Sometimes it can be difficult to see the funny in life but one design student is making lemonade out of lemons.
Sailesh Gopalan, a 21-year-old design student from Mumbai, is the creator of Brown Paperbag, an online comic that makes light of the everyday-ness of being part of an Indian family.
Created last June, the comic recently hit a milestone on Facebook with 100,000 likes (it also has more than 40,000 Instagram followers). To celebrate, Gopalan thanked his fans by making a cute animation.
"I've always been interested in drawing comics,” Gopalan told Bored Panda. “I used to fill up my drawing books with my own comics as a kid, and that interest never died out."
Citing manga artist Eiichiro Oda of One Piece fame as his biggest inspiration, Gopalan, who attends the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology in Bangalore, India, said he also looks up to Shen, creator of the web comic Bluechair and Sarah Andersen, author of Sarah's Scribbles.
As he describes it, Brown Paperbag is "a slice-of-life comedy webcomic aimed at highlighting the ironies and exploiting the stereotypes that prevail in Indian families and society in a satirical fashion."
The comic isn't just for children of Indian parents either; although most of the topics Gopalan draws about are centred on the Indian experience, many of the issues are universal.
"Even if it isn't happening to you or your friends, you still know it most certainly does happen to someone," Gopalan said, via The News Minute.
For example, most people can relate to this comic where the protagonist invites a girl home to study, all while under the watchful eyes of mom.
As for advice he would give anyone who's thinking about doing webcomics, Gopalan says the Internet has made it so much easier for artists to get their work out there and in front of readers.
"Upload! Don't let your inhibitions keep you from sharing your work with the world," he told Bored Panda. "I had no idea my comics would receive the response it did, and the only way I could know is if I put it up on the internet."
Find more of his comics here.