Avik Kumar Maitra

Artist

Avik Kumar Maitra is a freelance comics artist and illustrator from Kolkata. Apart from a few years of weekend art classes in his childhood, he is completely self-taught, learning to draw from comics, picture books, and newspaper photographs.

He started illustrating in the popular Bengali children’s magazine Sandesh in 1998 (while in college), and later turned professional in 2004. He took a break from 2008 to 2010 to do an MFA in Interactive Media Technology from the Netherlands, after which he moved to Delhi and worked in the advertising industry for some time before returning to freelancing. He moved back to Kolkata in 2019.

Till date, he has worked for clients from India, China, Turkey, USA, UK, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Besides his professional work, he also draws portraits, political cartoons, and subversive fan art – and composes nonsense or satirical poems (usually in Bengali). When he’s not at his (digital) drawing board, he’s usually reading (both fiction and non-fiction), or watching a good movie or series (usually horror or mystery), or trying his hand at DSLR photography – or just having a typical Bengali ‘adda’ session with friends. Depending on the weather and his workload, he also likes to indulge in recreational swimming and heritage walking.

Insta: avixart

In Comixense: The Legend of Tau Moe (Vol 2 Issue 2 | July-September 2022)