‘I try to create a chasm between the word and the image that only the reader can bridge’

Nishant Saldanha launched his Mr Good Guy series of books at Cafe Literati in Candolim, Goa. The event placed his highly personal comic work in a public literary and artistic setting. It also marked a moment when an unusual private practice became available for wider attention.

The books resemble codices, or bound books, but lack conventional identifying features. They have no titles, name no author, and often contain neither scripts nor clear stories. Instead, they use collage, montage, juxtaposition, sparse words, and the reader’s imagination.

The launch matters because Saldanha’s work had already moved beyond an isolated experiment. It later appeared in The Best American Comics 2019, alongside work by Joe Sacco and Nick Drnaso. His art has also reached exhibitions, campaigns, photography, and music in Goa.

Mr Good Guy is Saldanha’s highly personal, independent comic series. Its books have the physical form of codices, yet they do not behave like standard books or comics. They have no titles, no named author, and often no scripts or continuous stories.

Their meaning comes through collage, montage, juxtaposition, and imaginative participation. The few words belong to Mr Good Guy, the dyslexic central character. These words are so sparse that the books become laconic, even gnomic. Images and arrangements carry much of the expressive weight.

That combination makes the series difficult to classify. It is whimsical and immediately charming, but also melancholic, violent, and politically charged. Its punk-bright colours contain loneliness, alienation, heartbreak, and protest, so the work operates as both comics and open-ended visual art.

Mr Good Guy has travelled far beyond Saldanha’s personal work in Goa. Its reputation grew from an independent project begun while he studied Character Animation at CalArts. That growth brought the series into a major American comics anthology.

The work appeared in The Best American Comics 2019, edited by Jillian Tamaki and Bill Kartalopoulos. It was included alongside comics by Joe Sacco and Nick Drnaso. Saldanha was also asked to make the book’s end papers, extending his visual language into the anthology itself.

His wider practice remains strongly connected to Goa. He has shown at Sunaparanta, joined group exhibitions, and helped coordinate the Aamche Mollem citizens campaign. He is also documenting old Panjim shops, examining family privilege through photography, and singing with Stuti choir.

Mr Good Guy does not provide the usual directions for reading. There are no fixed titles, named author, complete scripts, or dependable storylines. The books therefore leave important connections open instead of explaining what every image means.

Readers must make meaning from collage, montage, juxtaposition, and the few words spoken by the dyslexic Mr Good Guy. They may notice recurring forms such as fish, flowers, beds, chairs, homunculi, fruit, and tears. These elements can be linked, compared, or simply experienced without one official interpretation.

This openness is central to the series’ effect. Its immediate charm draws readers into a floating world before its loneliness, heartbreak, violence, and protest emerge. The reader’s imagination does not merely complete missing information; it helps activate the work’s emotional and symbolic force.

Saldanha’s strongest early comics influence was George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. Before discovering it, he mainly knew Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts strips from The Hindu. Manga and graphic novels, which fascinated many CalArts classmates, did not speak to him in the same way.

A History of Comics course introduced him to Krazy Kat. Its small cast—a cat, a mouse, and a dog—and limited storylines still produced what Saldanha called magic. He valued its gently upside-down world, embedded love, and comforting non-judgementalism.

He later learned that Picasso and Chris Ware had also responded to Herriman’s self-contained world. Their responses helped him see how comics could return to similar characters and situations week after week while evoking love, hurt, and despair. This discovery gave him a model for emotional expression without imposed rules.

The supplied source does not state Saldanha’s reason for resisting the animation practice of drawing a character identically every time. The excerpt ends during his discussion of comics, so it provides no direct comment on that specific animation principle.

What the excerpt does establish is that Saldanha’s work values variation, openness, and reader participation. His books use collage, montage, juxtaposition, sparse words, and recurring motifs rather than fixed scripts and conventional story structures. His earlier presentation also mixed childhood drawings, studies, and surrealist paintings.

Those facts show a flexible artistic process, but they do not prove his personal reason for rejecting repeated character designs. A precise answer would require the missing part of the interview or another stated source. It would be unsafe to attribute a particular theory of animation to Saldanha based only on this excerpt.

The article suggests that comics create meaning through relationships rather than isolated pictures or words. Saldanha’s books often omit scripts and clear stories, so readers must consider how images sit beside one another and what their arrangement might suggest.

Collage, montage, and juxtaposition are the key mechanisms. A fish, flower, bed, chair, homunculus, fruit, or tears can gain force through placement and repetition. Sparse words from Mr Good Guy add another layer, while gaps invite the reader to supply links, moods, and possible narratives.

The result is open but not empty. Saldanha’s images can feel whimsical and charming before revealing loneliness, alienation, heartbreak, violence, or protest. The article also praises Krazy Kat for expressing love and despair through a small cast and recurring situations. Comics therefore become a shared act between artist and reader.