This page showcases some of my earliest art works which were created around 1984-1986.
The Comics were the first ever ones I wrote/drew in english while I was still living in Sri Lanka (and at that time I was not speaking english!). `Ravi comics’ is the brand name I gave them in appreciation of my uncle Raveenthiran – who was the person to buy me comic books in those days (Phantom, Flash Gordon, Mandrake, Tarzan were the major ones.. in tamil!)
My comics obviously has names and characters `borrowed’ from other ones I had seen (X-men!). They include shades of characters from TV shows such as `Buck Rogers in the 25th Century’ and `Blakes-7’ (but I must say, finding 2 buried starships in the centre of Earth was my own idea, and so was a Man living inside a Robot and be able to use laser light to propel himself in space (which turns out to be the principles of photon pressure- a scientific fact that I learnt almost 15 yrs later. So you could say it was something I `predicted’- though the world did not know it.
I began writing comics in school- yes in school- at the age of 12yrs+ in Sri Lanka. At the time in my class (all boys school) there were 2-3 others who were all `writing comic books’- basically taking an exercise book and drawing straight on to it the panels and story lines (in tamil language). My friends and I would compete to produce a new comic as often as possible. My earliest ones (the first 19 comics) were in Tamil, and were left in safekeeping with my cousin, while my family & I fled the northern part (Jaffna) to go to the South (Colombo) for safety. It was in Colombo that I wrote these first English comics (1984-84). But when troubles (racial violence) reached that part, we fled in a hurry and came with 2 suitcases to England and claimed asylum in May 1985. I made an attempt to continue the story of `Starship called Exavier’ in UK, (see panel in the slideshow) but alas lost interest..because Doctor Who became a serious interest at the time.
Back in Sri Lanka, I had only ever watched 1-2 episodes of Doctor Who on TV. I remember the haunting theme music, an old man, a scary alien. I was more of a `Blakes-7’ fan who drifted to the original `Star Trek’. It was only in Uk that I stumbled across the target novelisations of DrWho. I went through a phase of finding as many of them as possible in local libraries and reading them- making a full discovery of what and who the Doctor Who is- a traveller in time who is running away from his people, escaping in an old time machine. This of course had similarities to my own life (running away from native land and landing in UK). Few years later, I watched DrWho on TV and started learning that the man can also change his appearance (regenerate). This I think had a strange and deep effect on my own psyche. (read more in the `Masks’ Gallery!)
QuantumPhoenix 