Aditya Bidikar

Aditya Bidikar is a comic-book letterer and occasional writer based in India.

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    6 comments on Is Writing Optional?

    Is Writing Optional?

    Due to many factors, including some physical ones, I’ve had to step away from doing much work in June – particularly in the back half.

    In that time, I’ve been working on this outline for a comics mini-series (a four-issue horror story that I’ve codenamed SEASIDE). As I’ve written before, I finished around 80% of this before I stopped working on it, and only started back up in the last week of June.

    In the meantime, I wrote two comics scripts and several blog posts and essays, so it’s not like I haven’t been writing. It’s more that I haven’t wanted to … take up space.

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    No comments on Status Update / 2023 / Week 27

    Status Update / 2023 / Week 27

    First week of July.

    I have a habit of thinking back on my life twice a year – towards the end of the year, and in July, around my birthday. These are both arbitrary times to do this – I suppose ideally one should be thinking deeply about one’s life all the time – but it’s good to have mile markers where you can check if you’re headed in the right direction and if you need to make any adjustments.

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    1 comment on Status Update / 2023 / Week 26

    Status Update / 2023 / Week 26

    That’s half the year done! Wow, we made it.

    It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m on my second cup of coffee. I usually drink only two cups of coffee a day – at noon and 6 p.m. – because historically, my body has had a low tolerance for caffeine, but I just like coffee so much that I decided to experiment with adding one more cup at 3 p.m. Doing this might turn me into a jittery, overemotional mess, but we’ll get through it together, won’t we?

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    1 comment on Status Update / 2023 / Week 25

    Status Update / 2023 / Week 25

    So.

    Here’s what I’m trying to do.

    I’ve said many times over that I want to use my blog more, so I want to start doing that. All the stuff that I naturally post on Twitter? Let’s see if it can go here. I want to live here again, if I can.

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  • No comments on Spider-Gwen Colour Sketch

    Spider-Gwen Colour Sketch

    Right before the title drop in Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Gwen leaves her house and swings out into the sky – does her Spidey thing. It’s a great visual sequence, and I was struck by a fleeting moment where she nearly disappears into the white sky, only standing out by the black and red of her costume.

    I wanted to draw that moment, and I wanted to draw it from memory, before I watched the movie for a second time.

    Spider-Gwen Colour Sketch
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    5 comments on More Thoughts on Failure

    More Thoughts on Failure

    Last week, I wrote a fairly detailed newsletter on how intentional failure is a big part of learning how to do something. Trying, failing and integrating the failure into your process is how one learns to do anything as an adult.

    Writing that essay got me thinking about things other than drawing, and I realised that while I’ve been able to fail purposefully in drawing, there was another creative venture that had stalled out because I was – it was becoming obvious as I thought about this – afraid to fail.

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    No comments on Going Rogue: A Star Wars Podcast

    Going Rogue: A Star Wars Podcast

    Early concept art from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

    Some of my nerdier friends don’t like it when I refer to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as “the only good Star War”. It’s mostly a joke, but the fact is – that’s the only Star Wars film I’ve been able to watch more than once, and it’s the only one that I feel has something to say politically. Now that we’ve got Andor, though, Rogue One feels mostly superseded – its dialogue and politics are cartoonish in comparison to the, y’know, actually good tv show.

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    1 comment on Lettering Checklist

    Lettering Checklist

    A couple of weeks ago, I posted my old lettering checklist on Twitter.

    I’ve been working on an essay about learning new things as an adult, and I pulled this up as an example of something that I absolutely needed to have at hand when I was starting out, but which I don’t need much anymore.

    When I started out, there were too many lettering guidelines for me to just keep in my head, and I’d end up forgetting one thing or the other, so every time I finished lettering an issue, I’d go through the whole issue with this checklist next to it and fix my work one item at a time.

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    No comments on The Monkey Man of Delhi

    The Monkey Man of Delhi

    If you’ve been following me on Twitter or through my newsletter, you might know that I’ve been writing a lot more these days, and particularly trying my hand at writing my own comics.

    In that vein, I am extremely proud to present to you, a short comic written and lettered by me, with art by my friend and constant colleague Anand RK:

    “The Monkey Man of Delhi” – a True Weird tale, presented to you by James Tynion IV and edited by Greg Lockard. (You need a paid subscription to read this.)

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    No comments on Diary Comics: December 2022

    Diary Comics: December 2022

    Late December, I’m not quite sure why, I felt moved to make some diary comics. I’d had a few conversations with artist friends, one of whom recommended that a good way to improve my drawing fast would be to make comics (these are not those, though). But mainly, I’d just finished making our “Monkey Man” comic, and wanted to continue marinating in comics thinking.

    Anyway, I made four. I’m not sure I’ll be making more, but they were rather fun to make. Each took 20-30 minutes, and I got to improvise making comics – that subtle chemistry of text and image. Here you go:

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