team to kick-start the series. “Today, cricket has its own variations and techniques. Now no one has the time to apply the specificities to the sport. In Crik X, we imagine a world where cricket is the only occupation, making the world a totalitarian set-up. To be part of that world, you either make bats, or you’re a commentator or a cheerleader. Cricket also gets into the shape and structure of the buildings too, where the buildings are shaped like bats and balls, and things like that. To add to it, we came up with the tagline- The world you want," adds Appupen.
Chacko, who’s working on the illustrations, says, “IPL is what influenced Crik X the most, it’s like a distraction circus that just hyper-intensifies emotions. I get to colour the textures of those emotions, and I enjoy doing it. Cricket was not really important to me when I was growing up.The way that some of my friends would talk about the strategy never really had an impact on me. Now cricket takes pointers from other sources to hype up the whole thing - the cheerleaders, the fancy cameras - it’s like a Hollywood set up.”
Even though these strips are satirical in nature, they do have an optimistic element to it. Chacko says, “There are forces working on the background. But it is a typical hero story, where you can defeat the villains in the end. But like every victory, this is also temporary. Even if you have your small battles, can you stop your machines in the big picture?", Chacko adds.
'A commentary on the mainstream'
Brainded India is an independent wing of Brainded International. This team of artists use humour and visuals as their primary channel to make informed comments on the ongoing public discourse. “Through comics, art, stories and essays, we look beyond trends, eyewash and agendas, in an attempt to unravel today’s human beings. Here, the mainstream is so strong and things are so cluttered, there’s no space for any one to pull out a message and look at it objectively. If we throw in a spanner like this, then maybe it can get people thinking and something can happen. And if it’s got humour and art, it doesn’t become preachy," says Apuppen.
Appupen adds that he borrowed ideas from Adbusters and MAD, began brainstorming with Chacko and they put out this platform together. Chacko says that the two of them come from an activist-type school in Kottayam, Kerala. Their principal, Mary Roy, played an integral part in them forming critical thinking on social issues, “Earlier, my art was inward viewing. We’ve always been in an environment where we’ve grown up exposed to this kind of satire, where we question establishment," says Chacko.