Category: Fiction
Rights: All rights available
Suki, created by Manjula Padmanabhan in 1982, emerged as a bold, unconventional cartoon character. She first appeared in Double Talk, a comic strip for the Sunday Observer, a Bombay newspaper where editor Vinod Mehta championed local artists and liberal ideas. For four years, Suki entertained readers with her sharp wit and unique perspective.
In the early ’90s, when Mehta moved to The Pioneer in Delhi, Suki followed, reappearing in a new strip, Suki, that ran for six years, sharing space with the likes of Peanuts and Modesty Blaise. Yet, despite her quirky charm, Suki remained an outlier, unbound by conventional expectations.
The three volumes of Suki’s comic strips capture each era of her printed life, complete with introductions, commentary, outtakes, and new drawings, including playful “interviews” with Suki and her quirky friends.
Suki’s journey has been as unconventional as the character herself. Never mainstream, never syndicated, she appeared in only one English-language newspaper at a time, carving out a unique place in the comic world. An unattached, free-spirited woman with no agenda, Suki stood apart from other female cartoon characters, uninterested in romance or family life. Surrounded by oddball friends—a frog, an extraterrestrial, a burkha-clad cabaret dancer—she never followed any set path. Despite her lack of a loyal following, Suki’s enduring presence across decades cemented her place in publishing history.
Two previous collections, This is Suki! and Double Talk, were published by Pauls Press and Penguin India, respectively.
The author: Manjula Padmanabhan