Mr. Sharad Sharma

Sharad Sharma is an Indian cartoonist and founder of World Comics Network. He was associated with many newspapers and magazines before he switched to electronic media and introduced political animation to Indian TV news channels. In late nineties he formed an organisation World Comics India to introduce the idea of grassroots comics. The idea was to take this new communication medium to the masses. He took the art of cartooning and comics to the rural hinterland of India and other parts of the globe. His cartoon strip Develomentoon has been published in several newspapers and website internationally. He has been helping small organisations working in remote areas to initiate social campaigns using grassroots comics on issues like infanticide, foeticide, corporal punishment, pedophilia, stereotypes etc. Grassroots comics is a medium that distinctly from mainstream comics and gives people a chance to express themselves. Drawing skills are secondary in grassroots comics; the message, one wants to convey, holds more importance. To date over 50,000 people have drawn such comics at the 1,000-plus workshops organised by the World Comics through its network across the globe – be it Asia, Europe, Africa or Latin America. Majority of its workshops are in remote and conflict ridden areas. Issues not getting attention of mainstream media are no longer remains uncovered as thousands of comics journalist trained by WCI have been reporting from ground zero.