Arjun’s life with Zak and Zik

The assertion of simplicity with just few lines and wit is not an idea that is new in the world of webcomics. But Arjun Chatterjee’s webcomic about Zak and Zik’s little conversations is something that does perfect justice to the idea of these awesome stick figure webcomics that amaze and entertain! Going back to the time when he’d participated in an online t-shirt design competition, Zak and Zik’s little world had come into existence as an attempt to make his own design. Though he didn’t have a trophy to flaunt at the end of the day, he did get rewarded in the form of a lot of likes and laughs. “And I decided to do one more! It took off from there. I ended up uploading to my albums, then creating a separate Facebook page for the comic, and finally, I had enough readers to start a website,” says Arjun who now has followers from almost all over the world!

Not very long ago, I was pretty surprised to see my mother follow the same and blame it on her need to “know more about kids these days”. What is more surprising, is the fact that she makes sure to bookmark the last read comic so that she can keep up with each episode! For someone who had no idea about what a webcomic is, laughing with two youngsters seemed to be the most wonderful discovery she could boast of in the world of comics. After all, who can resist playing voyeur to two nonchalant youngsters and laughing along with them instead of laughing at them?

With the idea of humour and irony getting lost on the internet not being an old one, Arjun believes otherwise. “I wouldn’t completely agree with that. Humor and irony is all over the internet. You just have to look in the right places. And like every thing else on the internet, even simple little webcomics like mine find their place. I suppose there are some things which everyone finds funny and some things which only some people do. I look around me and try to understand what a general person like me would find funny and then go ahead and convert that into mini stories for my comic. Irony, sarcasm and leg-pulling is what the internet today is about. And I draw on that. Kind of like The Force!”

Star Wars junkie, designer and the brains behing Zak and Zik, there is no one better than Arjun to turn to when you need to know more about these two adorable friends! “You know two people are really good friends when they can be complete idiots around each other. And complete idiots say the funniest things. The essence of my comic is to capture the hilarity in that wonderful idiocy”

Keeping in mind an art style that is honestly crude, though Arjun’s had thoughts about introducing some changes, he has  thankfully stuck to his original idea and developed the lives of Zak and Zik around it. “The hardest things to draw are the facial expressions of the characters. I sometimes have to stand in front of the mirror and actually make the faces myself to understand how to go about drawing them. The initial crudeness in the style however, was because I drew with a mouse. Now, even though I have more sophisticated tools, the characters are recognizable by their crudeness and me and the readers love them for it. So I still go back to the mouse for the most part,” he signs off.