From doodles to local comic heroes
The trailer opens like any epic blockbuster. There’s a dramatic violin score in the background, cinematography complete with fights, familiar locations and bloody close-ups. With a sprinkling of dialogue and just enough of an action-thriller punch to keep you hooked, it’s hard to believe that the trailer for “No Man’s Land” is a comic come to life, created by a group of young Sri Lankan cartoonists who began their career doodling on schoolbooks.
Released at the Colombo Comic Expo in December, the trailer is an enticing prelude to “No Man’s Land” –a short film based on the characters in the PRUVE comic series ‘Chathurmana’. The first Sri Lankan comic book to be adapted as a short film, the multi-talented team will release the movie later this month. The trailer was released to a lot of fan buzz including positive feedback for the young artists behind Pruve, who’ve been expanding their creative horizons for more than a decade. We caught up with two of Pruve’s founding membersRusiru Ranasinghe and Uvindu Mahagamarachchi to take us into the world of ‘’Chathurmana” and the story behind the multifaceted brand.
“We were not doing well in our classes or any of the extra curriculars, ” laughs 22-year-old Uvindu who together with Rusiru were classmates at D. S. Senanayake College, finding their identity doodling and drawing comics on their schoolbooks. The creative partnership began with a broken nose- “I came into class one day and there was a tall thin guy seated in my place,” says Rusiru. The fisticuffs
With a short film, No Man’s Land, based on the characters in the PRUVE comic series ‘Chathurmana’- the first Sri Lankan comic book, to be released shortly, Purnima Pilapitiya talks to Pruve’s founding membersRusiru Ranasinghe and Uvindu Mahagamarachchi
that ensued saw Uvindu’s nose broken but would be the start of a beautiful friendship and an artistic collaboration. While they are longtime fans of the DC universe, Rusiru and Uvindu’s superheroes were fighting crime at a more 16-year-old pace with characters such as “Bubble Buddy”- a talking living bubble and Power Boy, Red Laser and Ninja Man (the cartoon versions of themselves) who had by then a classroom of eager followers (with the exception of their teachers), looking forward to the ‘latest issues’ of their works.
Though they were sketching Dragon Ball Z and other popular anime, they bonded over Batman Hush- the common favourite comic they discovered at the British Council which remains their number one even today. “As our stories grew, we grew better,” much like Batman Hush, which “even if you read today, you’ll find something new to it”-their goal for the growth of their comics. In between the characters’ adventures across their schoolbooks and the artists’ escapades in detention for their “doodles” ‘Pruve’ was born. Simply the amalgamation of the artists/classmates in their group- Pruthuvi Heenatigala, Rusiru, Uvindu and Vimukthi Gamage, the passage of a few years saw only the R and the U remaining- with Pruthuvi and Vimukthi breaking off to pursue other paths.
In 2011 Pruve took a step in a more serious direction, together with several new members who would shape the brand as we know it today. Almost everything about the group is spontaneous, we realize, as Uvindu and Rusiru share their story. Their creative ideas, dipping their toes (or pencils in this case) into film making and as always their first encounters with each other are as fascinating as their comics. Their current lineup is a mixed bag: 25-year-old Asad Farook – an already established digital artist at the time, Sahan Munasinghe (23), Sajith Kandanarachchi (22) and Isuru Abeywickrama (29).
“They saw something in us,” the duo explain. Asad approached them at the Sri Lanka Cyber Games in 2012 while Sajith and Isuru’s introduction to the group was a lot like Rusiru and Uvindu’sminus the punch in the face as they found themselves in intense Facebook arguments over Spiderman and Lord of the Rings.