Miss Moti Is The Plump, South-Asian Comic Character We’ve All Been Waiting For

It’s 2016 and comics are still being ruled by white, male characters — enter Miss Moti, a dark-skinned, plump South Asian girl who’s out to change the comic world.

Behind the big-eyed and bubbly character is Nepali artist Kripa Joshi, creator of the now-famous comic that has satisfied the audience’s need for a completely new and refreshing protagonist, different from the skinny, skin-tight-clothed women and muscular male characters they are used to.

With her confident persona and love for adventure, Miss Moti has won over thousands of hearts and has now garnered a large readership.

The author of the comics admits that Miss Moti was born out of her own struggle with weight and how she was called moti by her friends. But soon, she realised that ‘moti’ when pronounced with a softer ‘t’ means pearl, and that’s where the idea for the comic was born — a woman that embraces her identity and is proud of herself, all while exuding an air of innocence and almost child-like wonder. But Joshi reassures that she didn’t have any agenda in mind when she created Miss Moti, saying, “She was an outlet for my own insecurities. But I now know how important it is to have representation in the media. From a young age we are bombarded with images that form our judgment of what we should be.” Joshi feels that for a long time that message has been that we need to be slim, tall and light skinned, but drawing from her own life, she stated, “I look at my daughter and at two and a half she is already forming an opinion of what a girl should wear! So I hope Miss Moti, in some small way, can provide a counterpoint to that narrative.”

With such an unconventional character, the reception can often be very varied. Asked whether Miss Moti had any ‘haters’ yet, Joshi replied, “Not yet. Thankfully most people who discover Miss Moti love her. The audience is still comparatively small I think so who knows what will happen in the future.”

Joshi tells us that someone once pointed out that in her earlier comics Miss Moti seemed too light skinned to be South Asian, but she didn’t agree. She had envisioned Miss Moti more as a world citizen rather than representing a particular ethnicity. She adds, “However, overtime I grew to appreciate the importance for people to feel that they are being represented in the media. And that is why, when I started the Motivation Monday series, I intentionally made Miss Moti darker.” She plans to continue with it in the future to counter the obsession with skin lightening advertisemens that people are bombarded with in a lot of Asian nations.

Talking about her biggest influences, Joshi lists Winsor McCay and his Little Nemo stories as the biggest inspiration for the Miss Moti series. McCay was an artist in the early 1900’s whose work featured a little boy who falls asleep and has wonderful adventures in Slumberland, only to wake up at the end, leaving the reader wondering whether it was all just a dream. The play between the dream and reality is what inspired Miss Moti stories, says Joshi. She states, “There are generally always little elements in her stories that make you think that maybe events are not just in the imagination.” In terms of style, she believes that her work was initially inspired by the Maithali or Madhubani folk art from Nepal and India but its ever evolving. She commented, “I also admire Chris Ware and his comic page design. Besides these some of my favourite artists are Van Gogh and Klimt.”

Asked about other artists in the field who work with the concept of body positivity, Joshi said that Brazilian artist Edull Ardo and French artist Niki de Saint Phalle were among her favourites. She adds, “I also enjoy the illustrations by Duane Bryers of a plump pin-up girl called Hilda.”

Being fans of Miss Moti ourselves, we needed to know what the future holds for our chubby heroine. “I have a five-story arc of Miss Moti that I would like to get published through a publishing house. I have self-published my books till now and it would be good to be able to be have the books available to a larger audience, especially in other countries. Motivation Monday is an ongoing project till at least the end of 2016 and hope to collect the illustrations into a book or journal,” she shares.

When you’re talking about body positivity there is a fine balance between health and being happy with who you are, and Joshi is convinced that Miss Moti definitely supports eating right and being healthy. “You will see her always doing something and being active. But being healthy and being the ‘right size’ is not the same thing.” Joshi often gets asked whether Miss Moti can be a role model, but for her, Miss Moti isn’t promoting being fat or unhealthy/obese but the fact that weight, or any other insecurities about one’s own body shouldn’t hold you back in life. “There is also the issue of mental health. Having suffered from depression, I know how important this is. So when we talk about the health of someone, it is important to look at the person as a whole and see if trying to be a certain size is actually impacting his or her overall well being,” she shares.

And of course, we just had to ask — what’s Miss Moti’s favourite food? “I haven’t really thought about this, but my daughter’s favourite food right now is strawberry cupcake so I will go with that! I look at my daughter and I try to capture that sense of wonder and innocence she has when I make Miss Moti,” Joshi shares, pretty amused by our eagerness to know.

Actions speak louder than words, everyone talks about wanting more representation in the media and it’s heartening to see that there are people in the world who are going out and making the changes that they want to see. We hope that Joshi’s work inspires more artists to think out of the box and create characters that more people can relate to, and as readers, we enjoy seeing someone on paper that we can identify so much with.

To join Miss Moti on her comical adventures, click here, and you can follow more of Kripa’s work here.

Words: Sherina Poyyail