Pursuit of funniness, longing for laughter

Funny is a simple word, though it remains truly one of the most enigmatic yet attractive phenomena of the human psyche. Truly, where does 'funny' in an individual stems from? Well, for Bangladeshi cartoonist Obaidur Rahman, it seems, his humorous essence clearly draws inspiration from his dark and twisted frame of mind; the mysterious jovial spirit of his, which he ludicrously yet stridently articulated in his debut book of cartoons, titled, "Zinger Toonz: Dark n' Twisted", according to a press statement.

When one sees the paperback copy of this work, the initial feeling resembles when, back in the day, one would get a hold of one those (now) rare MAD paperback editions that had the assemblage of varieties of witty sketches in those olden publications. And, in that context, cartoonist Obaidur Rahman, who hails from the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, does not disappoint either with his humorous take of various aspects of life and the living, through his usual sense of joviality, as well as via his unpredictable surge of shadowy reading on issues, but managing to entertain the readers none the less.

When the reader goes through the initial credits behind this publication, he/she immediately notices that, the both front and the back cover of the book has been ardently illustrated by the cartoonist himself, which are works of oil painting, and this gives the impression that, the cartoonist concerned here is not only a cleaver observer of human nature, but also a skilled artisan himself, who has a considerable talent in the realm of paintings as well. Impressive!

It needs to be mentioned here that, even though English is not Obaidur Rahman's native language, his work, "Zinger Toonz: Dark n' Twisted!!!", which has been published by "Sleek Publication", is entirely written and articulated via English language, where the cartoonist penned down all the jokes and narratives himself.

This book immediate greets the reader with a cartoon that is a combination alien and island joke, and there are quite a few island jokes in this book of cartoons, whereas the theme of alien and UFOs have their fair share of frequent appearances, along with eerie ghosts having existential crisis, or the all knowing god who forgot his password, and the same deity feeling all the angst, because people nowadays treats him as if he does not exist!

The cartoonists take on the ambiguity on modern art is quite interesting as well, where in one such case, the "modern" painting itself talks back at the dumbfounded art critic, with following stated declaration, "Well, I don't get you either"!

The book has its fair share of varieties of ideas, themes and topics; many settings that standout from one another, yet do not feel so distant from the general inspiration of the collective premise of "Zinger Toonz: Dark n' Twisted!!!", which is the pursuit of funny, and the longing for laughter. Because, as the cartoonist Obaidur Rahman himself declared, right at the very start of this debut book of cartoons of his, "Laughter is to Human Soul, What Water is to Life."