Gathering Pace!

Allow me, friends, to make one thing very clear in the beginning; this Blog is not about my life history! I just felt that in order to understand the composition and sequential art as I do, you have to know how I did!
Again, you are not supposed to take it without analyzing on the basis of your own logic and strengths.
I was lucky to have the opportunity to peep into the world of commercial drawing without any training at all, let alone professional guidance. The best thing about being a cartoonist is that you are both writer and artist of your work, mostly! I think, this was my first encounter with my future self. One more important thing; I found out to my utter disbelief that one can actually earn through this medium! How much, however, remained a matter of conjecture.
I kept commuting between Delhi and Kanpur with Sukhwant , invariably staying with his relatives, who were very kind and excellent host.
My first real success was a cartoon strip in Diwana Tej, at the time when Pilpil Silbil and Motu-Patlu ruled the roost. I kept studying and kept trying simultaneously and then I was asked by destiny to choose a path.
It was exactly 1^st January 1979, when I was sitting in front of charismatic Gulshan Rai, who offered me a full length 48 pages comic Tau ji, which was to be published under his new venture, Diamond comics! It was in cartoon style. Though I just passed my higher secondary with flying colors and got an offer from BITS, Pilani, I respected the gesture of destiny and chose to remain with my heart. I was certain I was not capable of riding two boats at the same time. It was a foolish decision, seconded by many, but supported by my parents! They knew I would try my best to excel in any field I decide to take.
The die was cast and I had become a published professional!
I was just 16 then, but already I was adding panels in the original scripts to make it more sequential. Noboby objected as nobody was bothered. But after just a handful of books, I was becoming aware of limited access of cartoon style in Comic field. I wanted to switch to realistic art, and I got this opportunity when I was given my first superhero series Fauladi Singh.
I handled it pretty badly though readers were not complaining. There was a sea of difference in analyzing something already on paper and a blank page where one has to decide everything right from scratch. This was learning in real and believe me, folks, it was quite tough and diminutive when you consider that your work is surrounded by the books of demigods of Industry. But I kept on improving at a breakneck pace and within in 4 years of my 1^st comic, I started finding my feet.
Artwork was proceeding towards satisfaction but stories were a very different issue. They were too simple in nature and presentation was unprofessional to a great degree.
For the first time I thought of writing my own stories, a task which I never undertook before, though I read a lot and was conversant with many classic and popular styles of writing. Now all my efforts done previously came handy. Like every other artist, I was too a fan of western comics, but with a little difference. I not only analyzed the illustrations but stories and their continuity too.
I created my first real series Space Star for Chitra bharti; a comic launched by S. Chand & company. This series was heavily influenced by Star Trek series and my background as pure science graduate came quite handy. But this series had no chief protagonist and to correct this mistake I created my first Character Private detective Kapil in 1983.
My journey was gathering pace!