But it’s only once India’s lockdown was announced they felt compelled to nudge the thought into action. The mind behind PenPencilDraw grew up reading many comics and cartoons-they still do-and wondered about what it would be like to make them.
I hope to soon convert that to raging envy.” Getting political with cartoons “People who know me have been excited and a little too pleasantly surprised at what I’m doing. “I stay anonymous because it gives me some distance from the work, which is good for creative freedom,” they said. In an email interview with Quartz, they said they were a lawyer and learned to draw during a work sabbatical some years ago, adding that their “drawings of feet are a terrible giveaway” that they aren’t formally trained in art. Most recently, as thousands of Indians grappled with a deadly second wave of Covid-19, a graphic by the handle, which showed the timeline of absurd statements by Indian lawmakers, went viral-shared not only on Twitter and Instagram but widely passed around on WhatsApp groups.Īs hundreds of new followers flock to PenPencilDraw, the creator behind the handle has chosen to remain anonymous. PenPencilDraw-a name derived from “pen-pencil,” a generic Indian term for the mechanical pencil-currently has over 26,500 followers on Twitter and over 15,400 on Instagram. Over a year later, the handle has become a go-to for pandemic-related political satires and memes in India. On April 5, 2020, PenPencilDraw posted its first graphic on Twitter, taking a dig at the short notice that was given before the lockdown.
One person, however, saw the humour in this adversity and started drawing comics. With just around four hours to prepare for the curfew-that was initially supposed to last only 21 days but continued for over 10 weeks-most Indians scrambled to stock up necessities or to rush back to their hometowns. It’s plausible that the emaciated, rag-clad villagers from his cartoon would be able to teach Leak a thing or two about solar energy.Īt the very least, they could introduce him to the innumerable pleasures of mango chutney.In an unexpected move, late evening on March 24, 2020, prime minister Narendra Modi told the world that India would go into an unprecedented nationwide lockdown at midnight to stop the spread of Covid-19. Leak’s cartoon, focusing on a stereotype of Indian poverty straight out of the 1950s, might leave him red-faced given the increasing adoption of solar panels in Indian villages. Prime minister Narendra Modi had driven a hardline at the opening day of Paris climate summit, insisting that developed nations had to pay for their historical carbon emissions, and any deal ignoring it would be “morally wrong.” India had also committed to a simultaneous massive use of coal to power growth over the next few decades while increasing its use of renewable energy sources. Indians currently make up the second-largest migrant group in Australia. This is not the first time that Leak has been accused of being racist the cartoonist for the News Corp-owned publication has courted controversy for his cartoons on the Gaza Strip and the Syrian Civil War, with even a Twitter handle, named Bill Leak Explained dedicated to outing the offensive subtext to his work on the social media platform. “The underlying message is that people in developing countries don’t need all these technologies to do with climate change - they need food,” she said. “India is the technology centre of the world right now, and has some of the most high-tech industries on the planet in that part of the world,” Wise added.
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