Please join me in welcoming Oglers Inc.

Oglers Inc. is about 2000 words and Free - two good reasons for you to click the following icon and download it from SmashWords.

Click the image to Download Oglers Inc. in a format of your choice.

The caricatures in the book are done using color-pencils on Executive Bond paper – just in case, you wanted to know If you like the book, leave a rating/comment. If you are a guy AND, an ogler , reflect upon how important you are for the general well-being of woman-kind, and appreciate the fact that your efforts don’t go un-noticed

Writers often provide what they call, teasers of their books on their blogs. Their books, however, aren’t as tiny as mine – they run into tens of thousands of words – so a teaser ends up looking meaty and delicious. My book’s teaser would bear an underfed, emaciated sort of look…but I must do the writer thing the right way – and so here are six types of oglers…I hope they whet your appetite

1. The Curious Adolescent Ogler
2. The Exploring Young Ogler
3. The Recently Hitched/Married Surreptitious Ogler
4. The Satiated Disinterested Ogler
5. The Returning Middle-Age Crisis Experiencing Ogler
6. The Geriatric Wrinkle-protected Ogler

Interested?

Click here.

PS:

Ladies, I am banking on you!

Once in a while…this caricaturist too feels colorful…and Dogs do Rock!

I love black, and white, and gray. I like color, but only when I have to like it. If I were invisible to others, I’d wear black, and white, and gray. Here’s a bit of color for this colorless blog

Caricature/Cartoon Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande – Euro-zone Crisis Agreement – Will it douse the fire?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the sparkling new French President Francois Hollande recently made big news by reaching an agreement that is expected to rejuvenate the economies of the region, especially those of Italy and Spain. Yet, whether the €120 billion growth pact will indeed bring about the momentum needed to pull the Euro-zone out of crisis, is a moot point. In fact, not many are willing to believe that this would work.

Here’s my take on the “monstrous” Euro-zone Crisis and the two leaders on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of reviving the Euro-zone’s finances.

When Francois Hollande flew to Berlin, to meet Angela Merkel, the world watched it with a lot of interest. The reason was simple. The chemistry between Angela Merkel and Hollande’s predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy was fantastic. Perhaps it was because Sarkozy’s personality is Merkel’s opposite. Sarkozy’s quick wit and humor would make Merkel smile, and they appeared to enjoy each other’s company. However, when Sarkozy lost the Presidential crown to Mr. Hollande earlier this year, this happy political relationship came to an abrupt end.

Merkel’s first meeting with Hollande was dubbed drab by the media. Hollande and Merkel didn’t warm up to each other, the way people had hoped they would. So, when the time came for Merkel to visit Hollande in Paris, everyone was even more worried than before. When they met, however, they shared their thoughts and talked about Growth vs. Austerity.

The recently concluded Brussels Summit apparently brought some good news for the Euro-zone but after the initial euphoria has died down, we can now hear the experts say that the package is good, but not good enough.  What may be good enough for rest of the Europe, however, isn’t good enough for Merkel as Germans won’t be happy footing a bill that’s not theirs, and the unhappiness of Germans can jettison Merkel out of the Chancellor’s chair in the 2013 Bundestag elections.

If you are interested in a metaphorical story that explains the genesis of the Euro zone crisis, read “The Euro-Zone Crisis.“

Caricature/Cartoon – Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s IPO – Why Should he be the One?

It’s easy to awe this caricaturist. You just need to be a Leonardo Da Vinci, an Albert Einstein, a Steve Jobs, or a Mark Zuckerberg.

Presenting Mark Zuckerberg, the coder who decoded our lives by creating Facebook and in the process became one of the most talked about people in the world of business.

Caricature – Cartoon of Mark Zuckerberg, the Initial Investors, and the Facebook IPO (Actual Size: 8.5 inches x 11 inches) Copyrighted Image – Please don’t use without permission.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Biography (based on information “leaked/sold” by Facebook?)

When Mark was born on May 14, 1984, people around the world saw their walls disappear. They suddenly found themselves sharing their most private moments with the world. Though this phenomenon lasted only a few seconds, many thought that it foretold the future of Mark Zuckerberg and the world. Accordingly to my sources, Zuckerberg’s childhood was uneventful except for the sudden flashes of brilliance that he let escape. When he was little (well, he still is – perhaps, when he was littler,) his dad engaged a computer tutor for him. The tutor tells us the Little Mark was a child-prodigy (note – he has superior mathematical, logical, and linguistic intelligences.) Little Mark loved to make computer games and applications.

Around 2001, Mark built the Artificially intelligent Synapse Media player that could figure out the listener’s musical preferences. As it usually happens in cases such as these – the biggies came treasure-hunting. Both Microsoft and AOL tried buying it from the kid – but the kid said “NO!” Now that’s another thing that I like in this guy – his ability to say NO to something that looks so obviously appetizing. It requires significant willpower…no?

Anyway, in 2002, Mark joined Harvard. Here he made a couple of other networking applications including Facemesh in which students could choose the hotter male/female from two pictures (according to the movie, The Social Network, he did this to spite his girlfriend who had fallen out with) – this met with some disapproval, perhaps from those who were voted down in the hotness race. Undaunted, Mark went on to create Facebook, which was launched Feb 4, 2004. The rest, of course, is history.

Mark’s Personal Life:

Mark lives in Palo Alto, California – with his girlfriend Priscilla Chan and his dog-friend Beast (beast? He looks like a soft-toy!). Mark’s New Year resolution for 2012 is that he’s going to code every day of the year. Now that resolution makes the caricaturist rather sentimental. I really admire programmers! (not the code-lifters – so if you’ve been lifting code from the web or from the books, and you call yourself a coder, don’t start sending me love-notes and flowers. Also note that I’ve had my share of those goodies about half-a-century ago – so scat!)

The Social Network – The Movie

I think that the essence of what I feel about Zuckerberg (and also about Steve Jobs) is:
“You don’t get to 500 Million Friends without making a Few Enemies.”

While the movie (with Jesse Eisenberg playing Zuckerberg) has colored people’s perception of Zuckerberg and Facebook, the movie may have painted a picture of Zuckerberg far more colorful (and dirty?) than he actually is. According to Mark Zuckerberg, “this is my life, so I know it’s not so dramatic.”

About Facebook’s IPO

When you read this post, the Facebook IPO for the retail investor must either be a few hours away or it must’ve already hit the stock market. Facebook’s Initial Public Offering was priced at USD 38.00 a share (the price at which it was offered to the institutional buyers) and it is expected to raise 16 Billion! It is expected that the Facebook share may debut on the stock market at a much higher price. While there’s a flurry of expectation in the market, everything mightn’t be going right for Facebook. The fact that General Motors has decided to pull its advertisements out of Facebook is being touted about and some say that this may spark off a trend, which obviously could result in Facebook’s revenues going downhill. However, I think that Facebook must have some plans of using the cash it’d generate from the IPO, and with Mark back at the keyboard (I know, I know – whether he’d be a good CEO of such a big company is something that’s being debated), we may see some new stuff coming out of the Facebook menagerie.

Facebook Privacy Concerns

There have been concerns that Facebook sells the personal information of its users to advertisers and companies (and perhaps, even to the government.) When Mark was 19, he sent an email in which he bragged about how he could share the information of thousands of students, if he chose to do so. And then other emails have been leaked too – some more recently. Surprisingly, we have come to know about a lot of bad-stuff only after the IPO was announced. The point to note here is that despite such concerns we aren’t able to wean ourselves away from Facebook…why? Are we zombies?

Warning: You are perilously close to reading explosive stuff. Read further only if can handle your emotions and promise that you won’t break my blog, in a fit of misdirected rage.

The Caricaturist’s Personal Opinion on Zuckerberg and Facebook!

The caricaturist thinks that:

1. being a genius doesn’t make you a robot and that only robots can be perfect (if at all.) Ego, greed, and genius, they are all human traits – and to expect that one who built a multi-Billion dollar company will be immune to these foibles only because he built a multi-Billion dollar company, is sheer stupidity.
2. there’s no free lunch. Only fools would expect an organization to provide us “social networking” for free. If we want to post our most personal thoughts and experiences to social-networking sites, we are the ones who are delusional. What does a site like Facebook has, that it can sell? It can sell focused advertisements – and how can the companies focus the ads on us? By knowing about us. Google does it all the time – except that makes those connections on its own. LinkedIn openly sells our details. What’s wrong with Facebook doing it? Nothing. Except that some dis-satisfied soul who either couldn’t convince MZ to part with his F/B stock, or whose mom perchance wasn’t greeted by MZ, decided to set a spark, which was blown up into a blazing fire by the media.
3. there’s nothing wrong with Zuckerberg. We’ve got a child prodigy here, who did such stuff at 22 that we couldn’t at 44 or at 66! Let us face it – we hate prodigies unless they are ours, or we ourselves are one of them. Even if we were prodigies ourselves, we hate the successful prodigies because they had opportunities that we didn’t. So when we look at Mark Z, we exclaim, “Hey, he may be brilliant, but he’s a shallow human being,” “He’s selling our information, he’s making money using our information,” or as one of the CNN anchors put it, “he’s selling you, he’s selling me, he’s selling our information.” And yet, we are same people who are responsible for all this action and…if at all…the over-pricing of the Facebook stock.

Caricature/Cartoon – Alexander the Great, the Birds, and the Golden Feather of India.

Can you hear the battle cry?

Try harder and you should be able to hear the battle cry of Alexander’s troops as they ready themselves to attack India’s North-western frontier – Gandhar, or the present day Afghanistan (capital: Kandahar); if you press your ear to the ground, you might even hear the clappity-clap of the horse-hooves; and if you have a discerning ear, you should also be able to hear the snores of his tired soldiers, randomly punctuated by mysterious thuds. These thuds, in fact, were caused by the sleepy soldiers who fell off their horses, every once in a while.

No?
You couldn’t hear a thing?

Tchah!

Let me tell you what happened. Though Alexander’s tired and sleepy troops could defeat King Porus yet the battle cost them their energy and their enthusiasm and they couldn’t reach the richer kingdoms of India. This is precisely why Alexander’s headgear didn’t have a golden plume in it. But the birds didn’t know that – do they?

Here’s Alexander the Great on his return journey WITHOUT the Golden Feather from the Golden Bird called India.(Sorry about the color of the web-page – I’d have preferred Golden, but who listens to me…sniff!)

Alexander on his way back - wondering what happened in India. A scratchy sketch by the otherwise immaculate caricaturist.

Tradition Dictates that I provide a crisp summary of Alexander’s life, and who am I to question traditions – so, here’s it.

Alexander’s Least Dependable Biography on the Web

Alexander was born the son of Olympias and Philip, in the Summer of 356 BC. By virtue of being born the son of the previous king, he became the king of Macedon when he turned 20. However, Alexander wanted more. This could partially be attributed to his genetic makeup as his mom Olympias was an extremely ambitious lady, and also partially to his tutor Aristotle (wonder why I feel the need to bring Aristotle in? Perhaps because had he not taught Geography to Alexander, he wouldn’t have been able to plan right.)

Let me not dawdle and come straight to the point. Alexander didn’t sit still after he became the king of Macedon. Without further ado, he got his army together, and marched eastwards. He attacked country after country after country, and after annexing many such countries he established an empire that stretched all the way from Macedon and Egypt in the west to the north-western frontier of India (Gandhara) in the east. The fact that the empire didn’t last long after his death, is often not talked about much – so I won’t talk about it either.

Alexander’s Conquests

If you want a list of his conquests, please visit the following links.

• Alexander’s Conquests – A colorful map
• Alexander’s Conquests – Wikipedia

Interesting Stuff about Alexander the Great

According to legend, Alexander was a gift from God (to the Macedonian royal family, of course – not to those countless families whose sons died in the wars he waged for 12 long years. Ever wonder why God always appears to favor royalty?)

Oh, I strayed. So why was Alexander considered to be gift from God? Well, mainly because his mom (the cunning Olympias who slept with snakes – Nancy, I hope you read this,) and his dad (who loved to get drunk and was an octa-wiferian) both had funny dreams when he was in his mom’s womb. In a manner of speaking, the rumor-mill of those days spewed rumors that Alexander was conceived through divine intervention. Poor Philip. He did all the hard-work, didn’t he?

Alexander’s mom was a busy lady (she had to bathe and feed the snakes, I presume) and so dear darling baby Alexander was raised by a nurse. As I’ve written in my previous post, when Alex was 10, his dad made a thoughtless remark to his son – and that remark changed the destinies of thousands.

The Most Important Question – Was Alexander the Great gay?

I think we should consider it Alexander’s personal matter and drop it. I mean what difference does it make to us? And do you know why we ask this question? Because poor Alexander had a severe Oedipal complex and he wasn’t all that interested in women. Big deal! I refuse to talk more on this topic, but if you are so keen on finding out whether Alexander was gay or not, please click here.

Another Important Question – Did Alexander ever fall in love?

Perhaps so. With a pretty princess called Roxanne and he also married her. Alexander married only twice. Once for love and then for political reasons.

Alexander and Porus (perhaps Paurush – anglicized to Porus)

Porus is the guy who was instrumental in making Alexander and his troops turn back. According to historical texts, Alexander’s troops were suffering from a loss of morale and they were tired of the apparently endless stream of battles that they had to fight. Yet,  I believe otherwise. I think that Alexander had to turn back because he came up against the fiercest warriors of India – people from the region of Punjab. Porus or Paurush, as I’d like to call him, was the king of Purus, who were the Punjabis of the year 326 BC. This Wikipedia entry (I know that you know better, but I couldn’t find a link to your article on this subject) tells us that the lineage of Purus could have survived as the Puris of today. So if you are a Puri, you can be proud of stopping Alexander’s invasion of India.

In midst of all this, I forgot to tell you that Porus was able to thwart Alexander’s plans just by being himself. He had lost the battle but when Alexander asked him how he’d like to be treated, Porus said, “treat me the way one king treats another.” Now, if nothing else proves that Porus was a Punjabi, that does – doesn’t it? (Ask a Punjabi to find out.)

I must stop now…really – or I’d end up writing a long nonsensical story, which’d be typical of me – your very own crazy caricaturist

Toony Pretzels – Flint: Feeling Flinty? Find some Steel!

Most of us have our highs and lows, and for most of us neither the highs nor the lows define our normal states. But then there are those of us who feel depressed and unhappy all the time. They say, they need the spark; they are the Mr. (and Ms.?) Flints who are looking for some steel that they could interact with and produce that spark. This post is about flint and steel.

Flint and Steel

Here are some Flints looking for some steel.

Generally,

• An artist trying to find inspiration.
• A writer struggling against writer’s block.
• A man who has lost sight of his purpose.
• A woman who wants to get out of her daily rut.

and more specifically!

• An adult movie star hoping to become a Bollywood star.
• A cricketer who wants to turn politician.
• A talk-show host who’s looking for a new audience.
• A civil society team looking for a way out.

The Time Machine: Hagar the Horrible by Richard Arthur Browne

I’ve been reading Hagar the Horrible strip for a very long time. In fact, when I had first chanced upon Hagar’s not-so-horrible-and-a-bit-loveable character, I would barely understand half of what transpired in the Hagar the Horrible cartoons.

Last night when I got into the time-machine, I set the dial to arrive in the year 1975, which was a couple of years after Hagar the Horrible went into circulation.

Here’s a quick biographical sketch of Hagar’s dad/creator, Dik Browne (or Richard Arthur Browne).

About Dik Browne

Browne was born on August 19, 1917 and his first comic strip was Jinny Jeep, which he created for the engineering unit of the US Army. Until the mid-fifties, he worked worked as an illustrator for magazines and advertising agencies, but in 1954, he got together with Mort Walker (Yes, Mort Walker of the Beatle Bailey fame,) to create Hi and Lois. The Browne and the Walker family still work together on that strip. (It never ceases to amaze me how the sons of these famous cartoonists are able to carry on their fathers’ legacies…especially as these particular legacies require exceptional drawing/writing skills. As I always say, genes are important…very very important!)

Any way, as it always happens with any smart and intelligent cartoonist, Browne too began to feel some spiritual unrest. He wanted to create his own strip. One that would be built around his ideas. So in 1973, Hagar the Horrible was born with a shaggy beard, a beaten horned helmet, a shield and a spear, and the comic strip was syndicated by King Features Syndicate in newspapers and magazines world-wide.

Dik Browne died on 6th Jun 1989. His two sons, Chris Browne and Chance Browne now write and illustrate Hagar the Horrible.

About Hagar the Horrible and Other Characters in the Strip

Hagar the Horrible is syndicated to 1900 newspapers (including The Times of India) in 58 countries and is also translated in 13 languages.

Some of the important characters in this comic strip are:

Hagar the Horrible

Hagar the Horrible is a Viking warrior who induces fear in the hearts of his enemies, but at the same time, he loves his family and his dog. Hagar is fat and had a slovenly appearance (he doesn’t like baths and avoids them.) At times he’s smart (for instance, he knows how to flatter his wife when she’s angry with him,) but more often he’s not.

Lucky Eddie – friend

Hagar has a friend – a thin, reed-like unlucky (!) character who’s called Lucky Eddie. Eddie is educated but he doesn’t appear to possess common-sense and hence his character is that of a gangly, awkward, unvikinglike viking.

Helga – wife

Hagar’s wife Helga is a huge woman, who is the matron of Hagar’s household. Helga is fussy about hygiene and is always found nagging Hagar for his not-so-clean ways. Helga wants her daughter Honi to grow up with traditional values, but quite like the modern day teenager, Honi has a mind of her own.

Honi – daughter

Honi, Hagar’s daughter doesn’t consider feminity a virtue. She’s tomboyish and prefers to wield a spear and not a ladle. This of course is not appreciated by Helga and so Helga and Honi are often shown having mother-daughter disagreements. Honi wears a winged helmet and she can be quite intimidating when she wants to.

Hamlet – Son

Hamlet loves to read. He is quiet and studious and unlike his sister, completely disinterested in being what he was born to become, a Viking. Hagar wants the boy to become a Viking, and he feels ashamed that his son should not want to follow the Viking order.

Snert – dog

This “v”oofing dog wears a tiny Viking helmet, does nothing, and lazes around. Hagar loves him and is seen trying to make the dog obey is commands.

 

What is the Secret behind the Popularity of Hagar the Horrible?

(The Caricaturist’s Opinion – Don’t use it for submitting Assignments, and if you do, be warned that I shall accept no responsibility for your getting a D…or even an F!)

I think that this comic strip appeals to a lot of people because of the following three reasons:

1. Hagar’s family is enveloped in a sense of timelessness, and the fact that everyday family humor is presented through a family that lived in another age, adds to its timelessness.

2. The characters in Hagar are the kind of people that you find in the real world, yet their characteristics have been exaggerated at times to build the contrast. Compare the character of Honi with Hamlet’s, and that of Hagar with Lucky Eddie’s.

3. The humor is simple. It doesn’t make you think. For every person who loves doing crosswords, there are perhaps 10 who have neither the time nor the inclination to tire out their gray cells…

Caricature/Cartoon – Leonardo DiCaprio – The Abagnale Jr. who grew up to become J. Edgar!

This guy?

Who else but Frank William Abagnale Jr. now known as J. Edgar Hoover, a.k.a Leonardo DiCaprio!

Catch me if you Can!

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Tiniest Biography on the Web

Every sensible biography must begin with the birth of its subject. Leonardo DiCaprio was born on November 11, 1974 in LA, California. As it happens, most people who go on to become famous in their lives, come from a broken home; so was the case of Leonardo whose parents separated when he was a toddler. Leonardo’s dad however was not a normal person. He was an artist…even better, he was a comic book illustrator. So his dad’s influence made Leonardo explore his creative side (?) when he was little. Leonardo went to work at the tender age of 5, but was kicked out of the show for unprofessional behavior (?!) Leonardo wasn’t a good student (obviously, if he were the world wouldn’t be talking about him and obscure caricaturists wouldn’t be drawing his rather unique physiognomy,) nor was he a smashing-hit with the fairer-sex.

One thing led to another, and then I saw him in Titanic (the movie, I mean, not the ship) smooching Kate Winslet. I checked out my parameters of handsomeness and wondered why the west found him good-looking! (BTW, he’s taller than he looks. He’s 5 feet 11 inches or more!)

Anyway, Leonardo DiCaprio’s first movie wasn’t Titanic, it was “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” for which he was nominated for an Oscar (He doesn’t look like himself in this movie though). He was nineteen then. Well, one movie led to another, until “Titanic” happened. “Titanic” catapulted Leonardo into being an international celebrity. I read that 28 Kabul Barbers were apprehended by the Taliban because they were giving those kids the Leonardo-Haircut!

Why Leonardo was called Leonardo?

When Leonardo hadn’t found his way out of his mom’s womb, she went visiting a museum. The yet-unnamed-Leonardo decided to kick his mom for the first time when she stood admiring a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. Every mother wants to remember that first-ever kick (and hopes that the child would stop kicking once it’s out,) and so Leonardo’s mom decided to call him Leonardo.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Famous Movies

Some of his movies are:

• This Boy’s Life
• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
• Titanic
• The Man in the Iron Mask
• Catch Me If You Can
• The Aviator
• The Departed
• Blood Diamond
• Body of Lies
• Inception
• J. Edgar (Recent)

The Caricaturist’s Opinion on the DiCaprio movies that she’s seen

I watched “Titanic” but it made me sad. I don’t like tragedies. There’s enough sorrow in real-life and I really don’t like spending my time watching movies in which the hero dies. I loved him as King Luis XIV in “The Man in the Iron Mask,” a movie that may or may not be historically accurate – but who cares – not the Caricaturist! “Catch me if you Can” is fantastic. Geniuses of all types make me feel optimistic and happy…and knowing that Frank William Abagnale Jr.s exist makes this world a more interesting place for me. I watched “Blood Diamond” and wondered what the heck we need those diamonds for. Even if I had millions, I’d not waste them on a stupid piece of shiny rock that I could tie around my neck and get Spondalytis. In my opinion, no sane person should wear diamonds…but then if the world was sane, I’d not have anything to do. Who’d I ridicule then?!

Finally, “Inception.” I hated the movie, and I have a strong reason for hating it. I watch movies because I want a break from work. This movie puts your mind to work, and that too in the highest gear. You’ve got to go on calculating the dream-depth, the corresponding time-span that Leo and his team can spend in the dream…additionally you’ve got to remember the names of the dream-owners and the team-members who get left behind on the higher level! Phew! The movie left me with a headache that refused to leave me for two whole days! And this movie got several award nominations…thankfully, it didn’t win many awards or I’d have to wonder.

J. Edgar (A movie made on the life of perhaps the longest-serving FBI director J. Edgar Hoover) is right now running in the theaters. I am wondering whether I should watch it in the theater or I should wait for it to premier on television…still thinking

A Toony Pretzels Cartoon – Defining Loneliness

Loneliness once was a real feeling resulting from lack of real friends and real family. Now…they say that the feeling of loneliness still is quite real, but its drivers have changed. I grew up in a time when there was no Internet and in places where there was no television, no telephone, and at times no electricity. There were times when my family stayed in places where there were no other families around. Was I lonely? I don’t think I was. I had so much to do. I’d bind my own books, make my own dresses (and my doll’s dresses too,) study, draw, grow vegetables in my mom’s kitchen garden, and even cook. I don’t remember feeling lonely ever.

But now, I hear of loneliness ever so often. I hear of kids not knowing what to do if they didn’t have their smartphones with them, I hear of young girls and boys jumping off the high-rises because they were depressed, and I read about women in apparently happy relationships suffering from anxiety and depression. I am sure that the feeling is extremely real for them, but I can’t really get a handle on the causes…

I just wonder whether we were a stronger lot before Internet shrunk our world into a ragged ball of tangled connections.

Presenting…

Loneliness!

Loneliness is the state of feeling sad or deserted due to isolation.

If you are troubled by this cartoon, you should click the following links:

• Docs warn about teens and ‘Facebook depression’
• ‘Facebook Depression’: Do You Have It?
• And if you are complaining, complain correctly.
• No Friends on Facebook…A sad song!

PS: If your virtual life appears empty and meaningless, walk out of the door into the street. The real world too has a lot to offer. Give it a chance

Eurozone Debt Crisis – Part 2 of 3 – Caricature/Cartoon of Nicolas Sarkozy as Caesar

If you are an artist who is not a political cartoonist, chances are that you’d welcome a primer on the Eurozone Crisis. Your loving, caring, and ever-so-considerate caricaturist has cobbled up a story to help you understand the essence of this euro-excitement that refuses to settle down.

Read the other two parts of this story at the following links:

• Eurozone Debt Crisis – Part 1 of 3 – Explaining the Crisis and Paving way for the new Tsars of Europe – Sarkozy and Merkel!
• Eurozone Debt Crisis – Part 3 of 3 – Caricature/Cartoon of Angela Merkel the Chancellor of Germany.

And now…

Presenting Nicolas Sarkozy as the temporary Caesar of Europe (or more accurately of the European Union). It was a dream of many great leaders including Charles de Gaulle, Napoleon Bonaparte – and most of all Caesar. They all wanted to unite the entire Europe. Almost all his life Caesar waged war against other countries and once, even against Rome, to achieve his purpose.

For President Sarkozy, this honor came almost automatically, when the German Chancellor Angela Merkel refused to budge from her stance of not making any concessions for those Euro zone countries who had allowed themselves to sink. Unfortunately everything including the fate of the Euro still remains shaky, and the Union still has huge cracks in it, which may allow any of every deal to fall through it. Alas!

Well…that’s that.

What are you looking for?

Oh. You are looking for the Shortest Bio of Nicolas Sarkozy and Caesar on the Web – right?
(Don’t read this – here I berate myself for becoming so predictable…you are still reading…I can see you reading. Okay, as you aren’t stopping, I’ll have to take my fight with myself elsewhere.)

But here are their biographies and also their caricatures…before I decided to roll them into one.

• The Bling Bling President of France – Nicolas Sarkozy
• The Dictator of Rome – Julius Caesar

Read the other two parts of this story at the following links:

• Eurozone Debt Crisis – Part 1 of 3 – Explaining the Crisis and Paving way for the new Tsars of Europe – Sarkozy and Merkel!
• Eurozone Debt Crisis – Part 3 of 3 – Caricature/Cartoon of Angela Merkel the Chancellor of Germany.

The Time Machine: Asterix the Gaul by Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny

Introductory Gibberish – Skip it!

Last night when I got into my Time Machine for my umpteenth trip into the past, I forgot to check the fuel-meter. Only when the machine stopped whirring and began coughing and spluttering, did I realize what sort of idiot I had been! Thankfully, the machine stopped in the year 1955, and gasoline had already been discovered. I shudder to imagine what might’ve happened had the gas lasted up to the Neolithic or even the Paleolithic era.

However, the point that I am dying to make is that I turned lucky as the Time Machine materialized in the backyard of a house in France. I stepped out of the machine and looked around. There was snow all around me – and in fact, there was a snowman too. I did a double take when I looked at the snowman. Believe it or not, the snowman looked exactly like Asterix! I shuffled my memories…trying to get the timeline straight. In 1955, Asterix didn’t exist. The world (okay, France) first met Asterix the Gaul in 1959! Something just wasn’t right.

And then I saw a young man wearing earmuffs, a fur jacket, and a pair of snow-boots (No. He wasn’t dressed like Obelix, I assure you.) He was sitting on a log with an A3 Sketchbook on his knees. He was sitting there, drawing people with gigantic noses! That’s how I recognized him. His noses are the biggest in the world of cartooning – and if you tell me otherwise, you must not have read Asterix comics.

I asked the young man about the snowman, and he told me that the snow-guy was a figment of his imagination. Obviously I asked him for his name, and he told me that he was Albert Uderzo.

So, that’s how I ended up writing about Asterix.

Introductory Gibberish Ends

The Theme of Asterix Comics:

Asterix the Gaul lives in a little Gaulish village that remains unconquered despite rest of the Gaul having been captured by Julius Caesar. The secret of their invincibility lies in a magic potion that Druid Getafix fixes for them. After the villagers tank up on the magic potion, they bash up the Romans and pack them off.

The Characters in Asterix Comics:

While Asterix is the main protagonist, there are a lot of other important characters too, and each of them has his own distinct personality. The second most visible character is Obelix. Obelix is huge and dumb while Asterix is small and smart. Obelix has a cute little dog (a terrier, I believe) who is called Dogmatix (who was called Idefix in French). Then there are the others. There’s Chief Vitalstatistix,  Bard Cacofonix,  Druid Getafix, the fish monger Unhygienix, and so on.

The main and the constant opponent is Julius Caesar who is unable to accept the fact that this little Gaulish village makes minced meat out of his able troops.

The Stories/Adventures of Asterix:

Each Asterix book tells a story. The stories are usually set in an around the Gaulish countryside, but sometimes Asterix, Obelix, and Dogmatix travel to distant lands.

The Unique Selling Proposition of Asterix Comics:

Why am I, the forever cynic, sold on Asterix comics?
Honestly, it’s because they are simply awesome. The characters, the action-lines that make the scenes come alive, the strength and the smoothness of the drawings, the composition of the scenes, the details of the clothes, buildings, and places – and the dialogs too!

The Creators of Asterix:

Perhaps every Asterix-lover knows that Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo created this little giant who’s loved the world over (perhaps not so much in America, though I wonder why not.)

Rene Goscinny did most of the writing while Albert Uderzo did most of the drawing…but both could draw extremely well. Unfortunately Goscinny died rather young – at the age of 51. In 1977, he suffered a heart attack while he was taking a stress test. This happened while Goscinny and Uderzo was working on Asterix in Belgium. This book was later completed by Uderzo.

After Goscinny’s death Uderzo continued as the sole-creator of Asterix comics. Thus, Adventures 25 to 34 were created by Uderzo alone.

And

A few other things…

for instance,

• The Gauls are scared of the sky falling on their heads. (So are the Democrats!)
• Obelix’s favorite war-cry is “These Romans are crazy!” (What’s not noted in the books is that Obelix’s concern was well-founded. Most of those Romans were tattooed and pierced in all the right and some wrong places.)
• Dogmatix loves trees and he hates it when anyone attempts to harm the trees. (Obviously, because trees are important for dogs.)
• Bard Cacofonix is often found tied up to a tree while the whole village feasts. (Apparently, this is to stop him from singing. Where were all those human rights people back then?)
• Chief Vitalstatistix loves to gorge himself all the time, while his shield-bearers use every opportunity to topple him from the shield. (Thankfully there were no unions in the little Gaulish village.)
• Obelix is invincible because when he was little, he fell into a cauldron of magic potion (Ewww…the potion has cooled down, I hope.)

I could go on and on…but I’d recommend that you read the real thing instead:)

Caricature/Cartoon of a Musician – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!

Mozart, they say, was a musical prodigy. Even before he was five, he could play the keyboard and the violin, and he performed in front of the Royalty. Obviously such performances today will lead to protests by various organizations that safeguard the interest of children…so it was good that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756 and not in 2006. With that little detail out of my way…
I present the caricature of the wigged musical genius, Mozart.

Mozart’s Biographical Sketch by the Caricaturist (Obviously exaggerated):

Mozart was born on a cold wintry morning in the January of 1756, in a place called Salzburg. Mozart was born with the musical gene riding his y chromosome, which he got from his dad. Incidentally his dad also had the right connections (he himself was in the court orchestra,) and a teacher of music. With the right genes, the right guidance, and the right push, it wasn’t long before Mozart and his sister made their first court appearance as child-prodigies.

It wasn’t that Mozart’s childhood was a bed of roses. I can imagine a three-year old being tutored by his dad, and a six-year-old being made to perform in front of the royalty – it sends a shiver down my spine! I am glad I wasn’t his sister, who went through a similar ordeal.

In 1773, when Mozart was 17, he got the job of the court musician at Salzburg. Unfortunately, job-satisfaction evaded him. He also thought that he wasn’t paid well. Obviously then, he did what anyone would do in his position, he floated his resume in the market. In 1777, Mozart had enough of Salzburg. He resigned and moved to Paris. Unfortunately, nothing worked out for him and he fell into debt. His dad however was one of the sweetest dads ever (quite like the Bollywood Star Amitabh Bachhan, who did everything to establish his son in Bollywood,) and he found a job for his son,…once again in Salzburg – the place Mozart didn’t want to come back to. But he did – and then gradually the wheel of fortune began to turn for him.

Mozart’s Love Life:

1. Mozart’s first love was a singer called Aloysia, who lost interest in him while he was struggling all over Europe. (Women – bah!)
2. After Mozart had established himself in Vienna (1781), he took up accommodation with a certain Weber family. One thing led to another and it wasn’t long before Mozart and Constanze (one of the daughters of the Weber family) became an item.

As it happens with most artists, Mozart too suffered a lot many ups and downs in his career.

Other Stuff about Mozart:

• There’ve been rumors that Mozart suffered from Tourette Syndrome.
• Mozart loved to play practical jokes on people. As Mozart preferred off-color humor (called scatological humor – be careful while clicking the link…it’s got some off-color stuff), people who were the butt of his jokes weren’t too pleased with him.
• He also played Billiards and kept pets.
• Mozart did become a Freemason sometime in the 1780s.
• Mozart loved to dress-up (check out the frill in front of his coat, and that neat little bow on his wig.)

If you are the musical kind, you may want to check out Mozart’s Music here

Toony Pretzels Cartoon – Essentials of Asset Evaluation by Shrew and Shrewd!

If you haven’t done your share of Asset Evaluation, here’s a quick definition to get you going.

Asset Evaluation is the process of determining the current worth of a portfolio, company, investment, or balance sheet item. (Source: Investopedia here.)

I don’t know why but this cartoon reminds me of “The Trump Card,” a twisty tale on the matters of fidelity.

And if you aren’t touchy about the issue of fidelity (or infidelity, for that matter) enjoy some cool jokes about cheating at the following links.

• Cheating Husband Jokes (obviously they need a dedicated link.)
• Cheating Husbands, Wives, Couples etc. Jokes

Toony Pretzels – Understanding Theory: To Save or to Practice – That is the Question!

Theory

The term “Theory” is defined as:  Fundamental or abstract principles underlying a science or an art.

It’s time for a reality check. We need to know whether the doctor who’d be cutting us open, studied in a medical school with a lab and got some practice…or whether he got that degree online…or did he just buy it off the shelf?

• Want a Fake Medical Degree? Mr. Arora should be able to help you out.
• Don’t want to waste your time in a Medical College? Check out this page here.

The Caricaturist belly-lands…Crash, boink, boink, boink, scrreeeeeech…ooof!

Dear Readers of Every-kind,

I am back from the past. Here’s what’s been happening since my return.

The Caricaturist’s Hit List Leaked – Causes Bad-blood!

Tom Cruise, and Leonardo DiCaprio weren’t there at the Time-Portal to welcome me home. In fact, I also didn’t see Demi Moore, Penelope Cruz, and Madonna among those who had gathered to welcome me to this timeline. I don’t blame them. I know that your love for me might make you angry at all these actors, I’d request you to exercise restraint. They have a valid reason to feel unhappy about my return – they have found out that they are on the Caricaturist’s Hit-list.

Before you ask my why I didn’t contract Pricewaterhouse-Coopers to keep the list secure, I must remind you that this Caricaturist is the first of The 4 Types of Artists, and that PwC’s price-tag was a tad higher than I was willing to shell out. Nevertheless, I am not concerned. Other than these four, everyone else who’s anyone was there with bouquets of roses (thorns included), boxes of candies, and of course with requests that I shouldn’t caricature them, if possible.

Anonymous Reader and Commentator Makes my Day with a Minus 5 Rating!

… with an Ultra-Caustic review of my Free eBook at Barnes and Noble’s Nook.
Phew! Never thought that I’d get a 2 Star on a book that 4 NON-anonymous readers gave me 5 Stars for! But then I understand that just the way some people who like to donate anonymously, some like to comment anonymously. I appreciate the witticism in the comment, which goes as follows:

“Forgot 5th type of artist…Really bad self-published ones. Don’t waste your time. -5* – By Anonymous”

Hey! Does it say “-5*”?!! *Minus 5 Star”??!!! Oh Boy! I hope that the book didn’t cause any sort of fatal injury to the reader. I mean how terrible the experience must have been! I wish my Zeta reader tons of luck for recuperation. Now, if you are strong enough to stomach the contents of my awful, awful, awful book, check it out here.

If you disagree with my sweet anonymous commentator, will you please make another comment with your persona identified?

I must also mention that this anonymous commentator had the distinction of being the first of his (or her) kind, and so I mention the comment here. All other anonymous comments shall be royally ignored as I tap into the last drops of royal blood in my veins.

On smashwords however this book along with its sister book “The 5Ps of Creativity”, appears on the first page of the highest rated Free books in the Entertainment category. Don’t believe it? Well, here’s the link:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/category/87/highlyrated/0/free/any

Thank you, dear readers, for putting it there.

In the meantime, I invite my blog-readers to share their experiences with anonymous comments. They say that happiness grows when shared…or was it that sorrow reduces…

And finally, I bring you…

The Toony Pretzels – Cartoons with a funny aftertaste!

Well…well! The cat’s out of the bag, the mouse is out of the trap, and the mystery of those missing blogging hours is solved!

I’ve re-discovered my lost love for cartooning, thanks to the Great Ajit Ninan. There’s a lot I need to learn…but then quite like any other artist, I can’t wait to post my cartoons…so don’t go away…I’ll be back after a short break

A Depressed Woman Sketches a Cartoon Tongue Walking on Blood.

Before I return to the future and to this blog, I’d like to write a bridge post.

Here are some of the searches that my blog has received in the last two months. While I understand the seriousness of these queries, I have to share my interpretation of these searches with you.

Search Term 1: Depressed woman sketches
No. No depressed woman sketches for this blog. When this woman is depressed and she sketches, she begins to smile – you see, the depressed woman doesn’t remain depressed when she sketches, and so it’s the smiling woman that you see sketching, not the depressed one. Confused? Hop along to the next term.

Search Term 2: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Panties
Wow. Those panties are famous, aren’t they? I mean when I wrote about the lady’s scanty panties, I thought that I was talking about something that had escaped note of others, but it appears that I was wrong. I now realize that every second person (hopefully of the male variety) is looking for Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s Panties! I believe that she should now get into the business of selling her panties. She can source panties at $2 per panty, snuggle in – snuggle out, and then sell them for $20 a panty. I can’t recall another business that operates on 90% GPM – can you?

Search Term 3: Shafali’s Caricature/Shafali’s Cartoon
This is something. Isn’t it? Folks, I know I am famous, but I am not that famous that you’d have cartoonists and caricaturists clamoring to draw my pulchritudinous physiognomy! And I am definitely not narcissistic enough to go on drawing myself.

Though in one of my previous posts, I said that my avatar looks a lot like me, I must admit doesn’t portray me too realistically. I’ve removed the third eye, the broken front upper tooth, the sharp canines, the broomstick hair, the bullet hole in my left cheek, and of course, that extra knob on my nose. I hope this description helps you visualize the real me. You are of course welcome to turn in your sketches made as per the true description given here. The best wins a special mention in a post and a … dark, deep, bloody kiss on the neck. (slurp!)

Search Term 4: Caricature Cartoon of Abhishek Bacchan by Shafali
Whew. This is what I was scared of. C’mon, dear searcher. I won’t draw the guy unless I was paid to draw him. His dad is the only Bachhan I’d draw of my own free will. Mr. Junior B will never motivate me enough, I am sorry folks but he just ain’t my cup of tea.
However, if you are really keen on a Bacchan, check out his dad, who’s still infinitely more interesting than all other Bollywood heroes put together.

Search Term 5: Caricature of a man who looks like a rat
Dear Searcher, you’ve got to be more explicit in your description. Could you please tell me the kind of rat that you want this man to look like. I mean, do you want a ratty sort of rat, or a mousey kind of cute one, or you’d like a field rat perhaps. And do tell me if you are looking for a tail too? Should I add some whiskers? And yes…one more question  – should he be inside the trap or outside it?

But before you answer all these questions tell me this. You are looking for Saddam Hussein’s caricature, aren’t you?

Search Term 6: Cartoon tongue
A cartoon tongue?!
I am speechless.

Search Term 7: Caricature of Best Boss

What doesn’t exist cannot be caricatured. – The Caricaturist.

(Note: If you have indeed seen such a creature, run for you life! He (or she) must be a mutant, an alien, a vampire, a zombie, a ghost…anything but a human. Best Bosses, even real good bosses don’t exist! Nope. Never. Nada.

Search Term 8: IITian Cartoon
Ask this gentleman, who is an IITian, a writer, and an artist too!

Search Term 9: Shafali’s Characteristics
My characteristics? Let me think.
Well. Here’s the tip of the iceberg or the top 3 items on the list.
1.    Black and White
2.    Light and Dark
3.    Sweet and Sour

But why are you interested in my characteristics? Are you worried that I might yet be another ingredient in the recipe of an anti-matter bomb?

Oh I get it. Your keyboard played a prank on you, you were looking for Shafali’s Caricatures…well, find them here

Search Term 10: Caricature walking on blood
Eeeeeyyyeeeeee! Haaaaallllpppppppp!

Search Term 11: Cartoon Dog in Nazi Uniform
The closest I could get was this.

But what my dog tells me is that when they had tried to put a dog in the Nazi uniform he bit his handler!

Search Term 12: Hair on its own
Hah! All over my house – except on my head, where I think it belongs! I hate it when my hair speaks of freedom and independence – but then it watches TV, you know.

Thank you for the inspiration, my dear searchers.

Other posts in this series:

• Shafali Hitler shares Some More SEO Humor!
• Shafali’s Cartoon, A Football Rat, and Handsome Indian Men – Some Long Tail SEO Humor!

Caricature/Cartoon – Sigmund Freud – The Psychologist who discovered the Couch

Has your tongue ever slipped? Have you ever spoken of President Osama, or the ex-chief of Taliban Obama Bin Laden? If you have and if you’ve told yourself that it was a Freudian slip – you know this guy.

Meet Sigmund Freud, the gentleman who told us that sex drives us to do everything in life. Okay…may be not 100% of the things but about 99.9% of them. I could tell you a lot about his theories, but being a caricaturist, it’s my duty to exaggerate the…well…the ones that interest the masses.

But before I talk further, here’s my rendition of the aforementioned gentleman.

I know what you are thinking.

Sigmund Freud’s Biography

I know that it’s traditional to provide you with a biography of the subject – so I must tell you that this gentleman was born on May 06, 1856 in the then Austrian Empire. During the time of the Nazi, Freud moved to London along with his casting couch (oops! A Freudian slip there. I meant, his “consulting” couch – the one that the caricaturist found herself on, during her recent trip into the past.)

More of his biography can be read here and here.

Freud’s Ideas and Theories

Freud is known for the following (and more) – with the caricaturist’s interpretations.

—————Legalese Begins————-
An Important Note for all the Psychology Students who are looking for stuff to copy for their assignments.  If you want to copy the explanations given below, please be my guest. I waive all copyright for psychology students who want to save some last-minute work and copy the following explanations for their assignments. I will however not be responsible for their grades (or the lack thereof) in any manner.
—————–Legalese Ends—————

Dream Analysis

Your dreams can be analyzed by your shrink to discover what “sexual” forces drive your apparently “innocent” actions. (Read about Dream Analysis.)

The conscious and the unconscious mind

Whenever you work against your conscience, it’s because your unconscious mind is directing your actions. So never berate yourself for anything – you are responsible only for what your conscious mind does. (Read about conscious, unconscious mind…phew.)

Oedipal Complex

This is the complex that a boy suffers from when he hates his father for bringing him into this world (well, he hates his father because he’s attracted to his mom and jealous of his dad, but logic suggests that it must be the final outcome that irks him the most.) (Read the gory details of the Oedipal Complex and the Electra Complex (yep! why shouldn’t women have their own complex?) here.)

Id, Ego, Super-ego

Id is your elemental self. It is the only one that matters. Ego and Super-ego help you communicate with others who your Id doesn’t consider its equal. (Read about Id, Ego, Super-ego…)

Psycho-sexual development

Ever since you were born, you’ve been thinking about sex. (Oh, actually, it all began in the womb.) Freud based this theory on his personal experiences. I don’t want young mothers to begin looking at their kids with suspicion so I won’t say more on this, but you are welcome to read about the psycho-sexual development of humans here.

The Freudian Slip

This isn’t a slip that the gentleman in question wore under his shirt – instead it’s a slip that we make when we say what we want to say instead of saying what we should’ve said. (If you aren’t satisfied with my definition, read more about the Freudian Slip here.)

Expanding the Freudian Slip (No…it’s not made of spandex, I repeat.) I’ve packed a huge bundle of laughs for you.

• George Bush Senior’s Freudian Slip 1
• George Bush Senior’s Freudian Slip 2
• When people mixed Osama and Obama
• A Freudian Fart?
• And speaking of farts…
• Really an F-Slip?
• And 10 more…

He is also known for his drawing: “What’s on a Man’s Mind?” Once again, Freud based this drawing on his personal experiences…but don’t take my word for it.

And before I forget…here’s the couch that I talked about in my previous post, “Circa. 1920, London – The Caricaturist and the Couch“.

NEWS! The Caricaturist publishes 2 Short and Funny eBooks on Smashwords!

This post has been long overdue but there were (and still are) worries that have been feasting on my time and energy. I have a lot of caricatures from the past that have been pestering me for their share of space on this blog, and I really need to get going.

So let me get you up-to-date by telling you that I’ve finally managed to publish two eBooks on Smashwords. I should tell you that Smashwords is easy, clean, and cool – and just the right tool for anyone who’s not very comfortable with the electronic technology.

Here the two of my recent efforts. If you’ve got an eBook Reader, you should download these free ebooks into your reader and read them there. These books have a strong visual dimension in the form of cartoons and they look really cool in the eReaders – at least they do in my iPad.

If you click the cover image icons of the books below, they will take you to the Smashwords pages of these two books. As you scroll down the Smashwords Book Page, you’d notice a table that lists the different formats that you can download the book in, so select the format that suits you best (I recommend PDF for reading on your desktop/laptop – otherwise select the format that goes with your eReader. iPad uses ePub.)

The 4 Types of Artists – Starving, Dying, Dead, and Rich!	The 5 P’s of Creativity

Thanks for downloading and reading. If you like them, do return for reading more I also request you to recommend the books to your friends.

The 5 P’s of the Creative Process or The 5 Golden Steps to Creative Nirvana

(Download this article as a PDF here, and if you want to read it in your eReader, download it from Smashwords here.)

Creativity – the stronghold of the right-brained has always invited the envy of the left-brained. Oh, how they’d love to dissect and then logically analyze our brains to understand how they work and what processes they follow.

I am writing this post to tell the world that the mystery is solved and after a great deal of research and observation, it has been concluded that the creative process has been distilled into 5 distinct steps and miraculously, their names all begin with a P! I think I must be the second person after Philip Kotler to have arrived at such a P-articularly P-eculiar P-rocess.

Instead of killing you with anticipation, I’d rather kill you with my mint-fresh P-rocess.

Let me tell you about the 5 P’s of Creativity.

Warning: I stand absolved of all responsibility for lost assignments, irate clients, angry audience, whittled remuneration, and any other unhappy fallout of your using this process. However, if this process works for you, I’d appreciate if you pass this document to your friends, colleagues, spouses, children, neighbors, or even your TV-repairman  (who might be a struggling artist, for all you know.) Thank you. Now muddle on.

Step 1: Procrastinate

Folks, if you want to be creative, you need to first learn to procrastinate. I find this step extremely useful when I don’t experience one of those proverbial flashes of inspiration – and believe me, there seldom are any flashes of inspiration. I am prepared to go back on this statement-o-mine, the day I become famous – because creative flashes (gentlemen, note that these are different from hot flashes!) add an aura to an artist’s personality…but then that day mightn’t ever dawn. (Sigh!)

Research indicates that the duration of procrastination depends on the urgency of the assignment and is directly proportional to it.

How to Procrastinate Correctly?

In order to procrastinate effectively, you need to:

• Avoid all mention of other people’s ideas on the subject in question, especially if they are in the same creative domain (writing for writers, art for artists, cartooning for cartoonists, and so on and so forth.) Such ideas would make you feel lousy and inadequate, which isn’t a healthy state of mind to be in.
• Avoid contact with the left-brained, logic-driven, process-hogs – as they’d push you for what they term as “output” and mercilessly murder your creativity.
• Devour news and information on the subject in question, whenever you are hit with a guilty conscience bred by your tardiness. It will make you feel less worthless.

Step 2: Panic

After you’ve procrastinated enough, and when the deadline looms large enough to cover your entire horizon, you have to panic. This is what I do. After I’ve procrastinated enough, something begins to nag me to look at the calendar, and when I look at the date I panic.

Now don’t panic at the mere mention of this step. Look at it like this. When you panic your body gets into the state of high alert and you begin to look at all possible options to get out of the situation, which means you are now ready to generate ideas. Do you see how Procrastination leads you to Panic and Panic results in ideas? You see it – don’t you? Good.

Now the question is…

How to Panic Properly?

If you are to make best use of your panic you need to panic properly. Here are a few tips.

• Email, message, or phone your family members, friends, and, acquaintances, and tell them that you’ve got to deliver the drawing the next day and that you are experiencing a creative blackout (something similar to what the writers bandy about as the writer’s block). Ask them to help you out. I’d call this method: Creativity Mining. Note: this sort of thing has to be done very delicately…I am sure you know what I mean.
• If you stay with your family, darken the room and go on a limited period hunger strike! Though your family won’t realize it, you’d be able to emotionally blackmail them into generating ideas for you.
• If and only if the above measures fail – sit down with your notebook in your hand and begin doodling – sometimes great things happen while you are doodling, just the way some great people are born because someone was out…well…doodling (also known as “sowing his wild oats.”)

Step 3: Precipitate

This is the step where you make sense of your doodles. You begin connecting the dots with the topic in question. With the deadline glaring down upon you, ideas begin to flow. Everything begins to come together, and it coalesces into a beautiful workable idea.

This is also the time to have an encyclopedia, your references, and an Internet-enabled computer close by. Why? Because your imagination may end up ruining your life! Recently I did a caricature-cartoon for a magazine, in which in addition to the main character, I had to draw myriad other things, including an evil-looking shark. I got the main character right, I got the TV and the people in the TV right, but I didn’t draw the characteristic dorsal fin of the shark! And you know why I didn’t? Because I was too damn sure that I didn’t need a reference.

So…

How to Precipitate your Ideas Correctly?

• Make a rough sketch – especially if you are creating a composition. You need to get the proportions right (or deliberately wrong – if you are a caricaturist.)
• If you aren’t sure about how something looks, find some good references for it. I mean I couldn’t have drawn Caesar, or Napoleon, or even the Queen – if I didn’t use some reference pictures.

Step 4: Produce

Well. Now get your final worksheet/workbook/paper/canvas…or whichever work-surface you prefer, ready – and draw it – then color it if you must.

This step is easier to handle if you haven’t cut corners while “Precipitating” your idea. My personal experience suggests this step is usually the shortest (“Procrastinate” often takes the longest.) It’s also important to remember that if you’ve “Procrastinated” and “Panicked” enough, you should be really short of time by now.

As any artist would tell you, there isn’t much to this step.

Yet a How-to is warranted, so…

How to Produce your Creative Heap?

• Sit down, concentrate, focus, and then…. let it all out. (I know…I know – it sounds just like that – and in fact…the relief is commensurate too.) If you are a budding caricaturist, you might find something useful in “The Evolution of a Caricaturist – A Book on How to Draw Caricatures,” other kinds of creative artists would do well to find their own fountains of tips and tricks to help them along this step.
• Scan or Print your artwork. Check it out from all angles, gloat over it for as long as possible – and tell everyone around you that creative work drains you and saps you of your energy. If those around you can’t draw, they’d deify you – who knows, they might even want to get you stuffed for their living rooms – but take that chance, and enjoy the limelight.

Step 5: Pray

Before you deliver your painstakingly created artwork to your client – Pray. Believe me, this step is almost if not more important that “Procrastinate” – because it adds that something extra to your work – this is step where you pray and you resolve that if your client likes this piece of work, then you’d never ever use the 5 P’s Process of Creativity again. This is the time when you tell yourself that when you receive your next assignment, you’ll have it ready before time…etc. etc.

I guess most artists do it already, but if you don’t you’d probably want a quick how-to on this too.
Here you go.

How to Pray and Repent for the Characteristic Artistic Tardiness?

• Kneel, fold your hands, close your eyes, and pray that the client and the audience like your work. In the field of creative arts, prayer is the most creative art of all, so pray in a creative manner – so that your prayer catches the attention of the God or Goddess who’s in-charge of the Creative Department in heaven.
• Write “I shall not use the 5 P’s method literally and will banish tardiness from my life,” on the drawing-sheets that you had used for rough work, at least a 100 times.
• Tear the sheets on which you did the lines into tiny pieces, and flush them into toilet.

Repeat the 5 P’s when your next assignment comes your way.

And if you are busy with any of the five steps right now – you might want to download the PDF file for this path-breaking model for creative thinking by clicking the following icon. You can probably infer from the icon below that this PDF file comes complete with a flow-chart that you can print and tack to your soft-board as a ready reminder!

Click this picture to download the PDF of this article along with a printable flowchart!

Definition of Art…The Practical Standpoint!

Long ago I wrote a post in which I attempted to define art, purely from a theoretical and also idealistic viewpoint. You can read “Definition of art – A Theoretical Standpoint” here. In that post I had promised that one-day I would write its sequel, which would present the practical viewpoint. This is that post.

Warning:

• If you are a budding artist, full of hope and brimming with confidence that you’d follow in Hussain’s or Raza’s footsteps, step back now. Don’t read this post. You can come back to read it after you’ve spent at least a decade trying to figure out whatever the heck didn’t work for you. It isn’t for you.
• If painting is your only skill, and if you’ve got some surety that you’ll have someone to support your artistic pursuits all your life, without of course, expecting success in return (you know about Van Gogh, I presume) still this post isn’t for you. You might yet become what you aspire to be.
• And finally, if you are indeed someone who comes from a well-connected family, even if you don’t draw, I’d recommend that you paint a few canvasses. The exhibitions, the fame, and even the sale of your paintings; they’ll all happen without your ever discovering why.

However, if you aren’t among the three types listed above, instead you are the more common type (the stereotypical struggling, starving artist who has crossed into his thirties and has a wife and a child to fend for,) you might want to print this post and tack it to your soft-board…or in the more realistic scenario of your not being able to afford a soft-board, you must fold the printout and put it in the only pocket of your trousers that still doesn’t have holes.

Here’s the practical definition of Art.

Art – A Practical Definition:

Art is what sells at the famous art galleries for sky-high prices.

Practically speaking art is nothing more than this.

How you get to sell your art in those famed galleries could be a matter of:

1. Luck
2. Slog
3. Both
4. The X-factor

Let me explain the above four points in greater detail.

Art Element 1: Luck

You’ve got this fabulous collection of innovative work, and you are wondering how to exhibit it. You get a call from someone who’s seen your work, admired it; and who knows someone who is somebody in the artistic circles. This person comes to your studio, checks out your work, swoons, and decides to exhibit your work in a prominent gallery. Voila! Lady Luck has short-listed you. Now your chances are bright that you’d indeed get lucky.

I’d put your chances that you’d turn lucky at about 1 in 10,000

Art Element 2: Slog (Euphemistically known as Hard Work.)

You’ve got this fabulous collection of artwork, and you lug it around to every gallery, famous, not famous, and infamous; show your work to every body from the doorkeeper to the owner, and you get the boot.  Then one gallery decides to give you a group-show. You don’t sell anything. Then the next year you lug your work around to every gallery – finally, you get a group show, and you sell one painting. Every year the number grows. After 10 years, you get your first solo, and you sell one painting. You go on doing solos. The number of paintings sold grows. Then when you turn 75, you’ve got a 50% sellout! Wow! You are an artist!

You can now tell your family that finally it’s your turn to take care of the expenses. You can now also tell your elder brother that he needn’t send you that Dole-the-Family-Artist check every month.

Art Element 3: The Combination of Slog and Luck

Now if you work hard and you get your solo in a year and a sellout in 10 years; you are a lucky slogger. Chances that you become a “real” artist who earns his bread, butter, mayonnaise…and then later his house and car, in this way – Better than pure luck, worse than only slog. Somewhere in the middle, if you ask me.

But if you’ve got that magical x-factor, then…before I kill the surprise, let me tell you about the x-factor.

Art Element 4: The X-Factor!

The x-factor is a publicly unknown factor, which is seldom made known to the general public by the artist, but which can be discovered if only the public had a keen eye.
The x-factor may include one or more of the following:

1. High-society connections
2. Money, money, money
3. Empowered (and empowering) relatives
4. The unmentionables (couches?)

I really don’t think that one post is sufficient to cover all these components. I might tell you some stories with the names changed to help you understand why these factors are so effective. I mean you really have work hard not to succeed, if at all you had the x-factor!

Chances of your becoming a famous artist if you have the x-factor: 9,997 out of 10,000!  (I keeping the 3 out of 10, 000 chance as my Get-out-of-Jail-Free card.)

Before I end this post, I’d like to publicly apologize to all the successful artists including the dot-dabber, the horse-rider, the box-maker, the shit-sprayer, the bone-master, and the can-caner!

But…you want to say something. Say it.
Okay. I’ll say it for you. You wanted to say that there are so many of those artists that don’t really appear to have the x-factor…

Observe and Identify…the x-factor.

Really?

• Figure out whether the lady in question is the wife or the daughter of a diplomat,
• find out whether her mom is a famous writer and how she was born in a mansion that’s right there in the heart of the city,
• figure out how an Indian woman born a 100 years ago could get her nude pictures shot by her brother and not get shot in turn, only because she was born a princess;
• decide why though you can draw and paint almost as well or better than a South Indian king, but you end up in a two-room apartment with a broken, discolored center-table in your drawing room (just in case you are wondering whether I am talking about the table in my drawing room I should tell you that I am talking about another, perhaps a lot more talented gentleman who is about 15 years my senior.)

Begin joining the dots my friend, and turn wise BEFORE you turn old. If you are young, I’d recommend that you try your best to attract a useful spouse who comes in either with connections or with money. If you fail at that, then the best thing that you can do is – join an advertising agency and build the right contacts.

Don’t bet your life on that one random event, which has a 1 in 10,000 chance of coming true (the chance could be even lower for all I know – I just picked a reasonable sounding figure…) If you can draw, first find a job with an ad-agency, an animation company, or a publishing house – and then try to win that lottery.
Or…
Check out one of those reincarnation schemes that assure your rebirth in a family of your choice. What? There aren’t any reincarnation schemes in the market?!! That’s too bad – isn’t it?

A Special Note for the Cynical Reader:

I am not biased against the fine art of selling the fine art. I have also written a moderate, optimistic, theoretical definition of art, which you can read at: “Definition of art – A Theoretical Standpoint”. I hope it will establish me a rational, left-brained, right-handed, useful, non-sinister member of the world community.