Mohit Srivastava is a comics artist from the land of Bollywood and holy cows, India. Since he was a kid he fell in love with comics and followed his passion as he was growing up. When little kids his age were learning to read fairy tales, Mohit was running around with his cousins’ graphic novels, just to look at pictures since advanced English wouldn’t make any sense to him.
He started drawing comics on every piece of paper that he could find in the house and even at the end of test papers in school, attracting a lot of detention but the artist says he holds no regrets. Currently, Mohit is working as a creative lead in a US-based company.
Even though his job is not entirely about comics, he manages to keep the love for comics alive through his social media page and posting every now and then. Mohit’s first big break into comics was when he won a Grant from Comic Con India to create his own graphic novel back in 2012 and since then he has always been drawing comics (not always professionally).
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“One of my oldest memories of my childhood is about a red cape, soaring high in the sky and me really enjoying watching it on tv. But this wasn’t Superman. In fact it was a cartoon show called Super Ted and it was him who introduced me to the superhero genre as a kid. I was so fascinated by that cartoon that my love for superheroes never abated but in fact, kept growing. I probably draw comics because I wanted to create my own superheroes growing up,” shared the artist when reached out by Earthwonders.
“One day, my younger sister kind of pushed me to create a comic page and I liked her idea. I am an astrophile so when I was creating my comic page, I wanted that side of me to come out. So I called it Spaceboy Can’t Lol because I thought spaceboy would represent me and I would draw comics about funny situations in my life where I am at the receiving end. I did that for sometime but slowly realized that there’s much more that I want to do like movie spoofs and dark humor. I now realize that my comic portfolio has turned out to be a mix of everything. So there’s no wonder why I draw superheroes and pop culture related stuff quite often.”
When asked what inspires him to create, the artist said that he just loves the idea of capturing ‘larger than reality’ kind of situations in art and illustrations. “Sometimes I find real life really boring and I feel the urge to create something abnormal or non contemporary. It’s an internal drive that pushes me to draw. Also, looking at other artists’ work inspires me. Few pages that I love on Instagram are mrlovenstein, extrafabulous_comic, loading.artist and war.and.peas. Lately I have realized that the best motivation hands down is seeing my followers engage with my work as comments, direct messages and shares. Their excitement about my work is truly motivating for me.”
Coming up with ideas can be quite challenging sometimes. We all face that block sometimes when we just don’t know how to move forward anymore. To Mohit, luckily it’s not the same. Even though he doesn’t even know where he gets his ideas, he still manages to come up with some of the funniest ideas that he later sorts the out.
“My brain and me, run on different schedules. I draw on photoshop directly although I prefer pen and paper over everything else. I won’t say it’s a challenge to come up with ideas, mostly because I don’t keep a deadline on it. I like to enjoy what I do more than stressing out about consistency of posts because it will be unfair for my followers to see anything but the best of my work. I believe, if I enjoy creating my art and comics, my viewers will enjoy reading it. In the end it’s about having fun for me and getting a chance to engage with the world. Anyone who has the ability to make others laugh has a responsibility to bring his craft to the table so that the world can forget about their worries and laugh. Laughter is the best therapy, indeed and the world we live in, can really use it,” added the artist for Earthwonders.
