From 26/11 to Baba Ramdev, Indian artists have filled the online space with web comics that reflect current issues

After the hue and cry of 26/11 died down on television, Shantanu Adhicary felt that he had something more to say. Like everybody else, he didn’t do the marches and stop at blaming the politicians. He drew an online comic strip laced with sarcasm instead. The reaction was overwhelming and it gave him a fan base to begin his own series, comicry.org. Adhicary was inspired by an already popular web comic artist Meera Sapra, who had also created a strip on the attack that mocked the system’s way of dealing with the terrorist.

Both artists are part of the growing culture that using the internet to express their cynicism and opinions about everything. The concept of creating comic strips online is not a new phenomenon worldwide. American web strips like xkcd and explosm have cult followings throughout the world. Since they all talk about US issues, Indian artists and writers realised that they need a space to satirise Indian topics too. Here, comics have been confined to columns in the newspaper and created by famous artists. Now, everyone has a say and the popularity has grown to an average of 30,000 readers per month for each of them.

Saad Akhtar began Fly You Fools, a hilarious Indian web comic, last year and is now a minor celebrity online. “People love to read mockery of everything around us, especially current issues and random situations that they can relate to,” says the 30-year-old.

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