Shark Week 2020!

 Shark Week doesn't really air in India the same time as the rest of the world. At first it bothered me that I couldn't take part in all the fun. And then I was educated enlightened by Dr.David Shiffman a couple of years ago and now I find the de-sensationalising of Shark Week even more fun. 

However, I do find their episode titles rather exciting (as intended) and I enjoyed drawing my take on the titles. Here are the ones from 2017 and 2016.  This year's titles attempt to be intriguing but it loses its hook once you realise that it's just some over-hyped shark drama below the surface. 

Anyway, I thought I'd choose some of the titles from this year's lineup. 

1. Air Jaws: Ultimate Breach off  (10th Aug)

2. Jaws awakens (11th August)

3. Extinct or Alive: Land of the Lost Sharks (12th August)

I heard that a few diverse sharks were featured in this episode including the Whitetip Weasel Shark (Paragaleus leucolomatus), Flapnose Houndshark (Scylliogaleus quecketti) and Blacktip shark (Carcharhinus limbatus). 

Extra: Great White Serial Killer Extinction

I heard there was another episode titled "serial killer" this year. Okay, so it had something to do with sea otters but this title needs to stop being applied to sharks unless it's a super duper fun monster flick. This drawing is from 2017 with a couple of small modifications.

4. Monster under the bridge (13th August)

Monster, it seems. I was gonna go with a Billy goat gruff sort of idea but then this tune suddenly started running through my head and I figured this is even better. 

5. Sharkadelic Summer

I just really wanted to try out some psychedelic backgrounds. 

6. Tiger Shark King

I modified my old tiger shark and tiger drawing to fit this one. Tiger Sharks are hilarious. The tiger is rolling its eyes. 

7. Wicked Sharks

Am I the only one who thought this when I heard that title?

Bonus: Alien Sharks 2020

I modified another one from 2017 with some of the diverse sharks featured this year.

Resolutions and solutions

I put off making resolutions for New Year until perhaps a week or two after the initial feeling of obligation to do such things passes. Even then, I'm hoping to simply create new habits for the year. Like being less cynical, make a lot more drawings and do some new activity. Well, good luck to me!

Happy New Hope!

After Carrie Fisher was critically ill, I came across quite a few tweets about how 2016 is the worst and that 2016 must not claim Princess Leia too. Well, the world had just lost George Michael and that reminded us of the dozens of other celebrities who died this year. Sadly, not only did Carrie Fisher pass away but so did her mother Debbie Reynolds. And needless to say, twitter was not feeling the holiday spirit.
But celebrities dying were not and could not be the worst about this year. Terrible things happened all around. Some accidentally but many deliberately. It's not okay to terrorise people and it certainly isn't okay to kill innocent children. What is the point of destroying someone else just because you are miserable? What gives someone the right to exploit a helpless person just so that they can gain pleasure or profit? Who says that being tolerant of their own beliefs but not those of others, gives them the right to dictate what prejudice is? We have become self-involved and impatient and intolerant to the point of misplaced fury. Our children are becoming insolent, uninvolved and unmotivated. And then we say that it's been a bad year. It's only going to get worse. If we think we can fix it, we're bound for disappointment. Millions of people thinking they are right isn't going to set things right.  But let us start with the basics like honesty, moderation, wonder, respect and then we will know what it means to hope.

Sunny friends!

It's been a while since I did a comic strip - and it's been a while since I featured La-la-la bear. It's my sister's birthday so I thought I'd draw something apt for her. I got this idea from a tweet by Lydia the shark (@RockStarLydia) where she posted my beach buds drawing and captioned it "Friends are the sunshine of life". I had to go and do this.

Fifty Sharks of Grey

Before you assume that I'm a Fifty shades fan, I believe that Fifty Sharks of Grey would be far less scary and less dangerous than Christian Grey. I haven't watched the "Fifty shades of Grey" movie yet but I have read the books and I can tell you that they're dreadful. The writing was sadistic and I suppose one would have to be somewhat masochistic to read it and enjoy it. It was simply an abusive relationship being declared as romantic and it's only because the illiterate author would constantly re-emphasize on how attractive the psycho-stalker-boyfriend was that women bought it.
I'm actually quite surprised that I managed to draw fifty grey (grey-ish) sharks. I owe a huge deal to the "Sharks of the world" book. (A must-own!)
Some of my sharks are quite straightforward and easy to guess, others not so much and probably don't make a lot of sense. I think a couple of them have a numerous variety in their category and possibly one of those varieties are grey in colour so I just gave a general representation. And it's possible that I got some of them wrong so please pardon any incorrect drawings.
I will try and put up a version with the names printed next to the corresponding shark soon.

Answers will be posted soon.

The Pilottes! (and an irked Oceanic whitetip)

It's pure coincidence that this tale of love and restraining orders appears right after the Valentine's Day one. I probably need to find myself someone who will either cure me of cynicism or laugh at such things. Laughter, we'll go with the laughter.
By the way, I'm very proud of the name of the group "The Pilottes".

This is just a random comic idea inspired by those little striped fish*.

For those who are puzzled by this, please read about Pilot Fish.
*Oceanic Whitetip sharks always seem to be surrounded by Pilot fish and that's what inspired this comic.

Happy Valentine's Day 2015! Love, The Shark

Some people might even say that love hurts more. That's why there's a song titled "Love hurts" but none titled "Sharks hurt".
This is one way of making Valentine's Day a lot less annoying.

ps - In case you didn't notice, the chocolates are shark-shaped.

A Shark AND a Pencil! Now that's scary, right?

I was really saddened by the Charlie Hedbo shooting. I can't believe that cartoonists were shot to death because of something they drew. People seem to get offended all the time these days. Since when did it become okay to end human lives over that? I mean, isn't everyone else expected to turn the other cheek if they are offended?

Nice article here.

New Year Resolution: Try to be nice!

This is a remake of the New Year sketch from a couple of years ago. I'm guessing that a fool-proof way to be nice to everyone is to stay clear of them - this is probably why there are all these people running away to "find themselves".
However, the trick really is to be nice despite all the annoying people out there (like the ones who run away to "find themselves"). Oh well, I said I'd try.

The Shark Tooth Fairy Quits!

Sharks could make a load of money this way! The Shark Tooth Fairy might go bankrupt though. I was playing around with a few ideas for this - one with The Shark being all industrious and on its way to being a millionaire, another with the regular tooth fairy threatening to quit and finally deciding on a tooth fairy exclusively for the sharks.

Bazinga hug!

I was going to have the last panel say "Bazinga" in hopes that 'The Big Bang Theory' will sue me and send Jim Parsons to deliver the notice. The Shark would hug him for sure. (I hope)

Say 'No' to stupidity and colourism!

Even though we don't like to admit it and like to keep pretending that we're a country of mosaic culture united in diversity, India is one of the biggest practitioners of apartheid in the world. There will be a multitude of people who will get all "offended" or "angered" by my statement and may get all hostile but that's how we tend to avoid issues. We get angry at those who point out the issue than at the issue itself. Whoever established this mindset has very conveniently allowed things like discrimination, low self-esteem and exploitation to go unchecked.
How else can a country with one billion skin tones continue to be the largest market for skin whitening creams? And a country where people actually believe these products work! You cannot change your skin colour from a deeper shade of brown to a paler version of pink. It just cannot happen. No cosmetic product can do that. Maybe if you tried acid?
There are people with actual skin problems who are in need of proper skin care; and in India, sun screen is probably a better product to sell. I'm shocked that they could package a mix of sun screen and bleach and sell it as a "fairness cream" - how blatantly offensive is that? Whatever happened to respect and allowing people to succeed based on skill rather than skin? At what point does skin colour go from being "successful" to not? Is there some logical cutoff shade with a pantone code perhaps?
"Dark is beautiful" is a campaign that talks about this discrimination against skin colour. They are currently campaigning against irresponsible advertising and propaganda that promote the idea that your skin colour determines how successful you are to be. Please sign the petition here if you believe that India needs to get over this so-called hangover we're still suffering from after The Raj. It's been over 60 years. Move forward.

To view the commercial click here - it's sad when such influential celebrities promote such an idea. This ad agency needs some real creativity and some integrity.

The "Social Obligation Smile"

About five years ago, I wrote a blog post titled "The 'Social Obligation Smile'". I'd written the title down in my sketch notebook to remind myself to someday do a sketch about it. Re-reading my old post shows me just how cynical and sarcastic I used to be (I'm definitely mellowing down). However, I still believe that this is a highly useful skill in societies/cultures where social interactions are strangely superficial and yet extremely fundamental.
Also, this could probably help the sharks with their public image, right?

The inevitable question

This seems to be quite true. When I mentioned "profile photo", did you instantly think of Facebook or what? 

Hypocritically speaking....

We're all probably hypocrites in some way or another whether we like it or not.  This is what you get when you point out the Shark's fraudness. 

It's offensive to be offended!

Is it just me or do people get offended by more and more things every passing day? Most of which could be just ignored or laughed away. Is it also a coincidence that way more people are becoming "intolerant" of various food stuff - allergies that were not all that common some years ago? It's really weird that we get all offended about cartoons drawn decades ago that included all sorts of people groups and showed them in a humorous light but we seem accepting of kids getting stripped of their innocence younger and younger. It all seems rather silly.

Relationship matters/Relationships matter #3: The spaghetti incident

We all probably have a "Spaghetti incident" in our lives. I thought I'd posted mine in my old blog but I can't seem to find it. So I'll give you a brief summary. Once upon a time, my family went to Universal studios. It was lunch time and we were all crabby and getting on each others' nerves. I wanted to go watch the "Beetlejuice" show and we had about an hour so we went to get some food. I wanted my own plate of spaghetti and meatballs but my parents were asking me to share some of their food or share with my sister. I was like "No. I want my own". And so I got my own plate of spaghetti. I had totally underestimated American food portions. What I got was way more than I could handle. My parents said that I couldn't go anywhere unless I finished that entire plate of spaghetti. "Beetlejuice" was about to start and my mom and sister went ahead to watch it. It was all very tormenting and finally when I'd eaten about 90% of my meal, I was allowed to go watch the show. One would think that I'd never eat spaghetti and meatballs ever again. My family still laughs about this (even though they don't remember which amusement park it was or what Beetlejuice was about). It's not even that funny.

Anyway, while these are moments that may seem annoying (aka sitcom moments) at the time, they're certainly not ones over which you'd give up your family or relationships for.
People seem to be giving up for smaller and smaller issues compared to what they tolerated just some years ago. Some say we grow to love people, some say that some people are just impossible to love, some say it has to be a gut feeling... I don't know what works or if different things work for different people. I just hope I have what it takes to stick it out and that I find someone who'll stick through it all with me.

The trouble with arranged marriages

So, I did it again. I entered another contest - wrote an actual blog post and even did this comic for it and everything! This time it wasn't really for the prizes but I've written so much about a related topic that I felt I simply had to.

It's an interesting and tricky subject because while "arranged" marriages seem to work oftentimes and end up disastrous at other times (as do "love" marriages) people see it as the opposite of choice. People are being set up with other people by other people all over the world but nobody refers to that as being "arranged", do they? I guess it's gotten the reputation of being forcibly set up by two families who see it as if it's like a profitable breeding of livestock.
If you ask me for the link to the article the shark is reading, I'll probably be vague about it.

Everything? Like, forever.

Well, "gross" does also mean "total", "whole" and "entire".
We're a needy race. We always have one craving or another and there are tons of things the world has to offer that can satisfy the need for a moment or two. Then we overdo it and those things suffocate us. It just gets way more emotional when people use other people to fill up the emptiness. Eventually someone smothers someone or the one finds that the other isn't enough (because on top of being needy we also can become quite discontent quickly). It does make one rather cynical when one expects fulfillment from other humans, doesn't it? Even sharks have no use for them because they apparently taste bad.
However, in the grand scheme of things, we probably will see that we must do our best for each other and help those who are down look up rather than look to us. Otherwise, you may end up with a stalker.

Genuinely Fake thanks to Facebook!

Yep, I know. We all do it. Facebook has made it so much easier to be fake. But be careful - when we rely on Facebook too much for our fakeness, we may forget how to be fake in real life and end up in some awkwardness. 

Honestly though (yes, really), it is probably easier to display emotion on Facebook and it is probably better to miss people when they're far away. We just sometimes prefer to keep missing people than to actually have them around. Hmm, it is a wonder that I have any friends at all.