Children and the child in us love tall tales that stretch our imagination. After regaling us with stories that make us laugh, think and learn, Tinkle has come out with a collection of comics called The Tinkle Tall Tales . These narrate adventures of characters that many readers have grown up with. The first three characters to be honoured thus are Butterfingers, Shikari Shambu and Defective Detectives.
“Readers have long been demanding to know more about these characters and for longer stories on them. They never seem to get enough. Through each of these books, the reader can explore these well-loved characters better and discover more about their worlds,” says Rajani Tindiath, editor of Tinkle in an e-mail interview.
Fans of these characters can now follow the adventure of these characters who became famous through the pages of the magazine. “Each 48-page comic has a bonus story and has been designed in a 8.50x10.75 format to give our artists ample space to play with art, panelling and story flow,” adds Rajani.
Abhijeet Kini is the artist of Butterfingers and Defective Detectives . Shikari Shambu, the cowardly hunter-turned-conservationist was created by Luis Fernandes, former editor of Tinkle , and artist V.B. Halbe. At present, Savio Mascarenhas, Tinkle art director, is the artist of Shambu.
Realistic storytelling
Khyrunnisa A., creator of Butterfingers and author of the Butterfingers series, is all smiles about her favourite character’s adventures getting space in a new format. “Whenever I get an idea, I usually write that down and then work on it to chart the adventures of Butterfingers and his friends,” she says.
The two stories in the new collection have all the right ingredients to enthuse fans of Butterfingers – there is fun, humour and, of course, mishaps galore as Amar, Butterfingers’ actual name, tries to be of help to his parents and teachers. Finally all is well that ends well.
Khyrunissa’s keen observations make the stories so real and without being preachy or didactic, she blends in artfully bits of information and literature. Her experience as a popular quiz master is evident in the tales about Butterfingers.
While Butterfingers continues to regale his readers with the trails and tribulations of a typical Indian teenager and school students, Khyrunnisa has already put on her thinking cap to pull out many more such tales about this youngster with butter fingers!
