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At the cusp of the 1990s, every home PC had to have one killer app installed. When you’d go round to a friend’s place and they’d show off their new Amstrad or IBM beige behemoth, the first question out of your mouth would be, “How did you convince your parents?” The second would be, “Do you have Prince of Persia?”

Jordan Mechner’s seminal 1989 game (published by Brøderbund) was the high watermark for computer games at the time, a title that combined fluid graphics, exquisite music and challenging gameplay into an astonishing final product. I remember the first time I saw it in 1990, on the PC of one of my parents’ friends. He fired it up for us, to keep us kids busy, I suppose, but I don’t think even he would understand quite the impact the next hour or so of play had on me.

Allow me to rant.

Vogue India ran a photo-spread in their August issue featuring high-price luxury fashion accessories as modeled by people who -- oh, what's the word -- are poor. This apparently caused some controversy. Mind you, these models were not just poor, but barefoot and missing-their-teeth poor. So poor that photographers from around the world come to India to take gripping, black-and-white shots of them in their state of bare-footed no-teethedness (sans Fendi clutch bag, of course), to highlight their, um, pooritude.

Now, frankly, I'm appalled... but not for the reason you think.

Over the next few days you will hear a lot about Google Chrome, the new web browser from the internet behemoth. I've tested it out and am happy to report that it's quite nice. Of course, I'm a long-time Mozilla Firefox user, so the transition has not been very stark. But if you're one of the poor people who still use Microsoft Internet Explorer (or worse, if until now you didn't even know what a web browser is and that there are mutliple available ones), then Chrome will be a revelation.

Even for me, the new browser is an intriguing new beast. It's very quick, intuitive to use and so far does things well. I can see myself using it for most tasks, at least those that don't require certain firefox plug-ins that I'm used to (but there will no doubt be equivalents for them in Google Chrome eventually), and I'm very happy that there is now a new robust, polished open-source browser. Competition and choice can only lead to better products in this regard.

But as impressive as the browser is, it is not the thing that I really wanted to blog about here. For you see, the most impressive thing about Google Chrome for me today is the fantastic comic that serves as an introduction to it.

The name Scott McCloud should be familiar to most comic book geeks such as myself. The author of seminal works like Understanding Comics has carved a name for himself as true master and expert of the comics medium. Who better to explain a new web browser; an application that's so simple to use it's invisible, but is so complex underneath that entire careers can be dedicated to it? Scott McCloud, of course.

I love how he manages to represent even the most arcane programming concepts in a fun and exciting way (helped, of course, by the words from Google Chrome's programming staff), how there's a single narrative thread but multiple voices from members of the team -- this is a feat you can't really achieve as well in video, for instance, but as a comic it works great. Alan Moore has always maintained that comics as a medium are rich beyond measure, that there are things you can do in it that you can't do in a movie or a book. I can think of several examples of Moore's own work to support this, but Scott McCloud's introduction to Google Chrome is a shining example too.

So even if you don't give Google Chrome a spin (I highly recommend you do), please do check out the comic that goes with it. It's simply superb.

I grew up in Muscat, Oman, and went to an Indian School there. Legend had it that the school had started as a simple gathering under a tree, but by the time I got there in the late 1980s and until I left around ten years later, the school was a gargantuan, organically grown complex of grey buildings, and contained (or tried to) upwards of six thousand children from kindergarten to grade 12. Recess out in the dusty school field was like entering a medieval battleground.

Having so many people from so many different parts of India in one place was a unique experience. Places like Mumbai are highly cosmopolitan, but even though your classmates might be Bengali or South Indian they tend to identify as Mumbaikars first. Not so as expatriates in a foreign country, where many kids’ families had come directly from non-metropolitan towns or villages, places I’d never even heard of. We were aware of the differences -- it was often the source of much mirth -- but our collective identity was forged as Indians. Being an Indian school we’d sing Jana Gana Mana every day, celebrate all the Indian versions of things like Children’s Day (November 14th, Nehru’s birthday), and get holidays for Diwali, Eid and Christmas (not to mention Holi, Dussera and a host of others -- it’s fun being Indian, the next festival is never more than a month away).

Independence Day, that is the day in 1947 when the British officially handed over power (August 15th, today), was always celebrated. Classes were canceled but middle and high school students were obliged to come to school that morning. It was just a half hour or so, nothing fancy; a flag-raising ceremony and a speech by the principal, maybe a song or two by the school choir, and then we’d roam around the field, maybe stalk the eerily empty corridors of the school, play impromptu games of football with pepsi cans (a teacher or two might join in), and then leave.

I was always surprised at the turnout at these events. Not just students, but their parents too would come along. Some of the school buses would ply their routes, and being one of the only Indian Schools in the country some kids lived hundreds of kilometres away, but they’d still be there. Maybe it was because we were Indians in a foreign land. Maybe it was even national pride. But maybe, just maybe, it was the spirit of independence itself.

I don’t like to think of India like most people do, as a nation now only sixty-one years old. India as an idea been around forever, India the place and the people and the intangible spirit has always been there even when it was a hundred disparate kingdoms and villages and hermits’ huts, even before it had a name. For me India is synonymous with independence, with freedom and liberty and fun, yes, fun! I don’t equate it with a flag and an anthem and a political party, and certainly not with a parade of military power.

For me Independence Day is about standing around a place where discipline and order are the norms, and just kicking a can around with your friends.

Isn’t that what it's all about?

Further adventures in processed food in this, the fourth and much delayed strip of the second Comic Konga! Click on the image to see the full strip.

The drawing is all over the place in this. I'm just a bit out of it this week, I suppose, running around doing real life stuff. One more left; have the script, should draw it asap.

V

Due to unforseen developments, I'm going to have to put my contributions to this second Comic Konga! on hold for a couple of days. I won't have computer access for the next two days, and instead of rushing and putting up some crap or the other, I request my readers to be patient with me for a little while.

The remaining two comics will be posted on Saturday and Sunday (12 & 13 July).

Meanwhile you can look at these monks. Ah, don't they look serene? You would be too if you were dreaming of comics.

V

Third day, third strip of the second Comic Konga!. Today's strip is a two-pager, so click on the thumbnail above to bring up the first page, and then click next at the bottom to see the second. Alternately, you can click here to directly see the second page.

I can't say I really hate mint chocolate -- the ice-cream version is something I enjoy quite a bit -- but most varieties of it are not very well made, and the experience is more negative than positive.

I have no idea what tomorrow's strip will be. Oh noes!

V

Here's the second strip of the second Comic Konga!. Click on the image to see the full strip.

This was actually the first strip drawn but I wanted to post it after the single panel from yesterday. Tomorrow's strip has been penciled; I only have to ink and scan it, perhaps shade it in like this one. Like I said yesterday I think I'm not going to do full colour versions (Today's strip is done in shades of desaturated blue). For no other reason than, like most Indians, I have a bit of a lenient hand with colour and it always ends up gaudier than I would like (strangely this is only a problem with my illustration work; my colour sense works fine when I'm doing design).

V

So begins the second Comic Konga! I think I'm starting to like doing the first one as a single panel gag; it's a format I never otherwise use, and it's a challenge to distill something down to one panel and one line only. Like most writers I have a tendency to ramble, and something like this could easily have been a three or six panel piece.

The anatomy and line-work is all over the place, and I did try to colour it but decided just to keep it to black and white (perhaps that can be a theme for this time's CK). Hope your own comic endeavours are fruitful. Can't wait to see what you lot have come up with.

V