Social media has led to an explosion of indie artists in genres like graphic illustrations, comics and cartoons. You can find them on all kinds of platforms, including Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook, but we think their incredible work is best viewed on Instagram, the most image-based platform. Here are some of our favourites!
Who: Sarah Andersen
Based in: New York City
Username: @sarahandersencomics
Number of followers: 2.6m
Latest book: Herding Cats: A Sarah’s Scribbles Collection, Andrews McMeel Publishing, Rs 449
Comic style: Sarah’s adorable comics are autobiographical, taking inspiration from her own life and from people around her. She draws short storylines in black and white with an occasional touch of red, with herself as a character. From her boyfriend and her friends to her cat, all show up in her comics, including a talking bunny that represents her thoughts.
Why we love her: Period problems, female friendship, relationship struggles, failure — Sarah’s comics are quite relatable. We the millennials are having a hard time figuring out adulthood on our own and it really helps when someone comes along and expresses exactly what we think. Even if we’re completely clueless, at least we’re not alone!
Who: Grant Snider
Based in: Wichita (Kansas)
Username: @grantdraws
Number of followers: 26.2k
Latest book: The Shape of Ideas: An Illustrated Exploration of Creativity, Abrams ComicArts, Rs 576
Comic style: His signature series, Incidental Comics, are colourful, multi-panel musings on philosophy and simple everyday pleasures of life. Grant draws himself as a neurotic writer/artist in search of fulfilment. He uses fine lines and water or pastel colours in all his comics, playing around with reality and dreams in his storytelling.
Why we love him: Grant makes very difficult existential problems seem easy to express. His comics are full of uncertainty, just like himself, but also very soothing, and they almost always conclude on a hopeful note.
Who: Christopher Grady
Based in: Toronto
Username: @lunarbaboon
Number of followers: 310k
Books: None yet, but all aspiring parents should petition him for one!
Comic style: Christopher uses the persona ‘Lunarbaboon’ to share personal struggles with parenthood, married relationships and mental health. It is also used to start positive discussions about his values, such as respecting all cultures and empowering women.
Why we love him: We may not be parents yet, but we completely get the wonderful messages in Christopher’s comics. We need more lovely, understanding fathers for little humans in the world.
Who: Matthew Boyd Inman
Based in: Seattle
Username: @theoatmeal
Number of followers: 858k
Latest book: How to Be Perfectly Unhappy, Andrews McMeel publishing, Rs 606
Comic style: Matthew’s exaggerated, enormously fat characters include himself, his pets and the people he knows, as well as personalities like Donald Trump, and he makes fun of all of them.
Why we love him: He was one of the first bona fide superstar cartoonists on the Internet and we love his funny, whimsical take on current affairs and his own life.
Who: Emily McGovern
Based in: Brussels
Username: @emilyscartoons
Number of followers: 129k
Books: None yet, but we can’t wait for her to come out with one.
Comic style: Her most famous comic is My Life As A Background Slytherin, featuring a character called Emily, based on herself, who just watches the chaos of Harry’s life unfold from the sidelines of the Harry Potter universe! She also created characters like Violet in My Life As A Background Gryffindor, Kevin in My Life As A Background Hufflepuff and Wanda in My Life As A Background Ravenclaw. The multi-panel cartoons feature a lot of text and little art details and the colour of the first panel changes according to the house the featured student is in.
Why we love her: Her comics have hilarious insights into the logical flaws of the Harry Potter plot. Her Snape ‘flounces’ dramatically across the rooms, her Dumbledore is a flamboyant gay man and her Draco is obsessed with Harry, hiding in trees so that he can frighten him with a flourishing ‘Pottahhhhh’!
Who: Ruby Elliot
Based in: London
Username: @rubyetc_
Number of followers: 141k
Latest book: It’s All Absolutely Fine: Life Is Complicated So I’ve Drawn It Instead, Andrews McMeel Publishing, Rs 577
Comic style: Ruby herself turns up in various forms in the wacky fine-lined single-panel illustrations, including a humanoid potato. There is also a wise, verbally skilled canine called the Articulate Dog, a llama-like creature called Edith, a strange equine being called Fast Stephen and a non-speaking sentient banana.
Why we love her: Ruby speaks openly about mental health issues, having suffered from bipolar disorder and an eating disorder. She uploads hilarious doodles in her Instagram stories on dealing with daily anxieties. And we always love watching out for her adorable dog, Sadie.
Who: Alex Norris
Based in: London
Username: @webcomic_name
Number of followers: 230k
Books: None yet, but we would snap them up if he did write them!
Comic style: His series features a ‘badly-drawn blob’, supposedly the main character. The colourful, witty scenes always end in disaster, and the blob going ‘Oh no’— his signature phrase.
Why we love him: The phrase ‘Oh no’ sums up the emotions we feel when we really, really mess up. Even the name of the graphic series, Webcomic Name, is simple and we love it.
Who: Nick Seluk
Based in: Novi (Michigan)
Username: @theawkwardyeti
Number of followers: 1.2m
Latest book: Heart and Brain: Gut Instincts: An Awkward Yeti Collection, Andrews McMeel Publishing, Rs 861
Comic style: Nick’s colourful comics feature a blue yeti call Lars, whose internal organs are also major characters with distinct personalities. They regularly show interactions between the heart and the brain, who often go in different directions but support each other anyway.
Why we love him: The adorable conversations between the happy, spontaneous Heart and the cautious, logical Brain are our favourites. Nick captures very funny but poignant moments in these conversations.
Who: Sailesh Gopalan
Based in: Bangalore
Username: @brownpaperbagcomics
Number of followers: 157k
Books: None, but us desi kids can’t wait for a compilation.
Comic style: Sailesh’s colourful comics feature a typical middle-class Indian family, with two angsty teenagers, Kabir and Ananya, and their parents as the central characters. They go through everything, from the usual sibling drama to the double standards the parents have for their daughters to the favourite topic of every overprotective and competitive Indian parent — marks.
Why we love him: Sailesh has a very keen eye for the everyday experiences of an Indian family, which explains why his comics gathered over 70,000 followers within three weeks of his posting his first comic in 2016! We can see our own problems with our parents, neighbours, siblings and friends reflected in his panels.
Who: Adam Ellis
Based in: New York City
Username: @adamtots
Number of followers: 1.1m
Latest book: Books of Adam: The Blunder Years, Grand Central Publishing, Rs 1,344. He recently has announced an upcoming book, Super Chill: A Year of Living Anxiously.
Comic style: Adam became famous for his blog, Books of Adam. He often animates his colourful, autobiographical illustrations on Instagram, turning them into gifs or mini videos.
Why we love him: Adam’s comics don’t have a running theme, but his characters often end up in hilarious situations inspired by lyrics and fairy tales. Also, he tweeted this series of creepy stories about a ghost, Dear David, that haunted his apartment, and we loved it.
Who: Cassandra Calin
Based in: Montreal
Username: @cassandracalin
Number of followers: 1.7m
Latest book: Still Just Kidding: A Collection of Art, Comics, and Musings by Cassandra Calin (3DTotal Illustrator Series), Rs 1,849
Comic style: Cassandra’s signature monochromatic style with the occasional hint of red. It features real people in real situations that she has encountered over the years. But she’s best known for her Expectation v/s Reality series, often to do with body image and beauty.
Why we love her: We love how Cassandra shows what happens if we think we will look exactly like the models on magazine covers. Her aim is to make young girls realise that they don’t have to be perfect and how, ultimately, perfection doesn’t matter.
Who: Rachita Taneja
Based in: Bangalore
Username: @sanitarypanels
Number of followers: 2.6k
Books: None, but we need a compilation of her politically aware cartoons now more than ever!
Comic style: Rachita’s panels are populated by stick figures who take a dissenting, feminist stand against political issues. Her creations first became popular during the JNU protests in 2016 and since then have become known for their outspoken nature, taking on the Prime Minister himself.
Why we love her: We heart her dry humour and incisive analysis of politics in the country, and we love that her comics create a conversation around feminism on desi social media.
T2 FAVOURITE
Comic series: Cyanide and Happiness
Created by: Multiple artists including Rob DenBleyker, Kris Wilson and Dave McElfatrick
Coming together: DenBleyker, Wilson and McElfatrick, as well as their early partner Matt Melvin, all lived in different parts of the world. They started working together on this project in 2004 via Internet forums like DeviantArt, Comicaze and Sticksuicide, but actually physically met for the first time only in 2007 at the San Diego Comic Con!
Username: @explosmofficial
Number of followers: 1.8m
Latest book: Cyanide & Happiness: A Guide to Parenting by Three Guys with No Kids, BOOM! Box, Rs 604 (Paperback)
Comic style: They are some of the rudest, most controversial comics ever! The hilariously cynical series started in 2004 and features stick figures with enormous heads, differentiated only by their coloured shirts, delivering tiny surrealist bouts of depressive jokes.
Why we love them: A lot of us tend to deal with the difficulties of life with dark humour and Cyanide and Happiness is perfect for people like us. They often reveal deep truths and hypocrisies in society through their jokes.
Text: Rushati Mukherjee
