'I wanted to suffer my own losses'

Among the several comic book and merchandise stalls, was one by Holy Cow Entertainment. Behind it, at the Bengaluru Comic Con, sat Vivek Goel, its founder and CEO and, as he likes to say, before all else, an artist. In between attending to enquiries, he chats with Chetana Divya Vasudev about his creative streak and his comic book venture.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m based in Mumbai, where I run Holy Cow Entertainment, one of the largest comic book companies in the country and also draw comics for a living.

When did you realise this was what you wanted to do?

I always loved to draw but I did several odd jobs — I’ve worked as a transport instructor, gym instructor and even served for a year in the merchant navy — before I stumbled upon the comic book that changed my life.

What title was it?

It was ‘Fathom’, probably issue #4, and drawn by the late Michael Turner, whom I consider my guru. That was my ‘aha!’ moment, the split second when I realised I could also do this for a living.

What followed?

This was about 11 years ago. I joined Raj comics as an intern, then went to Level 10 Entertainment and then to Vimanika Comics over the next four years.

How did Holy Cow Entertainment happen?

At the end of those four years, I had worked with some of the major comic book companies in India and learnt what they do from the making to the selling.

I also learnt from the mistakes they made. Then I realised I wanted to be my own man — suffer my own losses, enjoy my own profits. I could see only one road ahead, that of self publishing. I took it and here we are today, with 32 titles, of which ‘Ravanayan’ and the ‘Aghori’ series are bestsellers.

How do you balance out running the company and doing comic art?

Even before I started the company, I was an artist. Now, we have a team of 14 and I’m probably the slowest of the lot and I have a lot of additional responsibilities — I’m the ‘chaiwallah’, the salesman and everything in between.

That said, I draw three hours every day, so the artist inside me is still alive. The best part about it is that I get to pick exactly what I draw and I never leave off midway. Over the past four years, I’ve worked on ‘Ravanayan’, a large part of the ‘Aghori’ series, ‘Ganga Bhisma’ and the ‘Shaitan’ series. In all, it comes up to about 200 pages.

Five characters you’d like to invite over for dinner...

Peter Parker, who’s Spider-Man, because we share a funny bone; Master Yoda from ‘Star Wars’ for his Zen wisdom; Darth Vader because, deep down, I’m a pretty dark person; Martian Manhunter, a DC character, who’s the last person from mars as I’d like to get his perspective on humans; and Rocket Racoon from ‘Guardian of the Galaxy’ as there’s no one else like him and he’s completely unafraid.